Volunteers clean elderly woman's cluttered Bedok flat, find coins worth thousands of dollars & gold chains

A 70-year-old woman, who had lived in a cluttered three-room flat in Bedok for years, was in for a surprise when volunteers helping to clear her home found thousands of dollars in coins and several gold chains buried amid the clutter.

The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, has been living in the flat with her younger sister for more than a decade.

According to Chinese-language daily Shin Min Daily News, the pair had depended on each other after their parents died, but the home gradually became filled with clutter following their mother's death more than 10 years ago.

Plastic bags containing electrical appliances, cardboard boxes, clothes and other items piled up over time, eventually leaving only a narrow path through the flat.

"Even our bedroom was packed with bags, both on the inside and outside, making it difficult to enter," the woman said, adding that the sisters had even lost track of what was inside some of the bags.

Cleanup efforts

On Jun. 6, volunteers from AMKSS Social Move, a ground-up community initiative founded by Michael Sim, alongside a group of Ang Mo Kio Secondary School alumni, stepped in to help, Shin Min reported.

The group, comprising between 20 and 30 volunteers, and more than 10 others from the town council, spent about eight hours sorting through and clearing out the flat, going through the bags and sorting out items that could be discarded.

It was during this process that volunteers found a stash of coins, believed to weigh upwards of 10kg in total, along with gold chains that had belonged to the woman's late mother.

"If it weren't for this big clean-up, I would never have known that these items existed," the woman said. "It was a pleasant surprise, and I am very grateful to Sim and the team for their help."

"I've been living in such an environment for years"

According to Shin Min, the woman said her younger sister, who suffers from depression and poor health, had increasingly hoarded items in recent years.

She said the room sometimes smelled of urine and that there were bedbugs in the house.

"I've asked her to clean it, but she won't listen. I've been living in such an environment for years, and I feel very helpless," she said.

The woman further added that she had resorted to sleeping in the toilet for several months to avoid being bitten by bedbugs.

Sim said the clean-up was prompted after the younger sister was hospitalised earlier this month.

A hospital social worker who learned of the sisters' living conditions then contacted his group for help.

"The situation at their home was very serious, and I was worried about potential safety hazards, so I made arrangements immediately," he said.

It took about five visits to the flat, including for pest control, before the home was cleaned up to its current state.

Sim added that further repairs are still needed, such as repainting the walls and replacing doors and cabinets, with volunteers having covered about S$2,000 in costs out of pocket so far.

In a Facebook post, AMKSS Social Move said the clean-up, which was supported by East Coast Town Council, the Housing and Development Board (HDB), as well as the New Environment Action Team (NEAT), had transformed the woman's home into "a safer, cleaner and more comfortable living environment".