Singaporeans are known to enjoy complaining about everything—it’s almost a national sport.
This time, the source of mass displeasure is the floor.
Yes, actually the floor—Sengkang residents were unhappy that broken tiles were replaced with cement instead of new tiles, and naturally, took to social media to express this.
Cement Used To Replace Broken Tiles
Just this Wednesday (21 June), the Facebook page Singapore Matters posted photographs sent by unhappy Sengkang residents.
The pictures depicted the floor of their HDB block, showing that cement had been used to replace broken tiles instead of the same type of tiles.
“Instead of replacing cracked tiles with suitable tiles, the town council simply [laid] concrete instead,” the post read, adding a sad-face emoji to drive home their point.
They added that the images were sent by “disappointed residents” of the block.
The block in question is located at 333 Anchorvale Link in Sengkang.
The cement “tiles” seemed to have lines drawn over them that followed the lines of the regular tiles.
The Facebook post gained a moderate amount of attention, amassing 150 comments so far.
Most commenters agreed that the floor was probably work-in-progress, and had not been fully repaired yet.
Sengkang Town Council Responds
The Sengkang Town Council (SKTC) responded to the Straits Times on the issue.
The commenters on the Facebook post were mostly proven right—the cement fix was a temporary measure.
According to the SKTC, cement was used to urgently fix broken tiling to prevent creating fall risks that result in accidents.
They also explained that the block was part of a precinct undergoing repair and redecoration (R&R) works, and the void deck of the block would be refreshed during these works.
Epoxy flakes will be applied then, and repainting would also be done.
In light of this, the SKTC said that it would not make sense economically to replace the tiles now, lest they be covered by epoxy flakes or stained by paint in the process of R&R renovations.
They expressed regret over not adequately informing residents of their decisions and processes, and said that they would put up notices in the vicinity to inform them.
Earlier this year, it was reported that a residents’ corner in Jurong had been abandoned by contractors for over two years.
The corner had been under construction for two months but was still incomplete, leading residents to believe that it had been abandoned.
Because of the debris scattered around the unfinished corner, residents had to take detours to get past the area.
Soil also flowed out from the area when it rained, making the void deck extremely dirty.
Older residents also lamented that they did not have a space to sit down and socialise, and when one resident tried to place chairs there for everyone to use, the chairs were stolen instead.