City Hall gets tough with Luyang houseowner
Published on: Thursday, June 30, 2022
By: Sidney Skinner
Vines hang down every which way in the yard making it look like a ‘nature reserve’.
City Hall is preparing to take legal action against a Luyang homeowner who has failed to comply with repeated calls to clean up her compound.Since September, City Hall inspectors have gone to the premises nine times.
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Their counterparts from the Kota Kinabalu Health Office (KKHO) were present during one of these checks.
Five notices – including one from the KKHO – have, so far, been served to the rate-payer who lives there.
The latest of these was put up near the front gate to the residence earlier this month.
The placard with this City Hall document was nowhere to be found a week later and the house was apparently still a mess.
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A spokesman for the City Hall’s Legal Department said a police report would be made about the public nuisance posed by the property, before the case was registered in court.
The interior of the house is littered with bags of waste.
“We are considering the possibility of moving in to clean up the rate-payer’s yard ourselves,” he said on June 29.
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“The cost of this work will be folded into her assessment, if this is done.
“We have given the homeowner more than enough opportunities to keep her word but, to date, she has failed to make good on her verbal assurances to our personnel.”
The spokesman said the individual risked having to settle a fine for as much as RM1,000, serve a jail term of up to six-months or both, if she was found guilty in court.
This action could be taken under section 49(c) of the Local Government Ordinance 1961, according to him.
The spokesman was responding to pleas from a group of rate-payers who were unhappy about the condition of the home in Taman Kinabalu
These individuals were concerned about the poor cleanliness of the compound and stench coming from the premises.
Several homeowners petitioned the local authorities to intervene on this problem in September.
A spokeswoman for City Hall’s Health and Environment Department (HED) said personnel from the Luyang Community Development Leader’s Unit (CDLU) were on hand when the house was first inspected in early September.
“One of our Health Inspectors could not take the whiff coming from whatever was inside the bags of rubbish,” she said.
“The two masks, covering his nose and mouth, did little to dull the strong smell and, for a time, he considered putting on a third one in the hopes that this would reduce the discomfort he felt.”
The placard with City Hall’s notice is seen near the front gate to the house with the badly overgrown greenery.
She said the CDLU representative, meanwhile, could not get over the sight of the overgrown branches and creepers spilling over from the property.
“The perimeter fence could not be seen and, if the homeowner had not been present, there would have been some difficulty locating the entrance to the land as the front gate was partly hidden by the unkempt greenery.”
She said the occupant of the residence was asked about these irregularities.
“The homeowner explained that the bags contained food scraps which she was turning into compost. She told the group that the egg shells, among this waste, released an uncomfortable odour when they were broken down.
“As for the trees and plants which had overrun the compound, she claimed that these were ‘herbs’ which she was growing.”
City Hall staff gave her a verbal warning to clean up her home before they left.
The spokeswoman said five KKHO officers joined HED staff for another inspection a few days later.
“KKHO personnel served the homeowner with a ‘Notis pungutan jentik-jentik (mosquito larvae collection notice)’.
“Samples were later taken of the fluids found in the flower pots and other containers in her yard.”
She said City Hall had the premises and housing road fogged the next afternoon.
City Hall officers from its Health and Legal Departments getting ready to put up the notice in June.
Despite initially agreeing to dispose of any unwanted items and tidy her yard, the spokeswoman said the rate-payer failed to do this.
The homeowner also did not attend to the overgrown trees and plants on her property, according to her.
“A team from our Landscaping Department pruned the branches, which were hanging over the fence towards the end of September.”
A spokesman for this Department said Landscaping officers were working together with City Hall’s legal team to begin court proceedings against 71 negligent individuals, like this one in Taman Kinabalu.
“We recommend that rate-payers have the grass in their yards cut at least once a month so that their property does not become a nuisance to the others living in their areas,” he said.
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