S'porean man in his 80s lived in pest-infested home with no water & electricity for over a decade, walked in rain to get clean

An elderly Singaporean man in his 80s was found living in appalling conditions when volunteers visited his home to help clean it up.

His apartment was found stacked floor-to-ceiling with hoarded trash, with cockroaches, lizards, centipedes and silverfish living in its midst.

The man also lacked running water, gas and electricity.

Dire conditions

Fion Phua, the founder of Keeping Hope Alive, the organisation that conducted the clean-up, described the dire conditions of the one-room flat in North Bridge Road in a Facebook post.

"In a world of AI, smart homes & high technology, this is happening in Singapore. Today," she wrote.

Photos attached to the post showed what appeared to be bags of trash, clothes and other household items occupying most of the walkway and bathroom, with little space left to move around.

Other clips also documented cracks in the ceiling, cockroaches found in a sink and a soiled toilet bowl, which Phua said had no water to flush.

According to her, the flat has had no water, electricity, gas and power for more than a decade.

"On his wall hangs a calendar, year is 2015. Time stopped there," she wrote.

The team of eight volunteers described finding cockroaches in the kitchen and toilet, while lizards occasionally fell on their heads from above, according to Shin Min Daily News.

They also found more than eight centipedes beneath a pile of newspapers, the biggest of which was 7cm to 8cm in length.

Due to the lack of water in the flat, the team had to fetch water in pails from neighbouring units, but eventually settled on using bottled water to clean the home.

The stench from the flat was so pervasive that neigbours covered their noses as they hurried past, Phua recalled.

Elderly occupant sleeps outside flat

Shin Min revealed that the home occupant, known only by his surname Wong, had lived in the flat since 1979 and now pays S$35 per month in rental.

When found by volunteers who were visiting each household in the block, he was sitting outside his flat barefoot, and his feet and toenails were blackened as they were caked in dirt.

With no space, bed or pillow in his house, he sleeps on the corridor just outside the unit.

Wong told volunteers that he simply washes his face in a public toilet instead of showering, and washes his clothes by walking in the rain and sitting under the sun to dry.

He had no memory of when he last brushed his teeth, he said.

According to Phua, he also smelled.

Formerly a coffee shop assistant, he is said to have received social assistance over a long period of time and is delivered meals by volunteers, but has rejected any interference in his daily habits.

While he initially rebuffed any help offered by Phua and other volunteers, even rejecting food and drinks, he eventually opened his home to them.

"After six hours of cleaning, what finally appeared was not furniture... not belongings... Just an elderly man skin & bones standing there with a very big smile," Phua wrote in her post.

"That smile hurts more than the sight of poverty. Because it tells us how long he has been forgotten."

According to Shin Min, she expressed her anguish at seeing the state of Wong's house, calling it one of the most heartbreaking cases she had ever encountered.

"Progress means nothing if we allow our elders to survive like this. Please look around. This could be happening next door," she urged on Facebook.

Top images via Fion Phua/Facebook