Woman claims Jurong West 'pig pen' flat has at least 14 tenants

A woman whose older sister was a tenant in a three-room flat in Jurong West says the unit was rented to at least 14 people, and that living conditions there were akin to a "pig pen".

Ms Liu, 41, who works in the beauty industry, told Shin Min Daily News that the flat was divided into four rooms to house the tenants who all shared a single bathroom.

It was only after her sister moved in that she realised the flat was overcrowded and unsanitary, she added.

Maximum occupancy for flats between six and eight

Authorities previously announced a temporary relaxation of the rental occupancy limit. From 2024 to 2026, flats of four rooms and larger are allowed to house up to eight people, up from the usual cap of four.

However, the housing capacity for smaller flats remains unchanged, with the maximum number of tenants remaining at six.

Ms Liu told Shin Min that her sister urgently needed a place to stay when she arrived in Singapore in mid-August for work.

Through a friend's introduction, she rented a bed space in a unit on the second floor of Block 501 Jurong West Street 51 for $450 per month.

Pressed by her employer and anxious to secure a flat close to her workplace, she paid the landlord a total of $900 for a month's rent and a deposit, without even viewing the property.

'Not a place for human beings to live'

"There are four rooms in total. Two of them have six people living in each, another one has a man and a woman living in it, and it's unclear how many people live in the last one," said Ms Liu.

Based on the images she provided, the unit is divided by partitions, leaving only narrow walkways for access. Clothes and towels hang from the living room and kitchen windows, while the walls and bathroom floors are coated in grime.

One room contains three bunk beds, with towels or sheets hung over the lower bunks as makeshift curtains. Ms Liu also described the unit as extremely cluttered, with more than 10 pairs of shoes and several suitcases stacked in the hallway, and the refrigerator packed with sauce bottles and other miscellaneous items.

"I went in and saw it myself, and I felt it was not a place for human beings to live. The environment was terrible," she said, adding that her sister moved out of the flat after just 10 days.

Tenants left without keys

Ms Liu said that the tenants did not have their own keys. The main key to the flat was hidden outside, allowing outsiders to enter and exit freely, while tenants were forbidden from opening the windows.

She added that while her sister's bed was in the master bedroom, she could not use the attached toilet and had to share a toilet at the back of the unit with the other tenants. "The air in the room has not been circulated for a long time, and there is a stuffy smell. The toilet outside is very dirty, and you have to queue up to shower and wash up."

When reporters visited the unit on Sept 18, a woman in pajamas was seen entering. She claimed she was not a resident before quickly shutting the door. With the window facing the common corridor shut or blocked by windows and curtains, the interior of the flat could not be seen.

Nearby residents were also unaware of how many people were living in the unit. Block 501 itself has four stories, with restaurants and shops on the ground floor, and residential units on floors two through four.

A Shin Min reporter subsequently reached a woman calling herself Xixi, who initially acknowledged renting out the flat but retracted her statement upon learning of the reporter's identity.

When asked if she was aware that renting a HDB flat to multiple tenants is illegal, she declined to answer and abruptly ended the call.