RUBBISH thrown from the upper floors, including the odd flowerpot and dirty water, is part of life for residents living on the lower floors at the public housing (PPR) flats in Padang Tembak, Penang.

From learning to ignore the din from noisy neighbours to shutting themselves in their units to escape the unruliness in the common space, most have learnt to live with their lot.

“Some neighbours don’t care. They ride their bicycles on the narrow corridor, crash into others’ doors; toss rubbish down from their floors, and make noise in the early morning hours,” said a PPR resident who only wanted to reveal his surname, Tham.

But the widower in his 60s, who is childless, said he could not afford to live elsewhere and, therefore, has learnt to live with the inconveniences.

“You tell them not to do it, but they will still do it. So, you learn to bear with it. You can’t grumble much when the rent is so cheap. What else you want?” Tham said. 

Two of the nine-block Padang Tembak flats are rented out as public housing units to the poor while the remaining blocks are privately owned.

Loh Eng Kim from the Padang Tembak village development and security committee (JKKK) said despite advice, warnings and threats, many of the PPR tenants continue to disregard community living.

“I don’t know why they do this? Don’t they know they are breaking the rules as PPR tenants?

“Just the other night, some got into fights over a fallen flower pot. People making noise, getting into fights are normal there.

“Sometimes they settle their differences quickly. Other times, the police will be called and someone will be detained,” said Loh, who has lived in Padang Tembak since 1971.

Like Tham, PPR resident Deborah Subramaniam said she, too, is resigned to the unpleasantness that is part and parcel of living in a low-cost public housing unit.

While having to watch out for objects thrown from higher floors has become a way of life for Deborah and her neighbours, she said the flats have yet to report any serious injury as result of falling objects.

“Yes, there are such disturbances. We don’t have serious cases. Quarrels, noises, the rubbish problem… those are normal. 

“But there are also nice people living here. You just have to avoid the not-so-nice ones.”

Deborah, who moved into the PPR flat seven years ago with her husband to take care of her mother, said she deals with the problems by trying to stay indoors as much as possible.

“Life here is okay. We just take care of ourselves. Do what is right. If you see others doing bad things, you don’t join them. 

“When I come home from work or from church, I just stay indoors and mind my own business,” she told The Malaysian Insight. 

The Padang Tembak flats in Air Itam were the country’s first low-cost high-rise housing development.

Once known as the Rifle Range flats, the project was planned and developed under the administration of the first Penang chief minister, the late Wong Pow Nee, whose tenure ended in 1969, and completed in the early 1970s in the days of his successor, the late Dr Lim Chong Eu.

The project has nine 17- and 18-floor blocks – A to J – with 3,699 units in total. Residents pay RM30 rent each month for 30 years before owning their units under the hire-purchase scheme.

Units are tiny with an average size of 340 sq ft. They come with only one bedroom. Corner units are slightly bigger and have two rooms.

Today, some 480 units in blocks E and J are rented out as PPR units to those with a combined household income of under RM1,500 a month.

Tragedy waiting to happen

Earlier this month, a 14-year-old was killed by a chair flung from the 21st floor of the Seri Pantai PPR flats in Kuala Lumpur.

While no incident of such severity has yet to take place at the Padang Tembak PPR flats, Loh from the JKKK said with the lackadaisical attitude of the residents, it was just a matter of time before a tragedy happens.

He recounted how people have tossed leftover food, empty beer cans and bottles, and plastic water bottles over their balconies and corridors and how a tenant once kept a dog and a chicken in the flat.

“The animals did their business on the balcony, so how do you think the tenant cleaned after them? He has been told by the landlord to move.

“Those who litter and do things that endanger others and cause property damage are hard to catch. But even if they are caught, what can you do to them?”

Loh said he once caught and told off a child for littering, and all he got was angry stares from the father, who was not even embarrassed.

“If you don’t teach them right when they are small, when do you start?”

When asked why many PPR residents are prone to such anti-social behaviours, developmental sociology expert Professor Rahimah Abdul Aziz of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia said there are many factors at play, but poverty and lack of education could be a possible consideration.

“There may not be one clear reason. It could be due to a host of interrelated reasons – the personal and the social.

“We can only guess and assume, but it is difficult to generalise without understanding the context.

“Studies have to be done to link poverty, lack of education and other factors to anti-social behaviour,” she said.

But for Loh, it all boils down to a couldn’t-care-less attitude.

While most residents at the PPR units are elderly, it is the younger, newer tenants who show the least civic consciousness, he said.

Gotong-royong programmes are organised annually at the flats, but such events would get poor response from residents, he said.

Those who end up doing the cleaning up would be the Padang Tembak JKKK members, their counterparts from four other JKKKs in Kebun Bunga, and council workers.

“Residents don’t participate. If we get volunteers, they are often the older residents, not the younger ones.

“The problem is the people’s mentality. It has nothing to do with whether they’re poor or not,” he said. – February 2, 2018.