Sunday, February 14, 2010

No getting away?

Housewife Jenny Chia moved out of her old neighbourhood to get away from the rental flats there, only to find out that she will be living next to them again.

In 2003, she moved out of her flat in Boon Keng, which was next to a rental block.

There were ‘gangsters, gambling and drug problems’ there, she said. While she did not see people taking drugs, she saw trails of syringes.

‘It was not a healthy environment.’

She and her husband paid $410,000 for a five-room flat on the 17th storey of Block 192 in Punggol Central.

She later found out that the two blocks of flats that were recently built opposite her home would house rental units.

Shocked, she said: ‘No one informed me. I have the right to know as a resident.’

The two blocks, which are behind a church and across a road junction from where she lives, look well-designed and clean.

The blocks, which appear unoccupied, are also not high enough to obstruct her view.

Mrs Chia, who has a son aged 23, and a daughter aged 10, said she is not as bothered by the appearance of the blocks as by the residents who will move in there.

She is worried that the problems of Boon Keng would be back to vex her.

‘My investments have amounted to nothing,’ she said. But she will not complain to the HDB.

‘It is too late now. The flats have already been built.’

Source: Sunday Times, 14 Feb 2010

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