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South China Morning Post 2008-07-22
CITY3 | CITY
'I am worried the cockroaches will not come out of my ears'

Chau Kan-chuen is growing increasingly paranoid about the cubicle - the size of a walk-in closet - where he cooks and sleeps every day. The unemployed chef has battled with dozens of cockroaches, rats and other insects on his bed during many sleepless nights this summer.

"I am worried that the cockroaches will not come out if they get into my ears," the 58-year-old said.

When he suspects the insects have done so as he dozes, he rushes out of bed and washes his ears with water in the public bathroom, he said. Having lost his job three years ago, Mr Chau, like many on the city's margins, rented a cubicle in an old tenement in Sham Shui Po's Tai Po Road.

But this summer's rainfall and heat have brought an unusually large number of insects and rats (pictured, right) to his home, playing havoc with his sleep patterns. Some nights he wakes to find insects have climbed onto his bed. Because of the heat in the evening, he stays away from the room for as long as possible. It has two fans and two small windows facing traffic.

The Society for Community Organisation's Sze Lai-shan said the living conditions for residents of such cubicles had worsened because the government was doing little to maintain minimum standards.

Some residents had not benefited from recent inflation-relief measures, so they had to spend part of their government allowance to rent private housing, she said.

Living on a HK$2,400 social security allowance, Mr Chau normally spends less than HK$50 a day, as more than half of his allowance goes on rent. On tougher days he has to divide a small, HK$6 loaf of bread into three meals, and skip other meals to buy pesticides.

Mr Chau hopes he can get into public housing soon because he has used up all his savings while waiting for a place for more than three years.

Ms Sze said that before government officials set out policies, they should pay a visit to the "cage homes" to get a feeling of what it is like to live in one.