When 87-year-old Ghadija Landis moved into an Eldorado Park retirement village, she thought she would find peace. 

But her stay at the Nancefield Scheme for Senior Citizens has turned the past few years of her life into a nightmare. 

She is one of 120 elderly residents whose small flats have been taken over by their children, relatives and friends. Many of the residents claim that they are verbally abused and plagued by noise, litter and theft. 

Landis, who was thrown out of her bedroom by a relative, sleeps in the lounge and is locked in her flat during the day. 

Her neighbour, Hadija Buys, 58, said Landis survived on peanuts and yoghurt because she did not have proper food. "She screams a lot at night when left alone," she said. 

When Metro visited the village this week, young people cruised freely in and out of the complex in their vehicles. 

A small clinic on the property was filthy and there was no caretaker on the premises. 

Residents said they had not had a caretaker, or anybody attending to their problems, for at least two years. 

Lettie du Pont, 70, said the residents had unsuccessfully asked for help from the Joburg council's Region 10 Department of Housing, which owns the property. 

Wally Botha, Region 10 council spokesman, said he had only received a few complaints about structural problems and maintenance. But he promised to investigate the allegations of abuse by unauthorised tenants. 

"We have a committee in the village, which attends to complaints, and they are currently looking into them," he said. 

Jimmy Thade of USB Marines Security Services, which is contracted by the council to take care of security in the village, said the elderly had complained to him but "the problems needed to be sorted out by the council". 

"It is not that the guards are not doing their job ... There is nobody at the village to attend to their problems. 

"They pay rent but have to face gangsters who, when they are drunk, do funny things there," said Thade. 

A letter given to the residents by council indicated that accommodation at the village was reserved for married or single pensioners, with no child dependants. 

Winnie Adams, 76, said: "We are too old to be going through this. Somebody needs to do something." 

Mary Lemour, 68, said: "We stay with mad people who do not sleep at night and they even test our door handles, to see if they are locked, when we are sleeping." 

Residents also claimed that they shared the village with four people from a mental institution, who were placed there by social workers and received no monitoring. 

But Botha said he was not aware of this problem. 

"Before anybody is allocated a unit, they have to apply to the council and, as far as I know, everyone has applied ... unless they developed a mental problem while living there," he said.