Sounds Familiar? - The problem is everywhere!

Residents tired of shoddy maintenance
REENA RAJ and SITI FATIMAH MD SAAD

THE repairs to the lifts servicing the Taman Miharja Phase Two apartments are entirely in the hands of the residents. A spokesman for Hokawai & Associates, which manages the 15-storey buildings, said if the residents want the lifts to be repaired, they should settle outstanding maintenance fees.

He said Hokawai was the sixth company to manage the place in the past 15 years.

Phase two comprises 10 blocks and poor maintenance had resulted in only one working lift in each block.

“And when the remaining lift breaks down as well, there will not be anything left. And that’s not all.

We have outstanding payments with Syabas and TNB, again because of the indifference of the residents.

Two weeks ago, a joint management committee was set up to discuss how best to address the problems.

A resident, Puah Kim Lai, said his latest bill reflected an outstanding charge of RM110, despite him having paid all his bills promptly.

He showed Malay Mail receipts of his previous payments until April.

“I never received the bill for May.

The next thing I knew, I got a bill for June and in it was an outstanding charge,” he said.

Another resident, who only wished to be known as Lim, said that the management office’s operating hours makes it difficult for them to pay the bills.

“They open from 9 to 5 while I work from 8am to 6pm. As such, I always miss the office hours.

“However, when I asked the management to open their office on weekends, they refused,” he said.

Residents also voiced their displeasure on other issues such as the indiscriminate parking of motor- cycles in front of the ground floor unit apartments, the presence of rats due to uncollected garbage, the poor quality of water, leaky water tanks and overall poor maintenance of the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai, adviser to the joint committee, said: “I’m sure if we all work together, an amicable solution can be found,” said Tan.

“The problem is most of the residents are tenants and the unit-owners are the ones who have not been paying the maintenance fees.”