Pensioner calls on M&CC to expedite repairs to his home
THREE weeks after a huge palm tree fell onto his home at Kiskadee Drive, East La Penitence, Georgetown, widower Shieldston Roberts is still reeling from the effects of the disaster.

Repairs done to the house so far

He is seriously discommoded and the home remains wide open to criminal and environmental elements.
But even as Roberts continues to count his losses, two nights ago, there was a bigger shock in store for him when he opened his laptop case only to find that, whilst he was away from the home, someone had sat upon the bag with the computer and the instrument was broken to pieces. This having happened, the person left the bag on the chair without saying anything. The distraught widower said he was completely unaware that he had lost his laptop until a cousin visited him a few nights ago and he opened up the case for the cousin to use the computer.
He said he was so hurt and annoyed that he dumped the bag and its contents.
Visibly frustrated as he spoke with this newspaper on Friday, Roberts recalled that, a few days following the incident, City Hall’s Engineering Department had sent a team of workers to effect repairs to the house. The men repaired the badly damaged concrete walls to his bedroom, but neglected to fix the roof over this most private space. To date his bedroom remains without a roof.
When the tree had struck the roof, it completely demolished all the zinc sheets and rafters of the building.

A few days ago, workers commenced putting up rafters in the building but they left the work undone for the weekend, without putting any temporary covering in place, again leaving him exposed to the elements.
Roberts is now praying that it does not rain before the workers complete the job.

Roberts would normally leave the workers to work in the home whilst he goes to work, and those workers would leave their materials in the house pending completion of the job. Recently, the men left cement on the kitchen floor and there were still two windows to be installed in the bedroom area. On checking, Roberts discovered that the windows purchased were much shorter than their designated spaces, leaving him to surmise that the job could be further delayed. In addition, no aluminium sheets (needed as a matter of urgency) have yet been brought on the premises.
Roberts views this development with much concern, noting that he’s been having some bad experiences with rain washing away his home over the last two weeks during  La Nina downpours. Moreover, the stored building materials are encumbering his kitchen, allowing him very little space to move around.
The building was damaged on January 21st last, and repairs commenced a few days later. After two days, the job of laying and plastering the blocks to rebuild the walls was completed. Then the work came to a standstill, and despite being greatly discommoded, he waited.
But the rains resumed their torrential downpours, and with no roof over his bedroom, he has been enduring severe hardships. “When the rain began falling in earnest and continued over three days – Saturday to Monday, it was grief. My room was like a virtual swimming pool, and naturally, the water moved through the house, destroying carpets and whatever was within its reach,” he lamented.
The deeply distraught man said all he was able to do was keep sweeping the water out of the bedroom door, attempting to get it out of the house through the kitchen door; but that was a Herculean task, since it is difficult to guide and control water once it’s on the floor.
“I found myself sweeping water out the house every half hour, but still with very little relief.  At one stage I tried blocking the bedroom door with one sack of the cement the men left on the floor, but it did not help much,” he recalled.
Deprived of the use of his bedroom, which cannot now accommodate any bed, he has been forced to place his mattress on the living room floor, but when the water came gushing through last week, he realized that he really had no place to rest his  weary head. The cement the men left on the floor might be in trouble as well.

Lamenting the difficulty of living under those conditions, Roberts is calling on the municipal authorities to cause the workers to operate with a degree of expediency, in order to bring an end to his prevailing woes.

The  Chronicle made several unsuccessful attempts to reach the Public Relations Officer or the City Engineer’s Department. Following the destruction of Roberts’s house, the acting Deputy Mayor, Ms. Patricia Chase-Greene, had visited the home and inspected the damage done; and, soon after, had put systems in place to have repairs effected.
Mr. Roberts has expressed appreciation for the swift response by the Acting Deputy Mayor, but is hoping for similar treatment from the City Engineer’s Department to now complete the job they have started.