Facebook user Geraldine Tang took to Facebook to voice her displeasure with her new HDB flat. The excessive defects was a total nightmare for the family and the issues go all the way back 2015.
Here is what was stated in her Facebook post.
“It’s A New Flat, But It’s A Nightmare To Live In…
Have you seen anything like this before? This is what happened to our bedroom when the neighbour below switches on aircon when taking hot showers.”
“The floor gets so cold and wet it’s dangerous to step around. One can slip and fall if not careful. It’s so damp the window gets misty with condensation.”
“During the year-end rainy months, the study room which is next to the bathroom show water appearing at tile joints almost daily. This is happening still several times a month.”
“We have not experienced anything like this before in our life. Is it a building quality issue or usage abuse?”
“There’s aircon in our master bedroom and sometimes bathroom too when our neighbour uses aircon. Free cooling! But we hate the chill coming up. How is this possible?”
“There are many “impossible” problems in the brand new DBSS flat we moved into in 2015. If you think the foreign workers live in deplorable conditions, then you must see the nightmare we are asked to accept.”
“Like in the FW case, the authorities knew about our problem but didn’t do anything to help us. Maybe they are waiting for us to die before they act.”
“Smelly, Scary Bathrooms…
Sewage and foul odours invade our bathrooms whenever people just above and below us excrete.”
“We smell stool, urine, all that they ate, drank and what they are sick with. We hate most the smell of pungent garlic/onion excretions which burn our eyes and throat. The Town Council property manager was both amazed and disturbed by the rawness of the onions when he visited last year.”
“We receive all the bacteria they shed which fly out of the bathrooms even when doors are closed.”
“The massive stains on the walls of our flat are evidence of this. The floor is full of microbial debris which make our feet itch. We have to mop the floor five, six times a day. The pail of water smells like the toilet.”
“This is abnormal and shouldn’t happen, an architect friend told us because there’s water in the toilet bowl and floor trap that forms the water seal. This prevents odours from entering a unit.”
“When neighbours take hot showers, our bathroom turns into a sauna bath. We can’t get in till they finish. We get a strange “hot toilet bowl” because all the heat rises from there!”
“Bacteria In Tap Water…
The real killer is finding bacteria In our bathroom tap water when odour occurs. This clears up when people flush and odour goes. Thankfully, the kitchen tap was not affected.”
“Lab tests of water samples collected three times in 2015 when there was urine odour identified bacteria found in soil, sewage, dust, spoilt can juices and on the skin which all should not be in drinking water.”
“There are pseudomonas, staphylococcus strains and newly emerging bugs. They can cause urinary, respiratory, skin, wound, eye and blood infections. We caught some of these infections many times.”
“In two samples, the bacteria count exceeded permissible limits.”
“A PUB microbiologist said treated water should not have bacteria even though it refers to WHO guidelines which allow a count of below 500 colonies.”
“The PUB found bacteria in its samplings. But it couldn’t understand how contamination can happen.”
“So it swept everything under the carpet and declared our water “totally safe” to drink. When asked to drink it, it declined. Can we believe its verdict then?”
“What’s the matter with the PUB? It publicly states that it treats water safety seriously but doesn’t live up to its promise.”
“The PUB regulates plumbing. It is also the authority that vets the sanitary system of new buildings before the BCA awards the TOP licence.”
“It checks only 10 percent of units we were told. Now what they check and how they check? How did we end up with a unit like that?”
“Now there’s a serious plumbing issue caused by poor building that affects water quality. It did nothing to help a customer in distress for five years but collects money without conscience. There is no governance. No social responsibility.”
“No Clean Water To Cook And Wash…
We hit a crisis when contamination spread to the kitchen tap suddenly in July 2019. Bathroom bacteria enter the whole pipeline!”
“Bacillus cereus, a bacterium causing food poisoning and diarrhoea, was cultured from bathroom and kitchen taps when there was defecation. Intestinal bacteria in tap water is a sure sign of contamination.”
“Eeee…we smell body odour and the green tea my neighbour drinks copiously to treat his sickness coming out the kitchen tap very often.”
“The kitchen tap is our only safe source of water. We boil and collect water in pails from this tap to bathe with when we couldn’t use the bathroom water.”
“Now we don’t have clean water to cook and wash. How to live?”
“We have to wait for bathroom activity to stop. Then the kitchen tap will come clean. But that takes ages! We end up having time for only two meals a day – brunch at 3pm and dinner near midnight. We sleep at 4am. It’s really insane!”
“This flat is pure torture. We like to throw it away if we can. But we can’t.”
“So we endure the smelly bathrooms which we can only use twice a day. When we wake up, we have to wait between one to four hours before we can use the toilet.”
“We fear bathing because we can get skin and urinary infections from contact with unclean water.”
“The PUB didn’t respond when we appealed to them for urgent help.”
“So survive we must. We buy 20-30 bottles of water every day for drinking, cooking and rewashing when sprayed with bacteria during shower.”
“When the water is so bad that we get pain when washing hands, we go out the whole day. The car is our second home.”
“You may think there’s something wrong with the building when you read my story. But the developer insisted there was nothing wrong even though its civil engineer caught an episode of bad odour and observed it was coming from the wall and floor.”
“When they refused to rectify, we wrote to MND Minister Lawrence Wong, four times between 2016-2019. The matter was relegated to the HDB area office.”
“Ah, A Leak Found…
The HDB is not efficient or sympathetic to our concerns. They didn’t manage the problem well because they have not handled such a case before.”
“”Even if we find odour, nobody knows what’s wrong,” said the deputy GM in the Area Office.”
“But when they found a clue to what’s wrong, the HDB still did not act. A 24hr flood test they ordered in early 2019 showed a leak in the toilet installation. The water disappeared in two hours.”
So where did the water go?
“The HDB building engineer present at the flood test checked the ceiling of the floor below and reported that it was not wet. But it could be very damp like the floor in our study room next to the toilet which he dismissed even when the damp meter showed amber.”
“A defects inspector who was here just after the flood test, said the study floor felt so obviously damp that it didn’t need a meter to gauge. Some water probably went into the concrete, he said.”
“If we were to believe the HDB’s report that no water seeped into the concrete, then the water must have gone into the sewage pipe. This is what CEL said in a reply that took five months.”
“If water from the bathroom gets into the sewage pipe, it means the toilet installation is not watertight and airtight. There is a leak. Sewage air and odour will enter our unit from the main sewage pipe. Now we know why the toilet bowl is hot.”
“Plumbing regulations set by the PUB requires watertightness and airtightness.”
“This partly explains the cause of our problem. But not the water contamination which is linked and needs further, thorough investigation.”
“It’s shocking that CEL has the gall to spew rubbish to cover up. They again insisted nothing wrong and closed case, saying all tests were done in the presence of HDB engineers implying that if HDB did not object, they cannot be blamed.”
“They are not only irresponsible but inhuman to ignore a building defect that threatens health and can even kill.”
No Action From HDB…
“The HDB did not press the developer to fix the leak. They seem to be colluding with CEL to cover up and dismiss the case as a ventilation problem. Investigations lacked integrity.”
“The PUB say the HDB should act because this is an HDB flat. The HDB say they are not experts in the water and sanitary system.”
“In our frustration and despair, we went to see Mr Lawrence Wong in his meet the people session in Chua Chu Kang in Aug 2019. We are not his constituents.”
“He offered to get the BCA, PUB and HDB to cooperate and look into our problem.”
“It’s almost a year and nobody contacted us. If a Minister’s instruction is not heeded, what can we do? Where is accountability?”
“Good sanitation is vital to the health of a city. The government emphasises the importance of good personal and public hygiene in the covid pandemic. But they didn’t care about the unsanitary condition we live in. Is there double standards?”
“Our case shows infectious diseases can be spread through the sanitary system. In HK, SARS spread to people in an estate through the sewers. Now with Covid, the government should all the more know how this can happen.”
“Dr Maliki Osman, mayor of southeast district, said the government promised safety and security for citizens. Huh, they didn’t deliver in our case!”
“There is also not enough protection for homeowners if the property they buy are lemons that cause them grief.”
“Smelling diseased excretions Everyday depresses the spirit and agitates one to violence. We vacillate between anger, tears and resignation.”
“What pains us most in our search for help is finding society here lack compassion and honesty.”
“We like people in construction to connect with us if they have answers. There are a lot of clues.”