Angry landlord evicts 60 workers after our expose on overcrowded, rat-infested shophouse
FIRST they had to stay in an overcrowded shophouse that was infested with rats.
Evicted: The Chinese workers waiting to move to a shelter after their landlord took back their rooms. - Picture: Gavin Foo
Then, after the conditions there were revealed in a report in The New Paper on Sunday, the landlord allegedly terminated their tenancy without notice and chased them out that very day.
Some of the female China workers there managed to move into a shelter run by the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home) temporarily.
Others were not so lucky - they had to spend a night on the streets.
One of the male tenants, who wanted to be known only as Ah Zhong, spent the night in a coffeeshop.
The 25-year-old Malaysian, who works here as a chef, said: 'I didn't sleep. I just sat there all night and took a bus back to Malaysia the next day.
'The Chinese workers are more pitiful. They don't have any relatives here. Neither do they have any good friends who would take them in as they have been here for only two months,' said Ah Zhong, who now shuttles between his sister's home in Johor Baru and his workplace in Orchard Road every day.
Earlier this month, The New Paper on Sunday received a tip-off on the illegal three-storey boarding house in Little India.
About 60 migrant workers were squeezed into a three-storey shophouse.
Rats and bed bugs infested the rooms, and the place was a fire hazard. The tenants had to cook their meals in their rooms and the corridor because there was no proper kitchen.
As many as eight people crammed into some of the rooms, each no bigger than an HDB bedroom.
Clutter: Previously, up to eight people squeezed into each room, and tenants had to cook their meals there. - Picture: Gavin FooThey had to stack their food and belongings on their mattresses as there was no other place to keep such things.
The tenants, mainly from Malaysia and China, were paying $150 to $170 a month to the landlord, without realising that together, they could have rented a better place.
FIRE HAZARD
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said last week that the makeshift partitions used to create extra rooms could be a fire hazard.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority also said that the shophouse was not meant for use as a boarding house and that anyone who rented it out to tenants would be committing an offence.
After The New Paper on Sunday exposed the illegal boarding house, the women who stayed there said the landlord told them to leave.
One of the tenants, who wanted to be known only as Xiao Fang, said in Mandarin: 'The landlord barged in around 4pm last Sunday and told me to pack my things and leave.
'Initially I thought he wasn't serious. Around 7 or 8pm, the landlord's wife came and demanded that we pack our things immediately.
'I told her that I didn't have any place to go to. She blamed me for disclosing all the ugly details of living in the shophouse to the media. So we had to go.'
Some of the women managed to find alternative accommodation, but a group of them had to spend the night on the streets.
Later, about 10 female tenants managed to check into a shelter, after The New Paper on Sunday alerted Home's president, Mrs Bridget Lew, about their plight.
Mrs Lew, who runs the shelter, which is meant to house troubled maids, immediately instructed her staff to prepare a room for the Chinese women, who moved in early on Monday morning.
Clearing out: The tenants move all their belongings out of the shophouse. - Picture: Gavin Foo
Unfortunately, the shelter for men was full and could not take in more people.
Mrs Lew said: 'Such situations have happened before, leaving foreign workers stranded here.
'Our society does not provide enough social service support for foreigners.'
Mrs Lew felt the landlord may have acted out of anger because his tenants had called the media to report on him.
She said the landlord could argue that he had to ask the workers to leave, 'to comply with the law'.
But she asked: 'Is it socially and morally acceptable to throw a bunch of helpless migrant workers out onto the streets?'
When contacted, the landlord, who wanted to be known only as Mr Mok, said he had acted on impulse and on his friend's advice after reading The New Paper on Sunday report.
'I was afraid the police would arrest me the next day. I had no choice but to ask them to go and close down the boarding house. But come to think about it now, I do regret my action,' he said.
Under URA's enforcement practice, a grace period is given to the landlord to allow a reasonable time for the unauthorised use to cease, said its spokesman.
A further extension of the grace periods can also be granted if the landlord says he needs it to seek alternative accommodation for the lodgers or workers.
Mr Mok did not ask for a grace period.
He said: 'After everyone moved out their belongings, we dismantled everything and cleaned up the place thoroughly.'
He added that more than 10 officers from the Ministry of Manpower checked the shophouse the following day.
He returned to his tenants their one-month deposit and charged them for their stay up to 13 Oct.
Mr Mok, who was apparently subletting the place, said: 'I paid out more than $9,000 in cash to these people. I also suffer big losses. If I stop leasing the place, my two-month deposit with my landlord will be forfeited.'
Mr Mok claimed he had rented the shophouse for more than $3,000 a month. His utilities bill came to about $2,000 a month.
'I am not making much from these migrant workers,' he said.
'Now what am I going to do with the place?'
He also claimed he had made the tenants an offer.
'I am not so heartless,' he said. 'I did offer them alternative accommodation if they had no place to go to. I can't do anything if they chose to stay in the streets.'
About 30 of the male tenants did take his offer and moved to another boarding house.
NO OFFER MADE
But all the women tenants we spoke to insisted that he had not made the offer to them.
The women who went to the Home shelter later found alternative accommodation.
They declined to reveal their new address.
One of them, who gave her name only as Miss Ren, said: 'Our new place is clean. There are two bathrooms, a kitchen and the landlord is getting us two washing machines and a fridge.
'We also have proper cupboards and shoe racks and new mattresses to sleep on.
'The only sad thing is that we have to spend more money on taking public transport now.'
From the Litte India shophouse, Miss Ren could walk to her workplace.
'At worst, I'll skip some meals to make up for the transport costs,' said Miss Ren who earns $950 a month as a beautician. 'I'm still better off in my new place.'
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