Aljunied GRC Member of Parliament (MP) and Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh visited Eunos last evening to monitor the rodent situation in the area.
In a Facebook post on Thursday (12 September), Mr Singh stated that he visited the area with a bunch of people including his daughter, Town Council staff as well as his pest control contractor. The team embarked on this visit as Mr Singh got to know that there have been an increase in the number of burrows and rat sightings at some blocks in Eunos in the last few months, before a drop this month.
“There are always some rats in the estate at any given time. The presence of a food source at rubbish bins/chutes feed the problem. But the issue is aggravated by residents who feed pigeons and other animals too,” he wrote.
He added, “When the birds and pigeons etc. have eaten to their little hearts’ delight, the rats step forward.”
If that’s not all, some thoughtless residents also throw food out of their kitchen windows which adds to the problem, said Mr Singh. He noted that during their visit last evening, the team found bao on the pavement thrown by an inconsiderate resident.
In the beginning of this year, MP for Nee Soon GRC Lee Bee Wah said in Parliament that she wants the Agri-Food and Veterinary (AVA) to disallow cat feeders to leave food unattended for two hours in areas that have rat problem. This is because she found out that food left out for cats by cat feeders is a root cause for rat infestations in the neighbourhood.
“We found that the root cause is actually the food left behind by cat feeders. Several cat feeders, not just one, and when they walk away, the rats come and eat, the big cockroaches come and eat,” she said in her speech in Parliament.
Besides food left behind by residents in Eunos, Mr Singh also mentioned the that high volume of repair works done at HDB carparks is also another reason why there’s an increase of rat sightings in the area.
“The HDB has been carrying out major carpark repair works at most of the open carparks in Eunos – the construction drilling/vibration could also have displaced rats resulting in more frequent sightings,” he explained.
As such, he said that the Town Council will inform the HDB carpark upgrading contractor “to carry out rodent treatment at common areas under their control”.
Separately,the MP also stated in his post that his daughter was really excited to be part of last evening’s “adventure”. He noted that she innocently thought that the rats that she will be seeing will be the cute white ones that are usually drawn in books. However, her thought changed after “she saw a nice big fat rat crawl into a blue recycling bin from a hole at the bottom of the bin”.
“Apart from a conversation about Mr Cockroach and Mr Rat on the ride home, my daughter and I talked about always respecting the aunties and uncles who keep our homes and country clean. We must always help them by disposing our litter properly and being grateful to them for the honest work they do,” Mr Singh said.
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