Tenants' worst nightmare: Rat menace at Pearls Centre

Tenants' worst nightmare: Rat menace at Pearls Centre
PHOTO: Tenants' worst nightmare: Rat menace at Pearls Centre

SINGAPORE - A rat infestation at Pearls Centre has gotten so bad that a ceiling board collapsed on Wednesday, causing 8 rats to drop on shoppers and tenants below.

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Tenants on the third floor of the Chinatown commercial complex told Lianhe Wanbao that they have been plagued by a rat problem for more than a year.

The rats have dug holes in the toilets and bitten electrical wires. They are also often seen scurrying down the hallways at night.

According to the paper, the rat problem is the worst on the third floor.

An employee of a travel agency said that tenants do not dare to use the toilets as it is not only dirty and foul-smelling, it is also infested with rest. They would rather use a toilet further away to avoid seeing the rats, he said.

Electrical wires at the agency have also been broken twice because the rats had bitten into them. The travel agency had to pay $150 to fix the problem.

Another tenant at a beauty salon also suffered broken television wires that were bitten into by rats, an employee said.

A staff there said: "I see and hear the rats in the ceiling when I open the doors to the shop every morning. They seem to throw a party, when there's nobody around at night."

Some tenants told the Chinese daily that the rats were 'strong', and that this was not the first time ceiling boards have fallen because of their scampering.

A Chinese physician whose shop is in the building told Wanbao that occasionally, 1 or 2 rats would fall from the ceiling boards. However, 8 rats had fallen from the ceiling this week to his horror.

He says that he hopes the building managers can help exterminate the rats, as the tenants are unable to get rid of the problem by themselves.

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