VIDEO | ‘Serial squatter’ now evicted from Bluewater Bay property

Booted out of the Bluewater Bay property she occupied rent-free for more than two years, serial squatter Dawn Humphries cut a forlorn figure next to a heap of household items outside the residence on Friday morning.

Since March 2020, the owner of an Adonia Crescent home in Bluewater Bay struggled to pay his bond due to unpaid rent, in addition to an outstanding municipal bill, totalling more than R600,000.

After struggling for about two years, the homeowner finally obtained an order to have an unknown number of people living on the property, including Humphries and her daughter, Amanda Wilson, evicted.

They were given until November 11 to vacate the premises, or a sheriff would do it for them.

And so the sheriff did on Friday, hauling out piles of clothes, furniture and other household items from the double-storey property.

Magistrate Gavin Juicy also authorised the sheriff to hire a locksmith, and to use “whatever force necessary” to eject those in the house.

Looking frail but still defiant, Humphries, 83, denied she was a rent-dodger.

“Even if you pay R100, you are not a squatter,” she said.

“We offered them R7,000 a month because the house was in such bad condition, but they point blank refused, they just said ‘get out’.”

“We’ve never tried to be squatters. We’ve been begging for a lease.”

Humphries said they were unable to relocate in 2020 due to the various Covid-19 lockdowns.

“We tried to negotiate — we said because of all the things that are wrong with the house, we’ll pay R7,000 [but the owner] said we must pay R9,300.”

She said her daughter had paid the deposit but they could not pay rent because the letting agent refused to offer them a lease agreement.

Daughter Wilson said: “We are a Christian family, we are not criminals and we were well within our rights — we’ve defended ourselves since day one, since [the letting agent] refused to give us a lease, which is our constitutional right after we paid.

“After that we said there is so much wrong with the house — the electricity is tampered [with], water is leaking in through the roof, half the stuff has mould and we have to throw stuff away.

“It’s been like that for two years.

“The fight is over now, I am moving to greener pastures.”

The family said they were planning to move into a block of flats in the Bluewater Bay area but an agent had refused because of newspaper reports alleging Humphries was a serial rent dodger.

Speaking on her previous rental disputes, Humphries insisted she was always willing to pay and even her previous eviction from a house in Richmond Hill was not of her own doing.

She said her son had owned the property for 18 years but had fallen behind on the bond payment and they were evicted.

The Bluewater Bay home was initially leased to Aphiwe Mqomboti, a candidate attorney working for Legal Aid SA at the time.

Unbeknown to the rental agent, a room was being sublet to Humphries.

Four Arrow Investments 114 (Pty) Ltd, represented by BDLS Attorneys, first turned to the court for relief in June 2021, to have “all occupiers” kicked to the kerb.

Francois du Plessis, sole director of Four Arrow Investments, which owns the Adonia Crescent property, said his letting agent had entered into a lease agreement with attorney Mqomboti on February 26 2020.

It was agreed, according to Du Plessis, that Mqomboti would lease the property from March 1 2020 to August 31 2020.

Once the rental agreement expired on August 31, the property was to be leased on a month-to-month basis.

A deposit of R9,300 was to be paid upfront, and the monthly rental of R9,300 had to be paid on the first day of every month via electronic bank transfer.

Mqomboti apparently never moved into the house.

Contacted for comment at the time, she said she had decided not to move into the property because she did not want to live with “Dawn and her many dogs”.

Humphries confirmed on Friday that Mqomboti, her good friend, had signed the lease agreement but had cancelled it.

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