Urban Trash

Singapore is having another cleanliness drive, particularly litter in the HDB estates and the Government has formed a workgroup to look into dirty habits in the heartland. In reality, it's a simple issue with well understood themes:

Dense HDB living with small individual and large public space reduces personal responsibility. People who in past times would have swept their yard daily now just leave the corridor to be jet-washed by the council.

Littering is perceived as victimless and unpunishable. People who throw tissues and Q-tips out of bathroom windows are never going to be caught. It's the same spots on the void deck apron and under some kitchen windows that are littered; it's patently a minority at fault.

Same with smokers who as a global group seem to be unconcerned that cigarette butts are not biodegradable and, yes, I can see them in the bushes, drains, grass, etc. There's a chap opposite me who smokes at the window (so as not to befoul the flat); he'll stand there, smoking and spitting then flick the butt down onto the void deck apron. Since he stands in exactly the same spot each time, the ledge below his window has a large grey stain from the flicked ash. No one stops him.

The communal letterboxes at the void deck are strewn with junk mail leaflets; I don't blame residents, it's hard to pull out the contents without scattering these 2 x 3" scraps and few bother to stoop down to pick up junk mail. The authorities could stop this in an instant by banning private marketing flyers just as private condos do.

Setting fires for spiritual purposes is passively condoned by the authorities. The daily piles of ash, burnt walls, blobs of wax, burnt joss sticks and smoke continue despite the supplied braziers mere yards away.

Dog walkers? I don't think I've ever seen one with a poop bag. People just know not to walk on grass verges.

The ST article also mentions foreign workers which is low blow; numerically it's a local problem and the lack of enforcement against local recidivists makes this sound astonishingly patronising:

"They do not know that this is an offence here. Therefore, the town council staff and grassroots members have to give them advice. We need some time to educate them."

Apparently our local council is making an extra effort and just today we received a flyer from the local MP in this very topic:

"CLEANLINESS IN HOUSING ESTATES

1. If we look around our estates in mid-morning, by and large, they are very clean. But this doesn't remain for long and by the afternoon littering creeps in. Bits and pieces of paper are strewn from the HDB void decks to the parks and streets in private estates. By night fall it gets worse. Littering has become a persistent problem. Not only is it unsightly, it encourages breeding of pests like mosquitoes, which transmit diseases like malaria and dengue.

2. The National Environment Agency will extend litter enforcement from HDB town centres to the housing estates such as lift lobbies, void decks and letter box areas from April 2008. The first phase will involve a select group of constituencies. Further phrases will be introduced pending a review by NEA after the first three months of operation.

3. Keeping our estates clean is a shared responsibility. It rests with YOU and US. We are ultimately the ones who either make our estates clean or we destroy this beauty with litter everywhere. Between the two, I think your choice is obvious. You want to keep the surrounding areas clean. So let's make a committed collective effort and STOP littering and throwing unwanted receptacles around our estates.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Er LEE BEE WAH
MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC"

Note that the focus is on public health (discarded plastic bags & drink cups may collect water & breed mozzies), not civic pride or aesthetics.

Nothing will change because the daily clean up by the council is an environmental deus ex machina. No matter what mess is created, the faithful council cleaners will be out before 6am restoring order; people do not need to take any personal responsibility. The article confirms this with evidence from the Cleanest Estate awards:

"Yuhua Village Market and Food Centre at Jurong East Street 24 - one of the winning food centres - had relied heavily on stallholder and town council help to keep its premises spotless"

I wouldn't say Singapore is especially blighted by littering; Hong Kong & Malaysia are worse. But Singapore invests heavily in cleaning up and it would enhance a sense of natural justice if some of the above niggles were taken seriously instead of workgroups and photo-ops of MPs jet washing pavements.

Giz us a job mister?

The Bangladeshi site foreman wanted to know how he could get a job in England; "Very good country. Very good technology." I was stumped. "Have you applied?" I asked, but his English is only enough for basic concepts. The conversation started because I wanted to see how the piling work on the new elevator shaft was going; they put a plexiglass panel in the metal hoarding so you can watch. He was taking digital pictures of the slightly wonky concrete skirt at the bottom of the hoarding; "Not good. Site must be beautiful".

It's been a noisy 2 weeks as they are hacking the concrete skirt around the block to put in new (plastic) drain pipes, then drilling support piles for the lift shaft. He said 4 piles, but it's now 6 for some reason, each going down 35m to the rock. They start them off with a fat, 12" diameter hollow drill bit, pumping water to lubricate and flush up the spoil. It's all red clay around here which stays where it's put but doesn't move willingly, if you see what I mean.

The pile headers took about a week; they have to stop during thunderstorms for safety; now it's a new machine, more like an oil rig, to drill the pile holes which will then have rebar assemblies (four 1" bars held in a star configuration with standoffs and then wrapped around with wire) dropped down and the (w)hole thing concreted.

The lift shaft should take about 4 months in all to become operational, although tiling and tidy up works around the base can take months depending upon how fiddly it is.

HDB 2.0

The claimed brave new world of Web-2.0 is the target of much fun, such as this article about an online Barking Dog report service offered by Croydon Council. It made me wonder what Singapore could usefully have an HDB anti-social behavior website for:

• Burning Joss-sticks on landings
• Ghost bonfires on the grass
• Talking loudly on the mobile while standing at an open window
• Bad karaoke, full volume, Saturday mornings
• Learning to play the drums
• Dropping ash / cigarette butts from windows / corridors
• Spitting from windows / corridors
• Throwing Q-tips out of windows

I could go on but there's little sport in it. The HDB dept. sets policies for high-density living. For example, pets:

Not all residents like pets, or are comfortable with neighbours keeping pets.

HDB has allowed one dog of an approved breed to be kept in an HDB flat. The approved breeds of dogs are the smaller dogs which are generally more manageable. Please click here for the list of approved breeds of dogs.

Cats are not allowed to be kept in HDB flats as they are nomadic in nature and are difficult to be confined within the flats. Due to the nomadic nature of cats, the nuisances caused by cats such as shedding of fur, defecating/urinating in public areas, noise disturbance etc would affect the environment and neighbourliness in our housing estates. In view of this, HDB has the policy of not allowing cats to be kept in HDB flats.

HDB allows flat owners to keep other pet animals such as fish, hamsters, rabbits, birds, etc which generally do not cause nuisance to the neighbouring residents.

That's news to me. Only one, small dog and no cats. My neightbour has a cat and I've always wondered why it seems deadly afraid of straying more than 10ft from the flat door. Now I presume he has been strongly disciplined that way to avoid complaints from neighbours.

And the dog rules flies in the face of what you see around the flats. Lots of small dogs, but many people with 2 dogs. There's an Indian chap who has an enormous, lupine animal; you know the type, with strange blue eyes. It's an mild-mannered animal but there's no way it's on the HDB official dog breed list. There were posters put up matching its description advising it missing and offering a reward for return. Sounds like it was stolen to order as frankly, how do you lose such an animal? It's not like car keys.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tries their best. They recently put up posters on good practices for feeding the (officially stray) cats around the blocks (nothing you didn't already know) and their website features an adopt an animal list. There's no cats but instead it's mostly non-HDB approved dogs so only private householders can adopt them and even condos and apartments have rules. It's not looking good for Moo Ping and friends.

Don't You Oppress Me

It's a line from Monty Python's film The Life of Brian where Stan, played by Eric Idle, declares to his fellow subversives of the People's Front of Judea that he wants to be known as Loretta and have babies. Reg (John Cleese) points out that he can't have babies, being without a womb necessary for gestation, and Stan/Loretta indignantly replies with "Don't you oppress me". It's an effective response, claiming victim status over a factual refutation.

I'm reminded of this exchange while sitting here, coughing, eyes watering as my (Chinese) neighbours burn hell money, joss papers and other offerings to discharge their filial duty towards their dead relatives. Lighting the fire on the landing of the HDB means using a wok or old oil tin as a container. The conflagration is intended to be smoky (think transubstantiation); smoke & ash gets blown by the wind, mostly it seems, in through my front door. My computer is turning grey and the keyboard is the same colour as your tongue when you have a nasty bout of flu. (Ed. this post was written before my current cold and has an ominous Dorian Gray feel to it)

Googling around the forums, nuisance burning is a common topic of debate. Asthmatics have it really bad, having to retreat indoors, put the air con on and wait it out. Even reasonable, intelligent posters display cognitive dissonance, either claiming they do their offerings at a temple, or away from other people or just go for the "don't you oppress my religious freedom" line. It's not strictly religious but "don't you oppress my traditional beliefs" is less persuasive.

You might imagine that such anti-social behavior wouldn't be permitted in tidy Singapore; let's find out. First, ask a policeman at the local kiosk: "So long as the fire doesn't burn property (the building) then the Environment Agency says it's Okay." That's clear enough. The NEA are responsible for enforcement and any burning that is a nuisance can be reported and NEA officers will investigate. Let's check their NEA website FAQ:

Q: are people allowed to burn joss-papers and candles in public places?

A: The public must clean up the place after they have made their offerings. When burning joss-papers, candles, etc. they should use containers. Residents in town council estates should make use of the burning pits and containers provided by the town councils.

To minimise problems when burning joss-papers, candles, etc., the Government introduced the following control measures on 1 March 1998:
• Joss sticks shall not exceed 2 metres in length and 75 mm diameter. For large joss sticks up to 2 metres in length and 75 mm in diameter, no more than six may be burnt at any one time.
• Candles shall not exceed 600 mm in length. For large candles up to 600 mm in length, no more than two may be burnt at any one time.
• The burning of large joss sticks and candles shall not be within 30 metres from any building.

Ignore the stuff about big candles, that's not the issue. The key phrase is "Residents in town council estates should make use of the burning pits and containers provided". Near all HDB blocks there are permanent brick incinerators and semi-permanent oil-drum burners. These are almost universally eschewed in favour of tins on the landing, grass verges or the old favourite, drain gratings.

In my technical work, "should" is a command, equivalent to "must". But this is just an FAQ, let's call the NEA helpline to confirm. Susie was very nice but only had the same information available to her. When pressed, she confirmed that she understood "should" to mean "must".

So the local police (all 3 of them) and the NEA are inconsistent. The bobbies push a softly-softly "it's Okay" to inquisitive foreigners. The NEA confirm the legal position and will investigate but with what vigour or success? Enforcing environmental nuisance (fires, noise) is notoriously hard as a couple of visits by officers are rarely coincident with the problem or sufficiently threatening to induce a change of behavior.

The Government clearly follows a tolerant, low enforcement policy lest they offend their constituent's traditional beliefs (behaviors). This is another example of how Singapore's international stereotype of an uptight, rules-obsessed society of automata is naive. <cough>.

Neighbourhorde Watch

I'm getting to see a lot of the Newbours or rather, I see lots of different neighbours an average amount each. That flat opposite is about the same size as ours, a corner unit with 3 bedrooms, and by my count there are 3 generations: mum, dad, daughter, son-in-law, older son, junior school son, baby, dog.

A (Chinese) Malaysian family apparently although that's hardly news. Lots of Singaporeans are originally Malaysian; the local MP, for example. My insider info is they are paying S$2,000 (£727) a month rent. Sounds a tad high to me but the market has shot up in the last year so if they are locked-in for 2 years, it might be a fair rate.

With such a crowd, it's no surprise that they have all their washing on racks outside along the corridor. They've got rid of a lot of rubbish as well; they binned the busted air con unit, the packing boxes and the old sofa set, but the countless shoes remain. The dog is small and yappy but they keep the door closed mostly and are a helluva lot quieter than the (Malay) couple next door the other way. Don't get me started. I said DON'T GET ME STARTED!

Towering Inferno

It must be one of those times of the year when Chinese burn things to appease, acknowledge and venerate their dead relatives. The big Ghost festival is held in the seventh lunar month of the Chinese year (circa August) and so is still months away. I think this one must be QingMing held 104 days after the winter solstice, around 5th April. You can tell because the intensity of smoke pollution rises dramatically.

People are lighting fires from 6am onwards, likely before going to work, whereas on a typical day it would be just the usual suspects between 8am and 10am. These recidivist fire starters return to the same spot every time with a consistent MO:

1. Take good handful of papers, hell money and optionally 10 - 15 joss sticks
2. Find a suitable spot near your house. Don't use the incinerators provided but instead consider the concrete apron around the HDB block. On top of a metal drain grating is popular (the ash doesn't fall through much but it feels like it might). A grass verge will do and after a couple of days there won't be any grass to kill, so no worries. If it's raining, move under the void deck and find a quiet corner up against a concrete wall; don't worry about the paint
3. Separate papers by folding each one over to create a loose pile
4. Light pile in several places
5. Wait a minute until it gets going
6. (optional: throw joss sticks on fire)
7. Hold hands together and concentrate briefly on your filial duty. The exact form is unimportant as this is not a religious activity, rather a Confucian-inspired homage
8. Pickup & carefully dispose of any packaging from the papers & joss sticks
9. Bugger off home.

Writing Backwards

My subconscious noticed it first as a gazed blankly out of the train window. Focusing on the block number on the corner of the HDB, the digits are painted in reverse italics, the numbers slope backwards not forwards.

Have you ever wondered why italics only ever tilt to the right? No word processor that I know of allows the opposite tilt. I moment of reflection and the answer is plain - right-handed people naturally tilt their letters to the right, and left-handed people just have to do the best they can. English typography is strictly right handed.

The reverse just looks ... wrong. The Chinese (and Japanese) ideograph for a person is like an inverted "Y", a forward slash "/" with a leg stuck out to represent a person walking. So even though Chinese can be written right-to-left, left-to-right or vertically, they chose a person walking to the right. We walk by falling forwards and catching ourselves at each step so it looks natural and progressive. We don't walk backwards (the lower leg and foot are wrong) and leaning back just looks like a person toppling over.

I find it surreal, in the Salvador Dali sense, evoking his pictures with clocks that have melted over edges like soft cheese. It can't be a mistakenly reversed template as "812" isn't left-right mirror reversible. A quick look around shows newer blocks tend to have straight numbers, older ones italicised or at least some digits with a bit of a lean. It's inconsistent as digits with horizontals (7, 4) painted straight, but looped digits (8, 6) leaning. This evidence-based approach suggests an errant paint job but I prefer the idea that there is a subversive element at work; an urban graffiti sign-writer executing hit'n'run typography anarchy. It makes a welcome change from Singapore's controlled, uniform street scene.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

For a while, in England, I was a freecycle junkie. If you don't know, it's all about giving things away, locally, for free. You advertise (offer) an item on the mailing list and people claim then collect it. No money or payment in kind is allowed (although one chap insisted I take 2 bags of horse manure in compensation). Good quality goods go very quickly and at one sad point in my life, I changed the automatic Get New Mail interval down to 10mins to try and get ahead of the crowd.

I've followed the Singapore freecycle group for a while but I ended up marking the incoming mail As Read upon receipt. Low critical mass is one issue. Singapore seems to struggle to tap long tail effects and the local freecycle, craigslist and eBay are all small. Maybe there are more scam artists around but people are more wary of online transactions and arranging to meet at private homes. You need a car to collect anything large or heavy so posts tend to be for smaller items like books, CDs & toys. There's no DIY culture here (it's cheaper to get a tradesman in), so you don't see offers for bricks, paving slabs or even large furniture. However the biggest downer with the mailing list is that it feels like most posts are Wants, not Offers.

Time for some hard data. In 2007, the Singapore group had 4,684 posts, of which 42% were Offers, 16% Taken and 33% Wants (based on the text of the subject line). In comparison, Oxford had 48% Offers, 20% Taken and 30% Wants. If you add Offers + Takens, the gap widens to 10 points (58% vs 68%) which validates my instinct that the SG group is less ... giving.

There's more social effects at work here than just these numbers. It shows how the culture of a group (whether online or not) finds different equilibrium especially where leadership from moderators is weak. I've argued before that while untidy, leaving an old sofa in the void deck affords residents a chance to re-use it for free before it is trashed the following day by the maintenance guys. The local council will collect such large rubbish without charge but then there's no re-use.

The bring'n'buy sale, WI, car boot attitude of social generosity displayed by middle England has different outlets in Singapore. At the middle to lower class that SG freecycle seems to cater to, the discards at the HDB void deck offer more.

Let there be (more) light

This blog is brought to you on upgraded HDB electrics. The contractors switched off the power early at 8:30am and started ripping off all the meters, mains wiring, mini trunking and ceiling lights. By the lunchtime break, they had the new maxi trunking up and most of the wires in place but un-terminated. Power was back on by 4pm but my UPS had given up before noon so I lost Starhub broadband & phone but carried on with 3G.

It looks good. Some of the mitres in the maxi trunking are approximate as they are all done by eye. They've used thicker wires (~20mm sq) but 3 or 4 flats are daisy-chained so it needs to be. It's the same meter but in a smart grey ABS enclosure instead of the old wooden backing board. Handily they moved the meter a few inches away from the door so the external gate can swing back all the way to the wall now. And more ceiling lights, one in front of every door as well as extras between flats.

Technologically it's status quo. No digital meter, no remote meter reading, no dual rate tariff, no PIR-activated lights. Just fatter wires for more consumption. So much for global warming.

Playing the Property Game, Level 1

Since we look like being in Singapore for a while, continuing to rent a flat is not necessarily the best fiscal policy, so we have joined the great Property Game. We started by saying we were just educating ourselves but it has to turn serious at some point otherwise the effort cannot be justified. Since we are in a pretty nice HDB flat in Yishun, we started there.

The property market is crazy; some prices have doubled in 9 months and there is rampant speculation and padding of asking prices. Since we are just looking, I haven't worried about price and negotiation yet. Finding a guide to the property maze is ludicrously easy. Singapore has thousands of full and part-time estate agents, hence the mass of junk mail. It's like the American system of independent, commission-based agents and you meet them at parties, shopping malls, everywhere. We got chatting to Sally as she was the agent that let the next door flat. She's a full-time agent for one of the major companies. That'll do for a start.

Perhaps I should give some background. HDBs are Government built since 1960 as cheap housing for the masses. Akin to council housing; think working family, no car, maybe a maid / nanny. They are predominately blocks of flats, 12 - 16 stories high using a common design with a void deck. Arranged in clusters around shops, amenities and transport, such estates are commonly referred to as the Heartlands. There's been some tweaks to this scheme over the decades with Executive Condos and high quality flats for senior civil servants, but we'll get to those later.

Initially they were for rent, now many have been purchased and after a grace
period, may be re-sold or let, so there is a flourishing market. Early models were small, to suit the times and budgets while later models grew a bit. The layout is a hall (living room) with bedrooms and kitchen off. One bedroom usually has ensuite (lavatory, shower, no bath) and there's a common lavatory off the kitchen. Where there is a box room off the kitchen, that's a +1 for storage or maid's quarters. So a 1,200sqft flat might be 3+1, that is, 3 bedrooms plus maids room. Many HDBs had a sun room (think balcony that doesn't protrude) but mostly these are now glazed in and join the main room. To save money, the elevators of older flats only served a few floors (e.g. 5, 9, 12) so you take the elevator and then stairs for other floors. The iUP programme is installing new elevators serving all floors.

Singapore is hot, and window direction is crucial. Air con is a common addition but I've never seen double glazing or any other form of insulation. Flats on the top floor may get hot from the roof, of even suffer water ingress. There is an ancient Chinese belief (sometimes attributed to Feng Shui) that your door should face North and have a hill behind you. This has its origins when houses where close together and a good stiff breeze from a hill swept clean (non-foul), cooling air through the house. So agents will tell you immediately which way the door faces. Chinese also like to have a view of water as it's considered prosperous. Bizarrely, a pool full of screaming kids counts. And to round out the Chinese beliefs, because numbers also sound like words, the address is important: 4 = death, 8 = prosper, 10 = certain. But 3 or 4 digits string together to form phrases, so 814 means "wealthy whole life". A really bad number puts Chinese buyers off; good when buying, bad for re-sale.

Typical renovations include replacement windows, air con, floor tiles or laminate, new bathroom fittings, new kitchen cabinets/sink/cooker, coving and painted walls.

Only citizens or PRs (permanent residents) can own property. PRs cannot own a piece of Singapore, so landed properties (houses) are unavailable. Private condos and apartments are Okay, as are private HDB (once passed the 5yr grace period - check the certificate). Most property is leasehold 99 years, some 999 years and in rare cases, freehold.

Singapore specifies racial ratios under the ethnic integration policy. An HDB estate might be 70% Chinese, 20% Malay and 10% Unknown. As a white foreigner, I'm an unknown. Once the quota is reached in an area, you can't buy a flat unless you are replacing the same racial type. You can look up the allocation online at the HDB site.

Each vintage of HDB flats has consistent floor areas which expanded over time and are normally quoted in square feet (1sqm = 10.5sqft), so 1,100sqf is a smallish
3B, 1,300sqf is a more spacious 3B, 1,700sqf is 4B, anything over 2,000sqf is a big house here.

So we can now make some sense of the adverts filling the newspapers and mail boxes:

3S - 3 bedrooms, standard
3+1 - 3 bedrooms plus maids cubby hole
3NG - next generation, bigger than 3S
3A - advanced, a later HDB model, but about the same size as 3S
3I - improved
Jumbo - a 2B and 3B knocked through to create larger flat
EA - Executive Apartment, a nicer, bigger HDB
EM - Executive Mansionette, a 2-level, bigger, nicer HDB
Condo - private development with shared amenities, pool, gym, ...
Apartment - private development but no shared facilities

We started with HDBs in the surrounding area, 3B, 3B+1, an EA and even a Jumbo. The fundamental problem with HDB is the high-density of housing. You are almost always over-looked by the next block, if not all windows, then certainly living room or bedrooms. Finding blocks with some space means moving away from the amenities and MRT, to the point where you need a feeder or shuttle bus to get to the station. An open aspect is an unblock, although the term seems to mean "has a view", rather than "not overlooked" which is a significant difference. Neighbours are always a lottery.

Gawping at other people's houses has its fun moments. The sellers often have an agent, so a viewing appointment is a pantomime of viewer -> agent -> agent -> seller -> agent -> agent -> viewer mobile phone calls and SMS to arrange. On arrival, the agents exchange cards between themselves, sometimes not even addressing the buyers. A Malay family we visited was memorable for having to tiptoe around the people sleeping in the beds. At this end of the market, there's little concept of dressing a house for sale. The Jumbo flat was a 3D puzzle to try and reverse engineer the layout of walls, pillars and nooks. The Executive Apartment was a empty shell and would have needed a complete re-fit, knock out walls, new kitchen but it was closely overlooked.

Frustratingly, buying is strictly an oral process. There are no printed flyers, pictures, floor plans, room sizes, descriptions or asking price; just location and size. Agents won't tell you in advance which floor or whether it's unblock because they want to ensure a visit and avoid being bypassed. So more wasted time with unsuitable properties. Often you only get to know the asking price in the elevator on the way up to viewing. This gives the seller maximum chance to adjust the price according to the look of the buyer. In this regard, Internet sites are better as sellers directly advertise with pictures & and there is often an historical record of prices.

So after 2 weeks, our main requirements seem to be:

3 or 4 bedroom, minimum 1,200sqf
unblock, not overlooked
close to MRT for easy commute

We've stopped looking at HDBs for now, next stop: Condos.

Re-Cyclical Maintenance

The HDB iUP flat upgrade programme work has started in our area. Even the site office is impressive. On a square of grass by the road, they poured a concrete base, say 12m x 12m and put up a 2-storey prefab, diverting services so it has water, sewage and power, then erected a 2m high fence and carefully painted it blue.

There will be covered walkways between blocks but the major work is the new lift towers added to the outsides, connecting to each floor's landing so the first job is to create a safe work areas with fencing around each base and start preparations for the piling. Our block has reach the pre-piling stage but remember, to get here, they have already diverted the surface drains, telephone and cable TV lines. This week is the rain downpipe diversion, then it will be piling work.

At the same time, and under a different contract, they are doing Cyclical Maintenance on the electrics. Most blocks are having their earthing upgraded with a new mesh of flat copper strips dug into the apron concrete and tied back to new earth rod points. Blocks are getting new (and thicker) mains cables put in from the substation which involves substantial holes and trenches as those are over 4' down in the clay. Just as well as the original mains wiring is under-specified for modern lifestyles. Our flat has low-wattage fluorescent bulbs throughout as the landlord was tripping the main breaker when running lights, TV, water heater and air con together.

They resurfaced and repainted the car park tarmac after the phone cable works, and they tidied up again after the electrical cables, including restoring the crab grass. The same verge has now been ripped up, leveled and laid with metal sheets for plant access to the neighbouring block.

The electrical works include the refresh of all the (original) landing light fittings, conduit and cabling up the blocks and along the ceilings. There's also extra lights on the outside at the void deck level (for pedestrians I presume) but they've picked a glarey fitting without a light diffuser. Recall that they replaced all fluorescent tubes a few months back only to be dumped now.

I passed the electrical gaffer the other day looking up at the corner of a block with a troubled look. Each new light fitting has been put in approximately the same position on each landing, but there's enough variation (few inches) that when viewed from below, you see an ugly zig-zag pattern. Ooops. I wonder if he'll get away with it?

Our block is half done; conduit is in (pre-wired) but light fittings and mini trunking is pending. All the (again, original) electrical meters are being replaced which unavoidably means a power outage. We'll have to see if they are just replacements or a technology upgrade with, for example, remote reading. At present, a man walks around every few weeks with a handheld to read off the electric, water and gas meters. Replacement is done in batches of about 12 flats at a time. I've just received the flyer; we're due next Tuesday, 8:30 - 5:500pm. My phone and broadband are on the cable modem that will run with the computers on the UPS for a couple of hours. I reckon they will try to be quick so that might be enough. I suppose they have a plan to read the meter at cutover - that's the sort of procedural detail Singapore is good at.

So while the whole area is a building site, it never feels like one with order being restored at every point. You have to admire the care with which each contractor tidies up, even if the next guy comes along to dig the same hole the following day. Labour is fairly cheap here but there's no attempt to optimise the work; it makes a mockery of "Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle", in Singapore, it's just Repeat.

Newbours

We have new neighbours. The young Chinese professional couple living on one side of us quietly moved out at the end of last year and after a period of non-occupancy have now let out the flat.

This involved a sequence of gathering boxes, then moving out the stuff they wanted, then finally calling a clean-up company to dispose of the rest and spring clean the flat. You might have thought professional house cleaners would be well prepared but this lot were more like scavengers with mops. Everything being thrown away was picked over for residual value and the rest thrown into whatever box or bag they could find to be dragged along the corridor, down the lifts and dumped in the void deck.

Then the estate agents turned up. Cue difficulties with keys and much malarkey on the mobile to owners. I think it was badly cut key copies but it took 4 people to sort out.

Then the stream of rag-tag families traipsing to viewings. It was at this point we moseyed over to have a nose about. Their place is a rough mirror of ours, a 4 room flat, i.e. 3 bedrooms plus living room and kitchen. It's being let semi-furnished (sofa, tables) but no white goods or beds.

A new family has now moved in but I've no idea of how many or what relation everyone is. It's the cast of War and Peace over there with untold relations, friends and kids visiting. Moving in the main furniture was done by a removal company. I say company, but it's a gaffer, a flat-bed trunk and 2 lifters. Imagine the 3 Stooges with mattresses. These basic removal services are very common here and provide a reasonably cheap way to move things around, but it's best to keep an eye on them and your stuff to avoid bumps, breakage or even loss. In this case, the confusion peaked when they tried to manoeuvre a mattress into my living room.

Next day, a guy arrived with a bottle of gas for the cooker. These flats are plumbed with city gas but there's a monthly standing charge so many people use bottled propane instead because it's as cheap to eat out or buy back (da bao) than to cook. Our landlord left a bottle with a couple of inches of gas sloshing in it. That was 18 months ago and we are still using it.

Then the new furniture arrived (matresses and some cupboards), delivered with a bit more care. and since then, a never ending stream of junk, carried each day by the returning hoard. Now, you may think that a pejorative description, but you haven't see it. 8 stacked plastic stools? broken mops, odd lamp shades, a busted window air con unit, countless unidentified bags. The place must be nearly full after a week of these ad hoc deliveries.

They seem pretty quiet (significant praise coming from me) and for the most part, the only visible difference is the clothes horse and so called shoe rack outside the door. As usual, it's full of tatty sandals, flip-flips and smelly trainers that absolutely no-one will ever steal. These ex-shoe collections are a common sight on landings. I would have taken the opportunity during a house move to whittle them down to the ones with a chance of being worn at some point. Alas not.

Path of Desire

The council have (suddenly?) started building a concrete path across the middle of the field. I suppose it will be useful. No-one walks across the field as it's always squelchy - there's no drains for the field which is why the frogs like it so much.

I'm not complaining; investment in public infrastructure is generally a good thing. It's practically the entire domestic policy of the Japanese Government for the last 50 years. We'll have to see if this serves an un-satisfied line of desire or if the fact that it bisects the Indian Sunday football pitch is the greater inconvenience.

It reminds me of the story about 2 pieces of Tarmac who were arguing in the pub as to which one was the hardest:

Tarmac #1: "Me I'm from the M25, bl**dy hard I am taking all that traffic"

Tarmac #2: "I'm from Heathrow, that's nuffin, I can take a Jumbo jet"

The pub went quiet and in walked this red piece of Tarmac.

Tarmac #1: "whoa, don't mess wih him, he's a Cyclepath!"

Benign Autocracy

The preparation for the HDB upgrade continues. In the last week, they have diverted the SingTel (phone, broadband) and StarHub (cable TV and broadband) services, both requiring trenching work. [Side note, StarHub forewarned that the broadband might be out for the whole day Friday for re-wiring but I'm pretty sure it wasn't out at all.] When they laid cable TV services in England, there were "mole tracks" along pavements for the next decade where they laid the ducts. And you know, no matter how hard they try, it never ends up exactly level.

Today, a work gang turn up with a fancy German tarmac lathe and a Bobcat sweeper to rip off the top inch off half the car park and relay it with fresh tarmac. They'll need to come back and re-paint he parking space numbers and double yellow lines but otherwise it's as new. Bear in mind, in a couple of months when the lift-shaft works start, that whole area will be a building site.

To put this in perspective, my road back in England is a lunar landscape of mole tracks and repairs. In fact, the local council cheerfully admit they have a policy of patching reported potholes within days as it's an electorate satisfier, but a proper re-laying of the whole road is "off budget".

When I mention Singapore to people they usually end up talking about either the "ban on chewing gum" (it's not banned) or that "the place is nice but a bit controlling". Well, I hate chewing gum and am starting to think a strong anti-social behavior ticket and a commitment to public infrastructure investment is a good thing. I'm confused as to where that appears on the political left-right scale but then benign autocracy is a broad church.

Passive Aggressive Littering

You know how you read something and start punching the air "yes, yes, yes", not so much because of a new insight but because you suddenly realise someone else has the same frustrations as yourself? For me, this occurred when I read passiveaggressivenotes.com, a site dedicated to notes, signs and e-mails written in the passive aggressive style, usually about annoyances or asking people to stop doing things.

The one about cat fur posted in the letterbox hits home:

“okay, so i’m not sure if i’m in the wrong on this one,” says melanie from sydney. “i have a long haired cat who sheds a lot, so i just used to pick up the bits of fur and throw them out the window. i’m on the third floor and look out over the street, so i didn’t think it would upset anyone. but then i found this clump of cat fur in my Mailbox.”

This story is great on so many levels. There's the obsessive collection of a few hairs each day over weeks. The voyeurism of waiting for the falling fluff. The implied threat with shades of Fatal Attraction and bunny boiling.

For devotees of the obsessive genre, they also point out other sites dedicated to singular abuses of the word literally, apostrophes and quotation marks, to which I would add the work of Lynne Truss.

This week my local council sent a letter to each flat (must be important, normally they just post up a single copy on the notice board). Subject: LITTERING.

We have received feedback that some residents are throwing CIGARETTE BUTTS, UNWANTED FOOD, TISSUE PAPERS, etc out from their windows. Some of them are also littering the common corridors, staircases and open spaces.

Town Council takes a serious view of their irresponsible act and would like to appeal to all residents to immediately stop littering at the common areas, especially throwing litter out from the windows.

We wish to remind you that it is an offence under the town council by-law (COMMON PROPERTY AND OPEN SPACE) to litter the common areas.

I could rat out the guy opposite with the purple windows who smokes by leaning out of the window then flicking the butt down onto the grass, or the people above me who throw tissues out, but they didn't mention the Q-Tips. One narrowly missed me as I was walking in front of some flats a little while back and there was one in the lift the other day. What do you do with a Q-Tip in a lift? I used to use them to clean the heads of cassette players with denatured alcohol, and now I clear my ears with them, but neither activity has ever occurred in a lift. I feel a letter coming on...

New and Improved

My HDB block has been accepted for upgrade which means new lifts and covered walkways. There are currently 2 lifts inside the block serving ground, 5th, 9th and 12th floors. A new lift tower will be added to the outside (joining the external corridor on each floor), then they will upgrade one of the existing internal lifts and close the other one down. So still 2 lifts but both will stop an every floor.

It's the new, external lift tower that's the big job. It requires piling for foundations, then it's a stack of pre-cast concrete "U" shapes all the way up, then minor work at the base (the skirt, drains, tiling, and the power feeds).

The main lift work is scheduled for Dec07, and in preparation, they've started the service diversions; any underground pipes or drains where the new lift will be need to be moved. There's a nice note from the council warning of the disruption (noise from the machinery, concrete breakers, etc). The (Indian) contractors do a tidy job and it's only the noise that is sometimes bothersome.

The new lifts are nice, plus all have internal and external CCTV with a monitor outside at the ground level. One might imagine it's to spot homicidal maniacs from leaping out at you unawares, but more likely to discourage smoking, littering and peeing in the nice new lift. I've no idea if the CCTV feed is recorded but it doesn't make much sense if it's not. I expect there's hours of footage of Singaporeans madly pressing door-open and door-close buttons. Riveting stuff.

Fogging Redux

I realise I may have left regular readers wondering how many 'roaches made it into my kitchen as a temporary respite from the insecticidal fogging of the garbage chute last week:

• Roaches: 1
• Other small insects: 3

All of which were in that dazed, running around in a circle state that drugged up insects get (fair enough, 6 legs is a lot to manage when drunk). I squished the 'roach and next time I came through to check, the ants had found it and were trying to live until Christmas on the fallen bonanza.

You are supposed to tape up the chute so they can't get in but life's too short and I don't have any tape. I think my chute cover is an original from the flat's construction. I regularly get door-to-door salesmen trying to sell stainless steel upgrades which look pretty swanky and are probably insect proof, but it's a rented flat and the chute cover is built-in into a cupboard so visual appearance is not a concern. Anyway look at the "My Family and other Animals" type of fun I would be missing.

Tip of the Day

What you need to appreciate is that Singapore has official and unofficial recycling systems. The official one is as one would expect of a socially responsible administration. There are re-cycling points with bins for paper, glass and plastic, but I've only seen them in tourist spots like Orchard Road and a couple of MRT stations. There's stuff in them so it works to some extent at least but I get a whiff of propaganda over substance given the vast majority of rubbish is thrown anonymously down HDB chutes with no recycling applied.

Singapore is average when it comes to wasteful packaging. Extra wrappings would add cost but there is still a huge, unending mass of plastic bags, Styrofoam and bamboo chopsticks used by shops and stalls. Everything gets a cheap plastic bag, often of a dull red (possibly recycled) plastic that is such a characteristic sight it's iconic.

Supermarket shopping is a mixed bag, as it were. Some people use little trolleys like my grandmother used, but then just use it to carry their plastic bags. Because most people will be walking home, bags need to last a 10-15min walk so anything heavy is doubled-bagged. Anything cold/frozen must be separated, so another bag. Newspaper? - another bag. Smelly fish? - another bag.

NTUC have bag-less Wednesdays, which means unprepared people like me have to put 5cents into the charity jar. Given I use the shopping bags as garbage bags at home (you need lots of small, daily bags as you can't keep waste food overnight (ants) and the chute opening is small), the scheme develops an equilibrium.

The council now has re-cycling dumpsters at some of the void decks. It is supposed to be for cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, clothes, toys, books, and so on. What actually happens is people leave all sorts of junk in and around the dumpster, and the old ladies who earn some pennies sorting trash go through it hoiking out the cardboard and aluminium cans (30p for ~65 cans), plus anything else valuable. The trouble is they are pretty focused, and if there is a cardboard box full of junk, they'll just tip out the contents to get the box.

Some re-cycling is done direct from your door. During the day, guys go around every floor buying stacks of old newspapers (60p for a 1m high pile) and collecting old electric items to be stripped for copper and other metals.

The best sort of re-cycling is reuse, and here the ad hoc system works well. Just leave anything you don't want (old sofa, bed, furniture, toys, books) at the void deck, usually on a Sunday, and it's finders-keepers.

Judging by effectiveness, the half-hearted official programme compares unfavourably versus the scavenging locals who do a better job of re-using, sorting and recovering materials at lower financial and energy cost although I acknowledge that without the Indian cleaning guys to tidy up every day, the place would look like the municipal tip.

Void Deck Critters

If Singapore is a concrete jungle, then the HDB void decks are the leaf litter, containing a myriad of non-human life.

Cockroaches and mosquitoes are the main insect pests which are kept in check by regular insecticidal fogging, focusing on the garbage chutes and drains respectively. I'm no 'roach expert but here they seem torpid and slow moving. Even a lively one is easy to catch and squish. Tomorrow is fogging day and I'm supposed to tape up around the garbage chute to stop the 'roaches from escaping the insecticide. I've never bothered or have forgotten up till now and the worst that seems to happen is to find a dead/dying 'roach on the kitchen floor. There was one that managed to crawl as far as the living room before succumbing. Tough bugger.

There are lots of owned and stray cats, mostly with partially docked tails (not sure why). They are conspicuously un-neutered and a merry courting dance is a daily affair. I don't know that anyone is doing anything about this but we are far from over-run. It's fun to see them walking along in the drain gullies with just a pair of ears visible. Most are wary of humans but will readily approach a friendly call, and continue on their daily search for food when they ascertain you are offering none. Some idiot dog owners let their dogs chase cats but it's mostly harmless and cats can duck down into the surface drains and either wait or pop up yards away out of another drain.

Cats with permanent hosts may never leave their flats or its immediate environs. My near neighbour's cat stays within 10yds of the front door, hiding behind plant pots to avoid kids and bikes on the landing. The poor animal is tortured because it lives next to the lifts so when he hears the doors open, he doesn't know whether the incomer is friend or foe. Lonely, neurotic and armed with claws. A potent combination.

Singapore Confidential

I have the whole of Singapore visible, exposed and revealed right outside my window. Its inner secrets, its unspoken desires and aspirations, its sheer ordinariness. HDB blocks are dense, urban flats; 12 - 16 floors of cookie-cutter housing with walls of windows facing each other.

The Heartland.

It's inevitable that you get to know your neighbours really well. Not well enough to know their names or even recognise them on the street, I mean really well, like what colour shorts he wears around the house (beige) and when he does his ironing (Sunday, 5pm). It's enforced voyeurism. Like Rear Window without the optical assistance or dead body.

My fellow-travellers include the Indonesian construction worker on the unfurnished 12th floor who is rarely in and empties whole ashtrays out of the window. The Singaporean mom cornering her son in the second bedroom threatening to hit him with a cane if he doesn't study harder. The nicely decorated (carpeted) 4th floor flat with a huge, white-covered reclining chair in front of the big TV and the work laptop abandoned at the dining room table. The Filipino maid working a constant cycle of washing, hanging up, ironing and folding. The quiet family with the God's table permanently aglow with 2 red bulbs that look like the eyes of a slumbering demon at a bleary 5:30am. Lap dogs following their owners around hoping to be let downstairs so they can chase a stray cat down a drain culvert. Kids screaming until their throat hurts more than the lack of an ice lolly. And below, maids washing their master's car of the city's dust, tired workers slumping their way home, reckless pizza delivery bikes banking around the corners, taxis dropping fares and going on shift, mad joggers and embarrassed husbands with pampered dogs on long leads.

I know these people. Men comfortable, wearing just a pair of shorts and a paunch. Women solving domestic chores in a t-shirt reduced to an grey, non-colour by constant washing. Kids bouncing off soft furnishings. Teenage daughters talking for hours with the boyfriend at the window.

And last but not least, the hairy ang mo watching and typing.