Foreigners living in 3-storey shop house behind 38 Bidara service apartment throws rubbish all over roof top and awning.
SANDWICHED between a posh condominium and a five-star hotel in the heart of Bukit Bintang’s Golden Triangle sits a four-storey flats.
The 40-year-old building in Jalan Bedara, has no name, only numbers written in red on the door of each unit.
Clothes hanging out to dry along the balconies are unsightly, but what annoys the locals is the unhygienic way that rubbish is being disposed of by the flats’ inhabitants.
Rubbish is strewn all over the roof tops and awnings of the flats.
From the looks of it, some of the rubbish has been left to rot for months.
“When it rains, the rubbish is washed into the drains and the water no longer flows properly because the drains are clogged with rubbish,” said a resident of Bidara Service Apartment, who wished to remain anonymous.
“Majority of the occupants of the flats are foreign workers, and I have seen them throwing rubbish from the balconies,” said the resident.
“Despite telling them not to do so, they continue to litter. It is unacceptable,” added the resident.
People working in the restaurants nearby have also complained about the rubbish, saying that it is a never-ending problem.
“Alam Flora has provided a huge bin at the ground floor of the flats, but it is hardly utilised.
“They (the residents) prefer to throw it from the balcony,” said a worker.
“The stink of the rotting rubbish gets worse after heavy rain and sometimes, we have no choice but to bear with the smell,” he added.
StarMetro approached an Alam Flora worker who was sweeping the alley between the flats and restaurant, and asked him about the rubbish.
He had a speech problem and was not able to communicate properly in words, but he kept pointing up and jabbing the ground with his broom in a dejected manner. Clearly, he was frustrated.
A restaurant worker told StarMetro that the Alam Flora worker was fed up with the foreign workers for throwing rubbish from their balconies.
Residents from the neighbouring apartments want the authorities to do something about the problem and even suggested that Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) issue fines to the owners of the flats.
“They (owners) have to bear some responsibility over the situation. Even though they are paying assessment fees, the situation is going from bad to worse,” said a resident, who only wished to be known as Tee.
StarMetro recently highlighted that migrant workers were contributing to the large amounts of rubbish in the city.
Quoting Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, the waste company said it had compiled a list of top 10 rubbish hot spots in the city which contributed to some 100 tonnes of domestic waste per day.
The waste company has found a correlation between the hot spots and an overwhelmingly large population of foreign migrant workers. Areas such as Bukit Bintang, Chow Kit and Petaling Street, which have a large concentration of foreign workers, were generating huge amounts of rubbish that end up in landfills or clogging our drains and rivers.
The waste company has since contacted the Bangladesh and Malaysia Business Association Kuala Lumpur to find ways to resolve the rubbish crisis in Kuala Lumpur.
