zirhk3355

Does it make sense to you? If not, stay away. Don't go for things that 'sounds good', because that's your greed controlling you. Go for things that 'makes sense', because that's your brain controlling you.

I suspected the list of unit nos had contributed towards changing the brand of the toilet bowls, and some of us did get calls from HDB. Maybe when you filled up the form you can put that you had already tried to contact them but no avail; maybe that will make them react faster.

I am not sure about you guys but when I submitted the maintenance request form on MyHDBPage, they called up within two days, came over to see the toilet bowl the following day and confirmed to change by next week. I dun think they are doing it because its me, cuz the HDB officer only recognised me when he came up to my flat. BTW, all our officers are different; for Blk 89 is Mr Teo, Blk 91 is Mr Tan while Blk 90 is another guy. The other people (eg Peter) maybe the contractors... Those who don't get response can try login to MyHDBPage and call your respective officers; their DID are displayed in the Flat Details page.

My chiller is EuropAce, not really sure if this is the one that is causing my bills to be high; but I just suspect my aircon usage lah. After reading countrylover's reply, I think I am really the worst off here; they cook everyday and have no aircon! We don't cook and we don't stay in the flat like half the time...

So happy - my toilet bowls will be changed next week! Hopefully they turn out to be better...

What an apt way to describe reits! I also do not buy the idea of reit because it had undermined the traditional landlord-tenant relationship, which is usually fostered as a win-win business venture. Look at the properties that had been 'reit-ed', they are just like a big black hole sucking profits, pushing up rental rates to crazy levels, while being very stingy on costs to upgrade the buildings. From investor's POV, you had said it right, all the reit till now had yet to be proven as a worthwhile investment, usually only speculators would take a second look at them.

Precisely because recession already so govt must earn more mah! Merchants have to lower their prices to keep their customers, but govt no need; you dowan PUB services then you go use candles, charcoal and collect rainwater lor...

There are MLS that you need to pay to use, so usually only agents would have access to it because we laymen won't pay and learn to use such systems when we only need to buy/sell one property. SISV also has one, which is called e-Office or PowerDesQ, where they engaged with various agencies to subscribe for their agents. Inside you can find property data like past transacted prices, caveats, etc on top of currently for sale. Another popular brand in the market now is Homebiz (for residential) and Bizfile (for commercial), which is done by a company called Hiwire. Besides listings, they are marketing tools for agents to search for owners' names, tel/fax and addresses. Lastly, all reputable big agencies also have their own internal database where agents will input their properties' data that they want to sell/buy, so that they can co-broke with each other. Now, I duno why your agent friend does not want to reveal to you; all above are no secret at all.

Sh*t, seemed like something is wrong with countrylover and my utilities' usage. My wife did try to switch off some appliances when not in use, I would say most of them, but some like the alarm clock is very troublesome to off and re-set the time when switch in again. Oh ya I forgot I also got a wine chiller, but small one leh, 18 bottles only.

Wahh, your usage is almost the same as me, except my TV being turned on abit more often, maybe 5-6hrs everyday. I only turn on the living room's aircon when there are guests around, which is not often, maybe once a month or every two/three months. Is $130+ your usual bill? Over how long? My total bill over the past 6 months is $170-$200.

Just got my bill last night, $210. I am in a 5-room flat, every night use aircon in MBR from about 8-9pm onwards. But daytime between 8+am to 6+pm, nobody will be at home, only the fridge is running. Maybe we should check on the graph at the back which tells us about our actual consumption. I noticed that my gas consumption is far above national average, but electricity is slightly above average and water is below average. Maybe i should re-consider using this stupid gas water heater, but then again my bill for gas is only about $30+, how much can I save...? Haiz...

Cleaner is to be environmental-friendly, looks good for corporate image and maybe save taxes. Cheaper fuel for their costs, but they never say they want to pass on to you mah. They will probably give you 'token' reduction by $0.05 lor...see how the petrol kiosks are doing in reaction to the drop in crude oil prices you will know what I meant. I saw a very nice argument in ST Forum the other day; someone mentioned even without a gas index, surely you know how much you are paying for your raw materials? Its quite beyond me that for such a big firm, there is no costing forecast, but when they charge us they can based on usage estimate on alternate months. By saying there is no gas index to peg electricity prices is like saying "there is no market price so I can charge whatever I want, but to be more convincing I shall pretend to peg to SOMETHING lah, in which case I shall choose to peg to the more expensive fuel oil index instead of crude oil for obvious reasons". So I wonder what will happen if crude oil prices become more expensive than fuel oil, would they switch and say now we are going to peg to crude oil, since there is still no gas index? Haha...Wed morning grouse...

As long as the govt believes, we will believe. That's Singaporeans for you. And apparently the govt still does, as mentioned above, HDB is still upping their new flats' prices, so I do not think the resale market will let loose. And reasonably so, because with recession, the first hit would be luxury properties, then mid-range, then low-range, THEN HDB flats. Everyone down the line must try to pull back the market until cannot tahan then let go. Like in mahjong, the last player must 'guard', otherwise everyone will lose. In reality, now properties prices for mid-range condos are sliding, but 99-year condos at faraway places like Woodlands and Loyang are still calling above $700K for 3-bedroom units (meaning they are trying to pull up the market price). So I do not see why HDB flats will go down anytime soon. Maybe end of next year, but not now...

I am quite amazed by this: “You don't pay a single cent until you receive your print and are completely happy. We will gladly send you prints from your own images without the need for upfront payment. Unless you are 100% happy with the result, contact us and we will arrange for them to be returned. We will even pay the return freight. Our guarantee is unconditional. It doesn't matter if you change your mind, decide you don't like the picture, or have stopped seeing the friend in the photo. Unless you are happy, we are not happy. " http://www.brilliantprints.com.sg/guarantee.html I am really not advertising for them (had never used their service and first time hearing about them), but I really amazed. You don't find such service-oriented guarantee in Singapore every other day...

You probably caught the officer at the last hour of his shift, cursing and swearing at this extra paperwork that made him stayed back late or something. Don't care lor, just take your report and go. I am going to be very candid with you; since you are not willing to do anything, then of course you can only wait for another splashing, then make another police report, then the next splashing again, and the next, and the next...what else?? Would you want the police to give away YOUR address to someone else? Now, again I need to be very candid here, how would you feel if the police called you up, telling you, "Hello, this police ah. Your friend don't stay at this address liao hor. You don't go disturb the people there ah. We don't have evidence that you disturb lah, we don't know if its really you who disturb lah, anyway we cannot charge you in court and we cannot order you to do anything, but just telling you your friend don't stay there anymore and you don't go disturb lor." Funny? I don't think so, my friend. But correct me if I am wrong, you are expecting the police to tell the LS this?? There are ALOT of things that YOU can do for your own personal problem; I am really surprised that with all the information you had gotten and all suggestions here, the matter had came to this stage and not ended yet. Like abovementioned, someone already suggested that you can tell ICA about the unauthorised person/s who still have your address on the NRIC. And since it is an offence not to change address, ICA will have to go after the person. Second, you HAVE the ability to find out what is the ex-owner's new address, but you do not want to do it because you do not want to be 'implicated'. But wait a minute, you are ALREADY implicated now, isn't it? So what are we talking about here? Collaboration? Abetment to 'crime'?? All you are doing is to refer seekers who are looking for the ex-owner to the right address! That is NOT an abetment to crime! But finding the MP, writing to the media, etc would probably let you raise a racket for awhile, make the police sit up for awhile, but that is still not going to solve your own personal problem. LS have alot of runners, even with CCTV and one get caught, they send another one after you, and probably even worse because this new one angry that you made his 'brother' go to jail. I cannot emphasise this more: This is a personal problem, not a society problem; you need to solve it yourself. Hope you understand, sorry for my bluntness and I wish you luck... Have you ever calculated how much of the tax you pay goes into the salary of the policeman? If you can have the police to come solve your personal problem, then isn't those rich men who pay tens of thousands dollars tax can get a platoon of policemen to guard their house for free? Wahh then lydat all the bodyguards, cisco and security companies no job liao lor...?

Can you post the group address here for us to join?

deepavali is right; I sold my MBR door to someone in the forum too and end up they got so much problems in fixing it up. BTW just to let you guys know, we had an impromptu steamboat dinner last Sunday, total 6 attendees, jule+hubby, cartoon_wayne+wifey and myself+wifey. End up watching superband with some great wines. Will post up the pics soon... We must have this more often!

Erm, what's wrong with calling now and ask when? The onus of this is on the developer/contractor themselves, whether they want to provide such extra mile service. Some kiasee ones may fear complications in future, like you regret your choice and hold it against them to rectify the works, etc. Others may just detest the bothersome paperwork and don't entertain. So you won't know unless you call and ask, right?

First just see if your SCV points got that Starhub sticker or not. Second and the easiest way is to just plug in the box and see if can watch lor! And anyway, its free to connect the SCV cable.

Yup - accordingly, the SCV point was done up by HDB, whom connected it to the antenna. Only SCV's authorised contractors can come and connect your point to the SCV cable. And because HDB build so many flats, they do not connect up every flat, but only when owner calls them, because some people do not want SCV so the antenna would be good enough. If they just ask you to shift over the modem then maybe your unit is already connected lor. For my case, the SCV's contractor open up the service door outside my house to do the connection, then come in to test every single point. If the signal is good, they will paste a sticker over it. Thanks for the pic! Why would anyone pay more for black toilet bowl; can just use this mahh...

No need, but you have to tell them you want to subscribe lah. And since you subscribe liao they will surely come and do it for you. What do you mean one piece...??

Why don't you approach those art schools like NAFA or LaSalle about this? What I did with them before was very interesting; I needed to create a signboard for my F&B outlet plus a small re-branding exercise (eg logos, corporate colours, letterheads, namecards' designs, etc) and I approached one of these art school. Just so happened that the semester was just starting and the teacher decided to make my 'job' the final year project for the students. They will compete with each other to come up with the design, judged by a panel of judges including the teachers and myself. The top winner gets $1000 cash, which will be sponsored by me. Cheap way to get some creativity done here, plus it benefited the school and students with a real-life project. But of course don't expect professional outcome lah...

Have you gotten SCV to come activate your points yet? Otherwise you will be receiving signals via the antenna on the top of our blocks. My TV reception was bad also when I depended on the antenna, but after activating SCV it becomes very good. Welcome neighbour!! Any pics for your toilet bowl??

Why don't you call the developer and see how far you can customise your property? Sometimes they may even accommodate your contractors to go in and do works before handing over, so that you don't have to wait too long. Asking them not to do certain works (eg u mentioned not to lay the tiles) is usually ok, cuz can save money of cuz they will try to accommodate!

If you are doing this to make your house a DREAM HOME, then its the way to go. But if you are hoping that this method will save you money, DREAM ON. There are not much savings when you go to one contractor to do what the ID wanted, because usually contractor gives 'free' ID advice anyway. So that ID fees would be additional to you. Also, if you go to multiple contractors, the liaison would be a nightmare; when something goes wrong, fingers are going to start pointing and no one will take ownership. That will surely generate more costs for you.