Dear Editor
I AM a 67-year-old pensioner. Where I live there are some people who think it is their God-given right to bombard their neighbours with noise and whenever it is a holiday, it gets worse. They play their music very loudly and for days, because the police do not respond to calls by elderly citizens who cannot defend themselves.

Let me tell you Mr Editor, what a female rank told me after calling for help on Phagwah Day. I was not feeling well. The street that I live in, no less than six neighbours along the street started playing loud music, each one trying to outdo the other. The torture was unbearable. I suffer with diabetes and high blood pressure; my head started pounding. For hours the music continued and I couldn’t take it anymore. This was happening since earlier in the day and it was almost night when I decided to take up the phone.

I am too scared to say where I live and where I made the call, but a female rank without knowing exactly what was taking place quickly jumped to her own conclusion and answered me when I tried to report what was happening and who was responsible. Her words were to me, “Is a bar and de man get a licence fuh play he music.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was distraught and this caused me to feel more sick. May I say Mr Editor, the help never came and two days later those people continued to play loud music until it boiled down to one neighbour on Sunday March 4, that music played until after 8 O’clock that night. I didn’t even bother to pick up the phone to make a report. I went to bed with tears in my eyes, praying for the music to stop because the heavy pounding from the music gave me a nasty headache and pains around my neck and I knew it was the music that was causing my pressure to rise.

I have given up hope that anything will ever be done concerning noise nuisances. Nothing was done by the previous administration and nothing is being done by this administration. People, especially the elderly who suffer with illnesses, will end up dead before their time, because there is no one looking out for them. I am still hoping that the police would be more professional and responsive when called upon to do their duty concerning noise. It appears that the female rank is ignorant of the fact that there is a law concerning noise, even if the operator of a bar has a licence.

Regards
A distraught senior citizen