Workers’ Party (WP) politician, Yee Jenn Jong on Saturday (27 Mar) shared the plight of an elderly lady living in a “terrible and unlivable mess” in her Eunos Crescent flat after being unable to walk due to her legs being scalded with hot water.
According to Mr Yee, he was alerted to the lady’s case by the WP’s food IC in the area.
Mr Yee and his team visited the lady’s house and found that it was in “a terrible and unlivable mess” when they were delivering food to her.
Mr Yee credited a Catholic welfare group that had already laid the groundwork in clearing the lady’s bedroom. From there, the WP team took over and cleaned up the rest of the flat.
“We took over and for the next 3.5 hours, we had to dig and scrape the floor of the living room and kitchen which had paper and cardboards fused with the floor.
“After scraping off as much of the paper off the floor, then we could flush off the dirt. We killed off several hundreds of cockroaches. Behind the doors and fridge, fat lizards would jump at us. The smell was so unbearable at the start we were literally choking as we went along,” Mr Yee recalled.
Mr Yee also mentioned that over 10 trash bags had to be disposed of and the town council had to be called to assist. Mr Yee accounted that “even the cleaner was stunned with the mess, took pictures and called his supervisor to come and help”.
While Mr Yee said that the flat is now habitable, there was still more work to be done. He also said that a pest exterminator will be called by the Catholic welfare group and more cleaning will also need to be done another day.
Mr Yee expressed his horror that an old lady had to live like that for so long.
“I shudder to think how an old lady could be living in such a state for so long. Glad to see the catholic group coming here too and thankful for the help of our volunteers who were not deterred by the smell, cockroaches and sheer mess,” he said.
Netizens praised Mr Yee him and his team for stepping forward to assist the elderly lady despite the gruelling work they had to put in to make the elderly lady’s flat habitable again.
Others questioned why the Marine Parade GRC People’s Action Party (PAP) Members of Parliament (MPs) were not doing anything about the matter before the Catholic welfare group and the WP team stepped in.
Some also queried why Mayors did not step in to help.
Others questioned why the elderly lady’s neighbours had not helped earlier.
