After a frustrating time with emergency services, neighbours and a local business stepped in to help when an angry man broke all the windows at a Grahamstown family's home.
After a frustrating time with emergency services, neighbours and a local business stepped in to help when an angry man broke all the windows at a Grahamstown family's home.
The house was left open to the elements, just as the bitter cold and rain hit Grahamstown earlier this week.
It was a miserable and terrifying June 16 holiday for Thami Mpumlo and his wife Noncedo, when a younger relative, who Thami says is mentally unstable, took to all the windows and glass cupboard doors in the house with a metal rod.
When Grocott's Mail visited the family on Wednesday, the window frames were filled by large sheets of cardboard donated by a funeral parlour in the neigbourhood.
Thami, who is blind, said the relative had accused him and Noncedo of discussing his mental state.
Thami said when they tried to reassure him, he became more furious and rushed off.
On his return, he was brandishing a short steel pipe.
He kicked in the back door, Thami said, and then proceeded to break kitchen appliances and glass cupboard doors.
"He then went into the sitting room and broke the wall unit together with the ornaments," he added.
Only the television escaped the spree.
“Then he went around the house breaking all the windows,” said Thami.
It was all the more terrifying for Thami, who is blind. He had to work out what was happening from what he could hear.
Attempts to get help proved frustrating.
“We called the police and they told us to call the ambulance," Thami said.
"We called the ambulance and they told us to call the police."
In the end the police came and took the man to hospital, where they gave him a sedative to him to calm down.
When Grocott's Mail arrived at the Extension 6 home, Philani Lepile, an employee at a nearby funeral parlour, was using tacks to secure board and plastic sheeting to the wooden window frames.
Grocott's Mail's weather watching team recorded a minimum temperature of 6C this week and around 20mm of rain.
