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Following renovation works by an upstairs neighbour, one Yishun resident's ceiling collapsed; he was allegedly also able to peer directly into his neighbour's floor through a coin-sized hole in the ceiling.

According to Lianhe Wanbao, the incident happened to a 35-year-old resident Wu, on May 10 afternoon, at level 8 of Block 751 on Yishun Street 72.

What happened

Wu told Wanbao that he'd first noticed ongoing renovation works at 1pm.

At around 3pm, he'd heard some rustling sounds from the kitchen, followed by a loud thump that sounded like a heavy object falling.

When Wu went to check it out, he was shocked to see his kitchen floor and chairs covered entirely in lime powder, along with larger chunks of concrete.

In an attempt to assess the damage, Wu had tried to sweep off some of the loose concrete pieces. A large slab of concrete had fallen from the ceiling, leaving behind a coin-shaped hole through which Wu could peer directly into his neighbour's apartment.

He'd subsequently contacted the contractors upstairs, who had informed him that their supervisor would be managing the situation.

According to Wu, however, the supervisor had later informed him that the contractors had been adhering to strict renovation guidelines, and that it was not their fault that the ceiling had collapsed.

He said that the situation was due to a phenomenon called "spalling concrete", which happened because the unit was old; this meant the situation had been "unavoidable".

S$1,000 compensation

Eventually, the contractors had agreed to compensate Wu about S$1,000 and repair the damage caused.

However, Wu pointed out that the compensation should have been more, to cover the job earnings he had lost out on when he stayed home to monitor the repair works.

He also alleged that the incident had resulted in psychological trauma for his mum, who had since been afraid to step into the kitchen.

Renovation company: Uncommon situation

The person-in-charge of the renovation works, Bai, 61, later explained that the "hole" was not directly caused by them.

He said that when the contractors had uncovered the floor tiles, they had already found a large number of broken concrete fragments.

Bai added that if they had not first cleared the fragments before paving a new floor, this would have resulted in a hollow one built.

Steel bars had subsequently been exposed in the process of clearing the broken fragments; it was at this point that they had stopped work and Wu had contacted them saying his ceiling had collapsed.

Bai said that in his 30 years of renovation experience, this kind of situation was uncommon - it was simply "bad luck" that it had happened.

Top image courtesy of Lianhe Wanbao