Singapore Expats

We cannot afford an extra bedroom for the maid. However the agent tells us that many people have their maid sleep in the bomb shelter. Is this true? We are new to Singapore and have no experience with a live-in helper. thanks.

Sadly, yes. But before you do, consider this.....

In the case of a fire in the living room, how does the maid escape. There isn't even a window in the bomb shelter. There is no ventilation in the room either. You cannot remove the heavy reinforced door so she will have absolutely not privacy if she was cooler air or recirculated air. It's cruel and unusual punishment, but it would appear most Asians don't think nothing of treating maids as slaves. If you cannot afford to rent a home with an extra bedroom, you shouldn't engage a maid.

How did you survive in your own country?

Yes, it is "normal". If you really need a living in maid in such settings you should consider: installing a 2nd door (translucent type) within the door frame of the bomb-shelter; and installing a fan in one of the ventilation inlets. This is what we were considering to do but eventually abandoned the idea for the live out / part time baby sitter and helper. It costs us twice the price but still find it worth it.

Yep it's very normal, we offered our maid the spare room when she started and she declined it in favour of the bomb shelter, therefore, we bought a child size bed, Fan, wardrobe etc etc for the Bomb Shelter. She seems to like having the privacy that this affords her. The room is tucked away in the corner of the kitchen in our condo and the door opens in such a way that you would really need to walk round it in order to see in. Therefore she gets privacy with the door open.

Next time I hope to find a place with better living quarters for her to be honest, a maids quarter's rather than a bomb shelter.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:In the case of a fire in the living room, how does the maid escape.

In case of a fire in the lounge, how do I escape from the 17th floor!?!? at least her room is bomb proof (and probably relatively more fire proof)

I was thinking more along the lines of ventilation/oxygen

I understand, I was looking at it from a burning to death kinda way.

However, a bombshelter is fairly airtight (from the house side) and therefore offers a perfect place to get away from the smokey air in the house!?

nutnut wrote: at least her room is bomb proof (and probably relatively more fire proof)

Are these rooms honestly bomb proof? I just assumed it was a nice name for a closet, not for people to actually hide in it.

I noticed a while back Block 14 (or maybe it was 29) at Marine Parade has a radar installation on the roof. It's obscured so you can only really see it from EC park. I bet the residents of that building would like a bomb shelter if Singapore ever really pisses Indonesia off

They look like pretty bomb proof - very thick walls, etc. Surely they should have no problem to recover your body after such reinforced concrete cage collapses with the whole building and you go down with it from the hight of the 16th (in my case) floor.

zzm9980 wrote:

nutnut wrote: at least her room is bomb proof (and probably relatively more fire proof)

Are these rooms honestly bomb proof? I just assumed it was a nice name for a closet, not for people to actually hide in it.

I noticed a while back Block 14 (or maybe it was 29) at Marine Parade has a radar installation on the roof. It's obscured so you can only really see it from EC park. I bet the residents of that building would like a bomb shelter if Singapore ever really pisses Indonesia off

Structurally, they are the strongest part of the building, like the Lift Shaft- and hence, technically, stronger than the rest of the card board boxes used to make up the rooms ..

I guess you haven't seen 'em. They do have a Civil Defense sticker with the dos and don'ts and instructions in case of Civil Defense alert

Over a beer, the common topic was, how do we go down to the ground floor, when the bomb shelters have survived and all around you, everything is in ruins .. The older blocks had common bomb shelter at the ground floor -they sounded much better though they too have been rented out for various businesses ..

Oh, for the radar at Marine Parade, it is a Maritime Radar - for tracking vessels at the anchorage for the HARTS system. It don't see the air ..

For seeing and doing things far away Singapore has other 'solutions' ..

Yeah, and they just bought 4 (?) more of them, nice new converted business jets, the Gulfstream 550 equipped with the Israeli Phalcon radar system to upgrade the aging AWAC fleet.

Squirrel, yeah, we often had the same conversations about the new bomb shelters (course they aren't so new anymore but I've been here a long time).

nutnut wrote:I understand, I was looking at it from a burning to death kinda way.

However, a bombshelter is fairly airtight (from the house side) and therefore offers a perfect place to get away from the smokey air in the house!?

Could almost call them kilns then, huh.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:

nutnut wrote:I understand, I was looking at it from a burning to death kinda way.

However, a bombshelter is fairly airtight (from the house side) and therefore offers a perfect place to get away from the smokey air in the house!?

Could almost call them kilns then, huh.

I dont' remember the older ones, but the newer ones are NOT airtight .. they have two vent holes at the top .. and some enterprising landlords have plugged in portable aircons with flexi-tubes to rent them out ..

These posts make me laugh - 'we can't afford an extra bedroom', but there is always money for a maid........

ecureilx wrote:I dont' remember the older ones, but the newer ones are NOT airtight .. they have two vent holes at the top .. and some enterprising landlords have plugged in portable aircons with flexi-tubes to rent them out ..

They are airtight. The vent holes are equipped with the shutting, rubber sealed cover like this one in the pic below: