Hayibo.com - Tearful Niehaus confesses addiction to pretentious new-money architecture

Tearful Niehaus confesses addiction to pretentious new-money architecture

JOHANNESBURG. Just days after his tearful admission of fraud, disgraced ANC spokesman and pawnshop patron Carl Niehaus has broken down again, this time confessing to a severe addiction to pretentious new-money architecture. Niehaus, whose R45,000-per-month rental property has been in the headlines, admitted that kitsch faux Tuscan villas have ruined his life.

Niehaus's first admissions of fraud and crippling debts were met with a muted response last week, as most citizens assumed that fraud and financial incompetence were standard practice for South African politicians.

However the latest revelations have shaken the ANC to its core and even close friends of Niehaus have reportedly distanced themselves from his "sick obsession" with garish and ostentatious architecture and décor.

"We will never condemn a comrade for financial impropriety," said ANC backbencher Whatwhat Ngema. "Our feeling is: let he who has never used taxpayers' money to charter private helicopter rides throw the first stone.

"But jislaaik, wena, that house is something else. I thought I knew the guy."

Choking back tears this morning, Niehaus told journalists that had always had "dirty urges" where vulgar architecture was concerned.

"I grew up in a fairly tasteful home, but even as a young boy I had estate agents' catalogues and Midwestern architecture journals under my bed," he sobbed.

"I knew they were filthy, all those Tuscan balconies and terracotta tiles, but I just couldn't help myself.

"Interior water features, gilded chandeliers in cramped marble entrance halls, bronze sculptures of leopards at watering holes – it was all so vile but it was all I wanted."

He said he had fallen in love with his current home, a faux Tuscan villa built on a plot of dead yellow grass in Midrand, while "cruising for houses" one night.

"I'd been out all night, just gagging for anything I could get my hands on. Faux Tudor, fake Edwardian, marble and palms, whatever. I was like a zombie. I think I might have picked up an estate agent at some point, but she got nervous so I dropped her off at her office just before dawn."

It was then, said Niehaus, that he knew he was "truly perverted" and would "never be able to live in a skillfully designed and tastefully furnished home".

"Midrand just looked so beautiful that morning, with the sun glinting off hundreds of identical satellite dishes, the wind rustling through thousands of identical ornamental palm trees; the buzz of electric fences; the yapping of Maltese poodles; the bleep of car alarms.

"I knew then that that was the kind of South Africa I wanted. A South Africa I could believe in. A South Africa pretending to live in the Tuscan Summer section of Disneyland."

Niehaus confirmed that he is facing eviction after failing to pay the R45,000 rent for the last few months.

He said he was "gutted" and would never recover from having had some of his "priceless heirlooms" repossessed, including a collection of porcelain whippets and a statue of a Mexican in a poncho sleeping under a sombrero.