By Amanda Yong

THE RAT was caught in the glue trap, but it managed to struggle free and left some of its skin behind.

The strip of furry rat skin stuck on the trap was what greeted Madam Yati, 45, when she turned up at her cooked food stall at the temporary Geylang Serai Market one morning.

Madam Yati, whose stall is in the same row as the Indian rojak stall at the centre of a food poisoning case, said that on another morning, her workers came to work and found the food covers and utensils overturned.

She blamed it on the scores of rats that appear every night.

'We had to throw away all the food that day,' she said.

Madam Yati's assistant also showed The New Paper two plastic baskets with rat-bitten holes between 8cm and 10cm wide.

The assistant said the rat problem had worsened in the past year, pointing to the large drains surrounding the market as one of the probable reasons.

She said that cleaners sent by the National Environment Agency (NEA) found a nest of rats yesterday.

'They were cleaning the drains when they discovered some baby rats among some clothes in the drains,' she said.

Madam Yati and her workers have also seen rats scurrying around on roof beams and rafters at night.

But, they hastened to add, the rat situation at the temporary market is better than at the original Geylang Serai market, which has been demolished. The temporary market has been in operation for three years.

'It was much worse at the original market. Over there, the rats were so big that the cats were scared of them,' Madam Yati's assistant said.

She said she had complained about the rat problem to the temporary market's management office.

Other stallholders had their own rat stories.

Mr Mohd Ishak, 29, who helps out at his father's thosai and drinks stalls, said that a few months ago, a few rats even emerged during lunchtime.

'The customers were screaming and running away when they saw the rats,' he said.

But one stallholder dismissed the rat problem as common to all markets.

'All markets have rats, especially those with wet markets,' Mr Abdul Jaffar, 32, said, pointing to the wet market section which sells fresh food items and dried goods.

Lianhe Wanbao reported about the rat problem last week.

Meanwhile, the Geylang Serai Temporary Market's management committee has decided to bring forward the spring-cleaning exercise from its original scheduled period of between 13 and 14 Apr to today and tomorrow.

All stallholders will be required to clean their stalls, said the National Environment Agency (NEA).

A spokesman for NEA said the committee is responsible for the upkeep and cleanliness of the temporary market and it carries out periodic spring-cleaning exercises.

She added: 'The hygiene standards of stalls at the temporary market remain satisfactory. NEA will continue to keep a close surveillance of the hygiene standards of the stalls.'

The stallholders said they were informed of the clean-up by the NEA at a meeting yesterday afternoon. They also received a letter informing them about the spring-cleaning exercise.

The letter stated that pest control works will be carried out during this period.

It read that stallholders would be 'required to clean up your own stalls thoroughly and discard all unwanted articles'. Stallholders were also asked to attend a talk on 'proper housekeeping and hygiene matters' at the Kampong Ubi Community Centre tomorrow afternoon.

Five stallholders told The New Paper that this would be the first time the temporary market would be closing down completely for spring-cleaning in its three years of operation.

Mr Abdul Jaffar said: 'They used to clean the old market once every four months.'

Seven stallholders said their sales had dropped between 30 and 40per cent from what they typically earn on a Tuesday.

Sales down

Madam Yati said her takings had plunged by about 50 per cent.

'I would usually finish selling about 300 bowls of laksa by this time (5pm), but now I've sold only 200 bowls.

'Because of that, I cannot close my stall.'

Mr Mohd Ishak said: 'Everyone here has been affected. But it's an immediate reaction. I think that things will go back to normal after a while.'

DIRTY FOOD? DEMERIT POINTS

FOUR CASES A YEAR
OVER the past three years, there was an average of four food poisoning incidents linked to hawker centre stalls a year.

In each incident, an average of three people were affected.

FINES, DEMERITS
ENFORCEMENT action will be taken against stallholders for public health offences. It will lead to a fine, plus demerit points.

Under the points demerit system, licensees who accumulate 12 or more demerit points within a 12-month period will have their licences suspended. Recalcitrant stallholders may have their stall licences revoked.

INSPECTIONS
DURING inspections, NEA officers will look out for hygiene lapses, such as handling food with bare hands and failing to keep the stall clean.

Those who wish to provide feedback on any hygiene lapses may contact NEA at this 24-hour hotline: 18002255632.

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This article was first published in The New Paper.

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