TINKA'S PLACE (2 Witney Street, Bryanston) ******ies due to Natrent's negligence.

After moving into a newly developed townhouse complex known as Tinka's Place (2 Witney Street, Bryanston) I had just started settling in over the first two weeks of December 2019. I was very happy with the complex and the unit I moved into initially, but then had break-inn ******* while I was at the gym on a Saturday morning.

After arriving back in Johannesburg from the December holiday break, I had learnt that here were several break-in ******ies at Tinka's Place during the course of December 2019 - purely as a result of Natrent's negligence.

The incident occurred on 14/15 December when I was not around and to this day, I have not been given any sort of reasonable explanation as to what happened. After having the SAPS as well as a detective there to investigate the scene, it was established that there were no signs of forced entry. I am very careful when it comes to locking doors and windows when I'm not at the complex and I always make sure I lock my front door with the key in the lock when I go to bed. It seems very obvious at the suspect/s had keys to my unit and it seems to be the same with the other units that also got broken into (i.e. Unit 27 and Unit 9).

In my case, I suffered damages up to an amount of R25 000 (Playstation 4 and Remote Controls, Video Camera and two pairs of Nike sneakers). My next door nieghbour (Unit 27) also suffered damages to perhaps even a higher value (TV, expensive handbags and sneakers). Similarly, in my neighbour's case, there were no signs of forced entry and it seems fairly obvious that the suspects had easy access and in all likelihood spare keys to Unit 27.

All of this has happened as a result of Natrent's negligence in securing the complex. We as tenants pay a monthly "security contribution", yet the complex was and still remains a vulnerable target for ********* that operate in the area. To this day, the part of the fence which was probably used to breach the wall has still not been fixed. On the day of my incident, the guard (Andries) and agent (Gavin) informed me that the fence didn't pick up any sort of alert as it wasn't sensitive enough - so no alarms went off. At the time, there was also not a guard on duty and now that there is supposed to be a full-time guard on duty (as promised), I have still noticed a couple of instances where there is absolutely no one patrolling the area over the weekend. This is absolutely reckless from a security point of view as Bryanston is known for these sort of ******ies.

In my opinion, Natrent needs to come up with an immediate solution to this problem. I also think it's very reasonable to request that each person that has been ****** should be compensated by having a security door/trellidoor installed at the Body Corporate's expense. As I said, these incidents have occurred purely as a result of the Body Corporate/Natrent's negligence and something needs to be done as soon as possible.

I would NOT recommend moving into this complex or any of Narent's developments as they are clearly inexperienced and not capable of sorting these type of issues out. Think very carefully before signing a 12-month lease with them as they are more than happy to assist when identifying apartments, but as soon as you have paid a deposit and once you start paying rent - it seems as if they couldn't care less.