A very angry Jeremy Phua, who has just moved in to his Waterway Cascadia BTO flat in Punggol has got a big problem on his hands – the lifts in the block get stuck at various levels and the doors to the lifts often won’t close fully, such that residents have to use their hands to shut the doors.
Says Jeremy:
“The lifts will often get stuck at various levels and stop working. And more often than not, they will stop at a level and the doors cannot close fully – residents have to push both sides of the door to get it closed so that it continues moving. This happens at every level the lift stops at. This happens so frequently and our estate is not even fully occupied yet. Our block is 18 storey high, each level having around 10 units and served by 2 lifts – so you can imagine how things will be like during rush hours when we have full occupancy.”
But what’s bugging Jeremy even more is how the problem hasn’t been resolved despite residents constantly hounding the Town Council and MP (hello, Sun Xueling).
For 6 months.
What’s making him even more infuriated is the HDB has disclaimed responsibility for the lift malfunctions and pinned the blame on renovation contractors misusing the lift.
And the final straw which has worked Jeremy up into a fury is how the media, courtesy of Channel NewsAsia, has ignored his side of the tale (despite him writing to them first), and went with a whole news report about contractors spoiling lifts (i.e running a whole story telling only the HDB’s side of the tale).
Oh well, at least poor Jeremy isn’t alone.
Another new BTO owner from Tampines has complained that residents in his area are facing the same lift malfunction problem too!
Misery loves company – you know, sometimes it can really give them a lift!
This is Jeremy’s letter to the media:
“Dear Media friends,
I am writing to you hoping that you can help to make known to all the frustrations and agony that the residents of my housing estate have been going through ever since we have moved in. I am hoping you can be the “voice of the people”.
My name is Jeremy, I am a resident of Waterway Cascadia, a new BTO located at Punggol Way. The residents of this project started receiving their keys in the beginning of the year, home renovations are ongoing and I’d say there is less than 50% occupancy rate at the moment. I received my keys in May (some of the residents earlier) and after my renovations are done, moved into my new home in September. It has been just over a month or so, but I have been calling Town Council, EMS almost every other day because of the lift issues my block is having (not only my block, but the other blocks in the estate are also experiencing lift issues).
The lifts will often get stuck at various levels and stop working. And more often than not, they will stop at a level and the doors cannot close fully – residents have to push both sides of the door to get it closed so that it continues moving. This happens at every level the lift stops at. This happens so frequently and our estate is not even fully occupied yet. Our block is 18 storey high, each level having around 10 units and served by 2 lifts – so you can imagine how things will be like during rush hours when we have full occupancy.
Being a new estate, we have no Residents’ Committee (RC) formed. We can only call the Town Council, email our MP (Ms Sun Xueling) for help. However, nothing done has solved the root of the problem, which is the quality of the lifts we are getting for this supposed premium estate of ours (We were paying like $100K or more for the same level housing size unit elsewhere at that point in time).
I’ve taken pictures, videos, sent my fair share of emails but the only response I got from the authorities was to tell the contractors not to damage the lift by stuffing objects to prevent the lift from closing – this is just shifting the blame to contractors, I am not even the least interested to find out who the culprit is, I am just a normal resident wanting my lifts to work properly, the most basic essential which the authorities cannot even provide, yet we are paying monthly conservancy fees, even before we started moving in! If I have to call them everyday and them sending down technicians to look at the issues everyday, some days more than 1 time, isn’t it a waste of money and resources – why can’t they just put in place a better lift in the beginning?
The recent spate of lift accidents is definitely of concern and yet the authorities are not making substantial effort in ensuring we have proper working lifts.
I would be happy to talk to you more and even walk you through our estate to show you the bad state of lifts we are experiencing day in day out.”
