Fok Moi

A client of ours seems to have cornered the market in bad leases. Or rather, difficult landlords. They've got a top executive living in Survivor Treehouse, a $30,000 per month bungalow where the roof leaks in 3 places when it rains, 5 doors cannot close at all, water drips out of their lights, the walls sweat water in rivulets and bats fly in and out of the house like its their private reserve. Not to mention one room in the house has an airconditioner so noisy that it's impossible to use the room at all.

To which the landlord responds:

1. Avoid using the noisy room. There are so many rooms in the house after all.
2. Bats enhance the 'country-living' atmosphere and should not be regarded as pests.
3. Singapore is a humid place, so it's inevitable that walls and lights drip water.
4. Door cannot close is not my problem.
5. My contractor says the roof shouldn't be leaking.

Also the CCTV for the front gate leads up to a computer with no hard drive. Landlord response? The hard drive isn't mentioned in the inventory list of the lease, so they are under no obligation to supply it.

Hello? If I was the Landlord getting a cool $30,000 per month by GIRO like fucking clockwork from a MNC tenant, I won't even bother getting out of bed in the morning. I'll just lie in bed, or in my pool the whole damn day with the handphone next to me in case my precious tenant needs anything. If they want me to serve tea, hell yeah, what time should I drop by? If I have to shoot the bats down one by one, yeah, I'll be the sniper living on the roof for the next 10 days. Me and my husband. And my mother.

This morning another problem comes up - a different landlord for a $12,000 apartment refuses to refund their deposit. No reason. Just refuses to take their calls. In an effort to track down the Landlord, I've just gone through an endless list of individuals in Singapore named "Fok". No success, but I did come across an individual named "Fok Moi". Yeah, well Fok Moi too.