Comment on 'The Straits Times' (5th July 08)

Princessvaio SG

Added comment on 'The Straits Times' on 5th July 2008 (Saturday)

Referring to Ms Pearl Wong’s letter on the 5^th July 2008, (Void decks empty? You must be kidding…”). I totally agree with her. My family and I have been staying at Block 810 in Jurong West St 81 for the past year and I must say, we are not enjoying our stay. We have wonderful neighbours but living on the lower floor just in front of a basketball court has not been easy. Every day and night without fail, we are faced with disturbances. We have tried calling the police numerous times, writing to HDB, Town Council and even to the MP himself but to no avail. What are the disturbances we face?? Let me list it in the following paragraph.

· Every night without fail a group of guys, sometimes with girls will gather in the centre of the basketball court and the void deck to chitchat. I am fine with that but not when they are talking and laughing at the top of voices, also screaming and shouting on the top of their voices from 10pm to the wee hours of the morning. They also ride their motorcycles in the basket ball court. In case they never noticed, we do need a good rest after a hard day’s work and my 8 month old baby needs his rest too. We have responsibilities; we have jobs and contribute to society. It just makes me wonder, don’t this guys have to go to school or work.

· Then we have the students from the neighbourhood schools, one good example Pioneer Secondary. After school in the afternoon, we can see their students both girls and boys loitering under the void deck, smoking, screaming vulgarities and making a nuisance of themselves. The aftermath they leave, will be a trail of litter (empty drink cans, used tissue papers and cup noodles package, chocolate wrappers, etc) and also nice graffiti on the walls and stone chairs. After all the damage is done, they go back home to their nice clean flats. Even though I see a lot of signboards at the void deck like “No Littering”, “No Motorcycles”, and “No Playing Football”. There is no official from the Town Council who bothers about this, so why put up the signboard?

· Our void deck has also been a sheltered car park for motorcycles and sometimes even a makeshift workshop for our dear riders to repair their bikes. That is where they go about using their tools and revving their engines. Imagine the din they actually create. There are parking lots for motorcycles which have empty spaces, but they park their motorcycles under the void deck and anywhere they can on the road which is convenient to them.

· There is a pavilion with benches for people to sit and relax, especially for elder people or mothers with babies and young children. But this place has become a danger zone for them, because you have teenagers and adults playing football, volleyball and riding bicycles in this area, not only that but motorcycles are also going through this pavilion as a short cut to the other blocks.

· The basketball court is used from early as 7 am, we have everybody using the basketball court, including the China nationals, who screams and make a lot of noise in the morning, and even when the lights goes out at 9.30 pm. There are still people playing basket ball. Actually it is very stupid to have a basket ball court in a residential area, because we have a lot of inconsiderate people, who do not know when to stop playing, who do not know that babies needs to sleep, elderly and sick people also need to rest. School children have to go to school and people have to go to work the next day. There are sign boards which say “No Littering”, “No Football”, but they are people also playing football in the basketball court, they kick the ball so hard that we are afraid that the ball might hit our glass windows. We informed the Nanyang Branch of the Hong Kah Town Council, but they didn’t bother to do anything about it. We had to trouble the Police from the Nanyang Police Post to help us.

I really pity the cleaners and the uphill task they face every day. But the most amazing thing was before our MP, Mr Alvin Yeo Khirn Hai came to tour the estate a few months ago, the place was cleaned thoroughly, the walls and stone chairs with graffiti was repainted and everything was in good order.

Well, if Mr. Khoo Chun Yok wants a fully void deck, with 24 hours 7 days a week with all the above and a dirty estate, where nobody seems to care, I won’t mind exchanging my HDB Estate for his.

Irritated and Helpless.

Beautiful951 SG

So nobody is doing anything? At all?

robertteh SG

Princessvalo,

You are more lucky as compared with the residents of block 683 of Hougang Ave 8 where two siblings died in fire caused by Town Council inefficient management of the shops below the flat.

They are living in fire risk beside all the littering all over their place. After the fire many replies were given by the Town Council and MP (Minister George Yeo) assuring residents every action will be taken to maintain the corridor free from merchandise and other obstructions causing fire risk.

Just look around every Town Council's estate today the fire risks which occurred in Hougang have come back soon after the fire. Many shopkeepers are still piling up all their daily merchandise in the corridors treating the corridors as part of their shops.

It is a common occurrence now in nearly all housing estates. The SCDF only goes after the private shops and private estates not the Town Council estates it would seem.

If this state of management and maintenance is to go on it will not be surprising soon there might be another serious fire.

All the MP, Ministers, Town Council Majors and estates officers are paid three or four times as compared with 1980s' counterpart of same rank but their services are not getting better. People are being short-changed.

Yet the government is claiming in the media everyday it is world-class and its MPs and Ministers and civil servants are all talents and claim success.

kramnave SG

My estate also got ppl KBKB..we can think of various ways to shut them up but ultimately which country dun have these people ?

pigsticker SG

Princessvalo,

You are more lucky as compared with the residents of block 683 of Hougang Ave 8 where two siblings died in fire caused by Town Council inefficient management of the shops below the flat.

It is a common occurrence now in nearly all housing estates. The SCDF only goes after the private shops and private estates not the Town Council estates it would seem.

If this state of management and maintenance is to go on it will not be surprising soon there might be another serious fire.

Yet the government is claiming in the media everyday it is world-class and its MPs and Ministers and civil servants are all talents and claim success.

it's always the government's fault.. even when it's the shopowners that caused the incident in the first place...

mayb you can suggest a solution to put a stop to shopowners usage of the corridors?

Atobe SG

Why should it not be the government's fault to ensure that shopowners respect the Building and Fire Codes ?

Why should the shopowners in the two constituencies managed by the WP and SDA be continuously checked to ensure compliance, when all the shopowners in the other 82 constitutencies are not subjected to similar stringent enforcement to comply with the laws ?

It one is to compare the HDB shops at Toa Payoh Central and Tanjong Pagar with the HDB shops at Hougang Central and Potong Pasir - the differences are stark.

It clearly shows the aribitrary and selective application to enforce the laws by the various government and statutory agencies to boost the MPs from the Ruling Party - and more so if the MP is also a Cabinet Minister.

Tanjong Pagar has been LKY's constituency, and if one walk through the older parts of this constituency, it is a wonder to note how these shopowners managed to get away with compliances by following the most minimum safety measures.

robertteh SG

it's always the government's fault.. even when it's the shopowners that caused the incident in the first place...

mayb you can suggest a solution to put a stop to shopowners usage of the corridors?

Just imagine, fire risks caused death to 2 siblings in Hougang and despite alll the set up of Major, CEOs, GM and qualified professionals paid peanuts, no one among the Town Council or SCDF was made answerable in this incident for the total blockage of fire escape path, an offence under the Fire Act. The Managing Agent's contract was also renewed without reprimand or deduction.

Is this the value of human life here ? Is this what MM Lee called world-class standard ? Now who is complacent? May be you don't pay taxes and you don't care and that is why today we have this type of could'nt-care-less government.

popmynutsy SG

bro, when the people comes after night. call the police. my house in front got a play ground also. sometimes it gets noisy too. but just ll suck thumb lor.

xiiaostarry SG

try living directly abv a coffeeshop.

it's worse..

sometimes..bo liao ppl will hang out around the coffeeshop when it's close..sit down there & create a din~ hurling vulgarities etc.

not to mentioned that there are some uneducated ppl who actually urinated near the pillar! think they had too much drinks or what..& so just pee near the coffeeshop area..the stench is really godly sia..

frakfrakfrak SG

It is a well known fact that *some* Town Councils are preceived by residents as being "useless". These TCs have problems dealing with contractors and enforcing standards. Problems include (a) bad management of contractors assigned to carry out regular maintenance activities (b) rules pertaining to cleanliness and safety are ignored because of ineffective enforcement.

Why are these TCs so problematic while other TCs are not? Personally, I think that within these problematic TCs are certain key people who are well entrenched but lack serious motivation in ensuring the areas under their charge are well taken care off. Residents can see their insincerity when contractors are seen painting the graffiti and soot covered void deck pillars just immediate before an MP visit while the rest of the time, even the drains are choked full of rubbish. Since resident complaints must filter up from TCs, these entrenched interests stay entrenched. Perhaps in kilat TCs, there are alternative feedback loops that maintain TC efficiency but these systems are not in place in all TCs, or they have been compromised.

Beautiful951 SG

Thats the problem of the chairman of the Town council.

Golden cross13 SG

Referring to Princessvaio I am living in Jurong West St 81 Block 854, we are also not enjoying our stay here. We are also faced with a lot of noise made by inconsiderate people. There is a Badminton Court here, but is used for football and other activities, rather than badminton. Everyday without fail a group of guys and girls gather at the pavilion, blast their radio and do their dancing. No wonder Singapore has to bring in foreign workers, no need to study become Singapore Idol, sing, dance and make a lot of noise. There are other groups at the void deck also making a lot of noise; some of them keep beating on the stupid drum which is very irritating. There are also the students from the neighbourhood schools, like Pioneer Secondary, Pioneer North School and West Groove School. After school in the afternoon, we can see these students both girls and boys loitering under the void deck, smoking, screaming vulgarities and making a nuisance of themselves. The aftermath they leave, will be a trail of litter (empty drink cans, used tissue papers and cup noodles package, chocolate wrappers, etc) and also nice graffiti on the walls and stone chairs. After all the damage is done, they go back home to their nice home. The void decks at all the blocks in this housing estate has become a sheltered car park for motorcycles and sometimes even a makeshift workshop for our dear riders to repair their bikes. That is where they go about using their tools and revving their engines. Imagine the din they actually create. There are parking lots for motorcycles which have empty spaces, but they park their motorcycles under the void deck and anywhere they can on the road which is convenient to them. They also ride their motorcycles through the blocks to get to the other side.

Actually it is very stupid to have the badminton court, basketball court and other recreational facilities in a residential area, where the inconsiderate people who do not know that babies needs to sleep, elderly and the sick need to rest. There are children who have to go to school and people need to go to work the next day. Like this people no need to go to school and no need to work, government can support them.

There are sign boards which say “No Littering”, “No Football”, but they are people also playing football in the badminton court and the pavilion and also under the void deck, they kick the ball very hard that we are afraid that the ball might hit someone and injure the person who is sitting or passing by. The Nanyang Branch of the Hong Kah Town Council, are useless they don’t bother to do anything about it. We sometimes see the Police from the Nanyang Police Post coming to help us. I think that the HDB should get rid of the basketball court especially and other recreational facilities to an isolated area, so that we can enjoy the peace and quiet, as it is there more noise in Singapore than we can handle.

It is also the dirtiest housing estate in Singapore, the cleaners do a good job, but it’s the inconsiderate people who litter the place. Where are the HDB officers? They put up all the signs, so they and the enforcement officers should be doing something. I think that the MP Mr. Alvin Yeo should come without announcement and witness for himself, I am very sure that the Opposition MPs are doing a better job for their estates.