"Affordable HDB Housing", Myth or Fact? - Part 2

A continuation of yesterday's post on the affordability of HDB flats...

Found the following table in today's TODAY and I took a picture of it immediately. The previous post looks at how "affordable" a resale flat is. Today, we will look at a BRAND NEW flat instead.

Let's do the maths again....

HDB launched 4 BTOs on Monday ion areas Seng Kang, Ponggol, Hougang and Sembawang. To have a fair comparison to yesterday, we shall consider only Seng Kang. The prices of the BTO units from SK are :

Let's take the average price of a 4rm flat to be 328K (median price) and the household income/CPF contribution to be as follows :

Assuming the couple gets 40K Additional CPF Housing Grant and that they also had 60K in their CPF before buying the flat, the finalised loan amount will come up to 228K. Below shows their monthly instalment....

913 of their 920 (OA Contribution) monthly goes to HDB, leaving 7 miserable dollars in their OA. Multiply this by 30yrs and we get 2,520 (7x12x30). Even if we throw in compound interest and CPF Top-ups by the gahmen, how much would the couple have at age 55? 20K? 50K?

Do note that this 20K or 50K is among the 2 of them, which means each one probably has 25K at max. Please tell me several things...

1. With the Minimum Sum hitting 120K by 2013, how will this couple ever be able to draw out money earned over the last 30yrs to enjoy their twilight years?

2. Of what use is it to us to have slogged 30yrs for a house, only to have "saved" 50K in our retirement fund?

3. The motto of HDB is "Providing Affordable, Quality Homes". I've no doubt about the Quality part. But I seriously doubt the Affordable part!! Is taking the life-long hard-earned money of the citizens away your definition of "Affordable"?

I'm not against home ownership, in fact, SO and I promised each other that we will definitely become home-owners together, somehow.... But I shudders each time I look at the market. Why? This is why...

1. With such prices, I no longer dreamed of being able to sell my house 10yrs later for a profit. In fact, I would be thankful if I can even break-even.

2. My kids, nieces and nephews, by the time they are settling down and looking to buy a house, how much would that be? 1million for a 4rm flat? With Mr Horse in place, I wouldn't bet against it.

I used to not really understand the housing issues come election time. But now that I'm looking to get a place of my own, I became fully aware of the existing issues and why so many peoples are making so much noise!

With my earnest hope and prayers, residents of Tampines GRC, please DO THE RIGHT THING and spare our future generations the shit that we are currently facing.

Thank you.

PS : according to the table from TODAY, the couple will need to fork out cash! That's an even worse scenario than the one I've based my maths on....

"Affordable HDB Housing", Myth or Fact? - Part 1

Fact? Yes, 10yrs ago, maybe.... Today, it's definitely a myth... A BIG FAT MYTH!!

Let's do the maths....

Using the above picture as a reference, the median Household Income of a 4-Room Flat applicant (25yrs old) is (SGD)4K.

Using yet another picture above, this is the prices of resale flats sold in Seng Kang, the existing new town that the gahmen is developing. Let's take the average price of a resale 4-Room Flat to be 400K.

Based on a salary of 4K, this household would have a total CPF contribution as shown below....

Assuming the household being eligible for the 40K Additional CPF Housing Grant and that they also had 60K in their CPF before buying the flat, the finalised loan amount will come up to 300K.

Refer to the following picture for the monthly repayment amount if the loan is stretched to the maximum tenure on HDB's fix-rate 2.6% interest :

The monthly repayment is 1,201 while the monthly contribution is only 920. Looking at the state of things, the couple will have their monthly CPF + 300 cash going to HDB. Leaving ZERO DOLLARS from their CPF Contributions to accumulate inside their OA. Extrapolate this 30yrs ahead, how much would they have inside their OA when they reach 55?

Answer : BIG FAT ZERO!!!

With retirement staring in their faces 10yrs down the road, they not only have nothing to withdraw, they also had to meet the CPF Minimum Sum shit!!

The questions now for the gahmen :

1. Where on earth is the couple going to find money to meet the Minimum Sum so that they can enjoy their "Savings"?

2. Is making someone pay 30yrs for their home and ending up having nothing for their retirement your definition of affordable public housing?

3. With new BTO flats costing up to 390K (in SK), the applicant might as well buy from the resale market since it's only about 20K-40K more?

4. Going along this line, how can new flats STILL be considered affordable?

5. You always tell us a house is an asset. At such sky-high prices, my main worry would be : "Will I break even on the house?" I've already given up trying to make money.... Is this what you call affordable?

Mr Horse, where did you pluck your facts and figures from?

Feel free to rebutt me if my above is incorrect....

THIS IS ABSURB!!!

Residents may end up paying more in S&C charges if highrise littering worsens
By Satish Cheney | Posted: 11 July 2010 1949 hrs

SINGAPORE : Residents may end up paying more in service and conservancy charges if the problem of highrise littering gets worse.

This possibility was raised by Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Dr Maliki Osman when he launched an anti-litter initiative in Admiralty on Sunday.

Grassroots organisations will be using community pressure, like roping in residents to keep a lookout for those who litter from their flats.

The number of complaints against highrise littering island-wide has been increasing over the last few years.

In 2008, there were 2,499 complaints.

This jumped to 3,474 complaints last year.

In the first half of this year, there have been 1,965 complaints.

Dr Maliki said: "When we have littering problem, and we have a cleanliness problem; the conservancy costs will go up because the workers will have to come in more regularly.

"That would increase the cost because from a normal cleaning situation where you just clean the common corridors and the lift lobbies, now you have to go into the individual households to try and clean it. This is unnecessary for the residents because the higher the cost, it will be transferred to the residents. We do not want that to happen.

"We want them to try and minimise the need for them to pay extra just because of irresponsible behaviour. At this point in time, we have not raised the conservancy charges at all because we have been able to manage, but I think we can continue to contain it even better if residents take responsibility.

"The chances of increasing costs will be there if we do not contain this, because the idea is to look at the natural situation where previously you will not need workers to go into individual households. Now, if one HDB block, you have an average of 100 units. Just imagine if half of that required cleaning. The costs will tremendously increase.

"If we do not need that, then we can actually reduce the cost and maintain the cleanliness at the common corridors spaces and common area, and we really do not need to increase costs if everybody is responsible." - CNA/ms

Source : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1068808/1/.html

========================

To tell the truth, I'm most disturbed by this news. Reason being NOT because of the potential increase in the S&C charges, but more from the implied message that "its ok to throw killer litter from high rise building, the workers will just come by more often to clean it up."

I really wonder if that Parlimentary Secretary even knows what he is talking about. The kind of message he is sending out is dangerous and may give everyone the wrong impression! I thought the best way to deal with such issues is to send in the police to patrol the area more often? Of course, resident education plays a part too. But to simply send in more workers more often to clean up the mess is clearly NOT THE SOLUTION!

Please, fellow Singaporeans, you've now seen how those who have our "mandate" is running the show. Come the next oppotunity to cast your mandate, CHOOSE CAREFULLY....

Duped again?

A report from The New Paper....

=================================================

Father of 7 kids maxed out credit cards and can't pay electricity bills after losing $50,000 in scams
By Zubaidah Nazeer
May 16, 2010

In less than six months, Mr Ahmad has lost close to $50,000 to five Internet scams. But to this day, he is not fully convinced that he has been duped and is still hopeful that he will get some money back.

Meanwhile, his wife and seven children are in despair. They have repeatedly told him that the money is gone, but the 59-year-old technician just won't listen.

His wife even got the Malaysian police to talk to him, but nothing has worked so far.

As Mr Ahmad continues draining his savings from money disbursed from his CPF when he turned 55, his family watch helplessly as their bills go unpaid. He has lost almost $20,000 of his CPF.

They even had to put off plans of a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The sole breadwinner, who earns nearly $3,000 a month, has also maxed out his four credit cards, amounting to $24,000. Relations are strained as Mr Ahmad believes his wife has turned his children, aged 15 to 27, against him. His eldest son was retrenched from his computer engineering job a year ago and has been unemployed since. His second child, a daughter, is working part-time while pursuing a degree and does not contribute to the family. His other children are still in school.

=================================================

Can anyone get any dumber than this? Gotten duped 5 TIMES???

Starhub in Desperado Mode....

*Extracted from the 3rd Sept STi*

StarHub's offer is 'three years too late'

But SingTel doesn't rule out sharing the hosting of pay-TV content

By Chua Hian Hou

---

TOO little, too late: This just about sums up SingTel's reaction to StarHub's unsolicited offer to host its pay-TV content.

That said, SingTel is not throwing out the baby with the bath water either: it has said it will consider the proposal and respond if it is formally tabled.

StarHub's proposals have thus far been made only through the media.

SingTel Singapore chief executive Allen Lew, making his most direct remarks on the hot-button issue at a media briefing yesterday, said StarHub's offer comes 'three years too late'.

It was no secret SingTel had set its sights on the pay-TV market years ago, he said. But StarHub, the only pay-TV provider here for 12 years until SingTel launched mio TV in 2007, had made no proposal about sharing the network up until it lost pay-TV's crown jewel, the Barclays Premier League, to SingTel.

Mr Lew declined to say if or what discussions transpired back then. SingTel thus went ahead to build its mio TV infrastructure, he said, 'a new state-of-the-art pay-TV network with unique features like true video-on-demand'.

mio TV is now all set to take the 126,000 subscribers it has so far garnered on board Singapore's billion-dollar national broadband network, with which it has been designed to work seamlessly.

The Straits Times understands that StarHub's older, non high-definition ready set-top boxes may need replacing if viewers are to make the most of the new fibre-optic network's capabilities.

StarHub now has 535,000 subscribers.

Mr Lew, noting that the Government has commissioned a study on the issue, said it would be prudent to await the outcome of that, as it did not want to make a move contravening what the Media Development Authority (MDA) would propose.

Timing aside, Mr Lew questionedthe sincerity of StarHub's offer: 'Let me state upfront that I find it very unusual that a competitor will make a commercial proposal to us through the press. If someone is serious about doing something, you would approach the other party first before blaring it out to the whole world.'

StarHub chief executive Terry Clontz had conveyed his offer to host SingTel's content on its network in an e-mail to The Straits Times two weeks ago. He said then that it was in response to customers' feedback that it would be a hassle to install a set-top box for exclusive StarHub programmes and another for SingTel's.

StarHub followed up on this offer - using The Business Times next - with a proposal to let SingTel carry StarHub's exclusive content like HBO on its network.

Mr Lew said yesterday that he does not rule out cooperation altogether: 'When they send that proposal, then I can give you a more specific comment.'

A StarHub spokesman said yesterday evening that a formal proposal had just been sent to SingTel.

The Government has declined comment, but has reiterated that it is in talks with both sides. MDA head of competition and market access Eileen Ang said: 'Our goal remains to find an effective solution that works best in the Singapore context and that best addresses consumers' concerns.'

Retiree Philip Poh, 56, who wrote to The Straits Times Forum on this issue, just wants it sorted out - and soon.

'I just want to watch football, and I don't mind paying either party. In fact, if SingTel bids for and wins the World Cup rights next May, it had better be able to hook up my home by then,' he said.

He had inquired about getting mio TV, but was told it was now unavailable in the eastern part of the island, where he lives.

Yesterday, SingTel said its pay-TV service would be available to all Singapore homes by July.

chuahh@sph.com.sg

---

That's what you get for being arrogant and complacent.... Take a look at what Starhub had done to their subscribers over the past 12yrs :

• enforce upon us the mandatory 'Basic Tier' before other packages can be added on even though few are interested in it. Most of the subscribers are keen only in the Sports (specifically EPL) Package.
• raise prices of the Sports Package as and when they like
• pushing the exhorbitant bid price of the EPL content to subscribers, giving those under contract no chance of cancellation

I'm really glad that Singtel won the rights for the next 3years, waking up Starhub's idea!

Are Singaporeans better-off now?

Referring to the above statistics, my answer to the question posed in my blog title is a BIG FAT NO!!

How can we be better off now than in 2006 when the "Wage level" had fallen while the "Price level" had moved north instead? However, there are 2 bright sparks though...the falling "Car tax" & "Cost of a mid-range car". However, with the related increase in "Fuel", "Prices of services" (aka car washes, maintenance, etc), ERP and parking charges, the outlay far exceeded the savings from those fallen charges.

Oh, and I've not even mentioned that we're putting in longer hours at work and potentially spending lesser time with our family and friends.

With a stressful situation as such, no wonder we've got a population replacement problem at hand.

Ouch!!

I've read my fair share of news reports from overseas about stewpig things ppls do or happened to them.... But I must admit the following takes a big chunk of the cake!!

*Extracted from the 3rd Sept STi*
---------------------------------------

A SECRETARY accidentally bit off the penis of her employer while giving him oral sex in a car.

Sin Chew Daily and China Press reported yesterday that while the 30-year-old woman was performing oral sex on the man, the car was hit by a reversing van.

The impact of the crash, China Press reported, caused the woman to bite off her lover's organ.

The daily reported that the incident occurred in a Singapore park where the couple met after work.

To make matters worse for the woman, her husband had sent a private investigator to spy on her after suspecting that she was being unfaithful.

The investigator said he had followed the woman and her boss to the park.

'On reaching the park, they did not alight from the car. Not long after, the car started to shake violently.

After the car was hit by the van, there was a loud scream from the woman whose mouth was covered with blood,' he said.

The woman later followed her lover to the hospital with part of the sexual organ.

The investigator, who called an ambulance to send the man to hospital, said that this was the first time he had encountered such an incident.

---------------------------------------

This is really hilarious... BJing until shiok shiok, outta the blue comes a BANG and an extreme pain :p

Get that man a TIGER!!

PS : I mean the van driver...

Merrill Lynch, the millionaire maker....

There are 4.788million jobless Americans claiming benefits as of 24 January 2009. If this is not bad enough, I'm sure the following piece of news will make you throw up!

---

Merrill bonuses made 696 millionaires

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Merrill Lynch quietly paid out at least one million dollars bonus each to about 700 top executive even when the investment house was bleeding with losses last year, a probe has revealed.

They were part of 3.6 billion dollars in the firm's bonus payments in December before the announcement of its fourth quarterly losses and takeover by Bank of America, the investigation by the New York state Attorney General's office showed.

"696 individuals received bonuses of one million dollars or more," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said of the Merrill scandal in a letter to a lawmaker heading the House of Representatives financial services committee.

Cuomo said "these payments and their curious timing raise serious questions as to whether the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America boards of directors were derelict in their duties and violated their fiduciary obligations," according to a copy of the letter.

Bank of America said recently it was aware of the amounts and timing of the bonuses even though previous reports had suggested the top bank was surprised by the payout.

Cuomo said in his letter to Democratic lawmaker Barney Frank that his office was also examining whether senior officials at both companies "violated their own fiduciary obligations to shareholders.

"If they did, this raises additional serious issues with regard to the inappropriate use of taxpayer funds," he said.

"Merrill Lynch's decision to secretly and prematurely award approximately 3.6 billion dollars in bonuses, and Bank of America's apparent complicity in it, raise serious and disturbing questions," he said.

Shareholders and experts had expressed concern over Merrill's 15.3 billion fourth-quarter loss, which caused Bank of America to request a second round of government bailout on January 16.

Bank of America's shareholders voted to approve Merrill's takeover on December 5.

Former Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain, Bank of America chief administrative officer J. Steele Alphin and other top executives have been summoned to provide testimony in the probe.

"One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding," Cuomo said.

Cuomo said the Merrill Lynch bonus payment was "nothing short of staggering."

While more than 39,000 Merrill employees received bonuses from the pool, the vast majority of these funds were "disproportionately distributed to a small number of individuals."

"Indeed, Merrill chose to make millionaires out of a select group of 700 employees."

---

Extracted from Yahoo! News

ERP

aka Electronic Road Pricing
aka Every Road Pays
aka Even Reverse Pays

I found some pretty funny 'doctored' pictures that our creative fellow Singaporeans had came up with regarding their take on ERP....

Ok, perhaps the last 2 pictures were abit too extreme :p Anyway, don't say I didn't warn you.... the last I read, LTA is starting to install the 2nd Generation of the IU for new vehicles being put onto the roads. These IU are GPS capable, meaning that your vehicle can be tracked via satellite when the weather conditions permit.

My personal opinion for the future of ERP in Singapore is such :
There will be no more ERP Gantries nor Road Tax. The GPS-enabled IUs will be embedded with a CPU, a metering device like the cabs and a storage media. The metering device tracks the distance and time travelled. When combined with the GPS system, the CPU will be able to compute the 'zone' you are travelling in as well as the time and distance in this 'zone'. With 'ERP' rates beamed down via GPS, the charges you'd need to pay will be computed and stored in the storage media for 'upload' to LTA at a stipulated time, most likely via GPS too. LTA (or a 3rd party) will then consolidate and bill you accordingly. You may also opt to pay via Giro. :)

This situation is not far stretched. The technologies are all in place. Its only a matter of putting them all together to form the 'perfect' solution. In case you're unaware, UK is proposing the idea of 'Pay-as-you-go' with help from the satellites. Knowing Singapore loves to be the first in everything (eg. F1 Night-Race, ERP, Changi Airport, etc), we could very well beat UK to it and be the first to implement such a plan. Come to think of it, the benefits are all there on the table for the authorities :
1. squeeze more dollars from us
2. deter vehicle owners from driving, thus reducing congestions
3. encourage usage of public transport
4. saving money on building/maintaining gantries (est. S$1m - S$1.5m each)
5. implementing ERP now is very easy (few clicks on the computer and that road is now ERP-ed)

Anyone would like to bet against my vision?

Manchester City

*Extracted from the 7th Sept STi*
---------------------------------------

Dear _______ (Sir/Madam/Manager/Owner/Fellow billionaire/To whom it may concern) of _______ (Manchester United/Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool/Real Madrid/Barcelona/AC Milan/Inter Milan/Juventus/Bayern Munich)

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am Sulaiman Al-Fahim.

I represent the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment, the new owner of Manchester City.

I am also known as the 'Donald Trump of the Gulf' due to my real estate company and my hosting of a TV series in the Middle East which looks like The Apprentice.

However, I would be just as honoured and pleased if somebody considers me the _______ (Bill Gates/Warren Buffett/Don Corleone) of Abu Dhabi.

Let me clarify first.

Although it sounds like it, Abu Dhabi is not the name of a midfielder in Arsenal or a prison in Iraq where people are tortured.

No, you are confusing us with Abou Diaby and Abu Ghraib.

We are a very wealthy emirate, one of the seven states which make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

You may have heard of us - the stadium at Arsenal is called Emirates Stadium and one of our fellow emirates, Dubai, is hoping to buy Liverpool once the American owners there declare _______ (bankruptcy/ insolvency/foreclosure/a fire sale/a suicide pact).

As you are probably aware, we are in the process of transforming Manchester City into the biggest football club in the world.

We are already the richest club in the world, overtaking even Roman Abramovich's Chelsea.

We do not want to boast, but our financial muscle of US$_______ (1trillion/2trillion/3trillion), depending on the price of oil, is more than Mr Abramovich's who, by the way, is welcome to join forces with us as our _____ (assistant/trainee/butler/ jester/falcon trainer).

As you are probably aware, we have just bought Robinho of Brazil.

_______ (Pele/Maradona/Cruyff/ Beckenbauer/Dr Phil) may question Robinho's judgment and sanity, but he is our first superstar at Manchester City.

I can assure you, sir, that he will definitely not be our last.

I am writing to you now because we are very keen to add to our collection to form the Greatest Team Of All Time.

As such, we wish to buy _______ (Cristiano Ronaldo/Fernando Torres/Francesc Fabregas/Kaka/your best player) from you.

He is a wonderful, wonderful player, befitting the ambitions of The Biggest Club In The World.

We are very eager to acquire him as our coaches have already engaged the services of _______ (Usain Bolt and the entire Jamaican Olympic sprint team) to train him to be even faster.

You should be pleased that your player is heading to a better place.

At Manchester City, we call our home New Paradise, we have a former Thai prime minister on our board, and part of our development plans is to include similarly powerful people such as a _______ (president/king/emperor/United Nations secretary-general/American game-show host) in our committee too.

Please remember, sir, that in our business dealings, money will never be an object, a subject or a reject.

We do not concern ourselves with such trifle matters.

There is no question of how.

Abu Dhabi United Group is used to getting who, what, where and when it wants, and we are very happy to have invited ourselves to come and play with you.

Please name us a price for your player but again, as I have stated, do not be intimidated by the extra penny or two.

US$ _______ (100/200/300/400/500) million will be wired to your Swiss bank account.

If you prefer the amount to be in more tangible terms, we can always throw in _______ (Hull City/Stoke City/Newcastle United/Tottenham) too.

Our manager, Mark Hughes, will be in touch.

If he does not call due to his busy schedule, kindly contact _______ (Kevin Keegan/Alan Curbishley) who is now part-timing with us in view of his recent resignation from _______ (Newcastle United/West Ham United).

I would appreciate if you could reply to this letter soonest.

Bearing in mind that kick-off next Saturday is at 5pm.

Thank you,
Sincerely yours,
Sulaiman

PS: Please call me _______ (Donald/Bill/Warren/Don Corleone the Godfather)
---------------------------------------

Looks like we're going to see an abundance of Man City fans around soon.... :(

Biggest Physics Experiment on Earth

"An international team of over 2,000 scientists, led by Professor Tejinder Virdee from Imperial College London's Department of Physics is stepping up preparations for the world's largest ever physics experiment, starting next year at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland."




Those people at CERN seemed to be very free and can afford to make rap in their spare time. Wondering if any rap's going to emerge outta XXX anytime soon :p

If you had read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, you couldn't have missed the backdrop on which he had based the novel upon. I completed the novel about 3yrs back and I actually did googled CERN back then. I've never expected that the "Anti-Matter" thingy that Dan Brown had in his novel is actually a reality in the making! You gotta read his novels if you have the time and energy to do so. Don't need to read all, just "Da Vinci Code" & "Angels & Demons" will do. Actually, its recommended that you read "Angels & Demons" before you proceed to "Da Vinci Code" as they are somehow vaguely related.

Before you bash me with things such as the above 2 novels being anti-Christ, I would like to clarify that as long as you read it with the mentality of reading a storybook, I'm sure your faith, no matter how strong or weak, will not be shakened.

Coming back to the topic proper, CERN is experimenting with re-creating the Big-Bang. Should anything go wrong along the way, the facility will most likely blow up, with the potential fallout (nuclear?) affecting hundreds of thousands of innocent lives around the vicinity. However, if the experiment goes well, the potential benefits to the human race could be in-measurable....

World running out of Iron ore, no problem... CERN can produce some!

Ugly Cinema Goers

Today's post is about the typical ugly side of Cinema goers according to a report by the Straits Times. There is a wall of text below. Carry on at your own peril....

*Extracted from the 3rd Sept STi*
---------------------------------------
TEN minutes. That's all the cleaning brigade has as cinemagoers walk out.

In that time, before the next screening, scattered popcorn kernels and paper cups - and even spilt drinks - have to be cleaned up.

Even condoms have been left behind.

The Straits Times staked out a popular cinema chain's complexes in Orchard Road and Bugis one Saturday night, and saw the spills amid the thrills.

Engineer Foo Mee Lin had just caught the film Mad About English and wasn't too crazy about the idea of taking her trash out with her. The 34-year-old said there were cinema cleaners who swooped in once the lights came up.

'It's their job and they're expected to do it,' she said.

The cleaners did move in - fast.

Mr James Tan, 54, a cleaning supervisor at the cinema for the past four months, explained the need for a speedy mop-up: The cleaners have only 10 minutes before the commercials kick in for the next show.

It is especially tough for them on Saturday nights, when it is full-house for most screenings. Resources are strained.

Small cinema halls get two cleaners, and the bigger ones have four.

Mr Tan drew a link between the kind of movies and the mess left behind. He said: 'The arthouse film crowd don't really make a mess.'

But it is a different story for blockbusters and movies that appeal to teens and young children, he said.

Mr Mohd Isa, 35, a supervisor at the cinema's complex in Bugis, backed Mr Tan's observations. When asked to name recent movies that yielded the most mess, he said without hesitation: 'Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Kung Fu Panda.'

These are movies more popular with the younger set - the ones who make life the hardest for people like Mr Tan and MrMohd Isa.

Five minutes before the closing credits rolled on the thrill-spiller film Death Race, MrTan and his crew were already waiting outside the cinema hall, armed with brooms and giant red buckets.

As the lights came up, The Straits Times saw the cinema hall dotted with empty shells of popcorn cartons.

The floor had not been spared either - two rows of seats were covered with kernels. An empty cup of Coke had been turned on its side, and its sticky trail of liquid stretched across five rows.

Mr Tan and his crew quickly mopped up the mess. He said that teenagers were the biggest culprits.

'Sometimes when I do a check while a movie is going on, I see them throwing popcorn at one another. They don't realise how difficult it is for those of us who have to pick up after them.'

Mr Tan said that caramel popcorn is a particularly annoying snack for cleaners. The sticky kernels are difficult to pry off the carpet and make cleaning more time-consuming.

He recalled a school-organised screening which left the cinema really messy.

'What's worse was that the teachers didn't do anything to stop the kids from throwing popcorn around!' he said, emptying his fourth dustpan of popcorn into a red pail.

That night's screening saw Mr Tan's four-man crew haul out buckets laden with empty cartons, drink cups, popcorn and potato chip remnants, and more.

Despite signs clearly indicating that food other than that bought from the cinema's food kiosks is not allowed in, moviegoers have not been deterred from 'smuggling in' fast-food meals such as burgers.

Ushers said it is difficult to catch these offenders because they are not allowed to search the bags of customers.

Cinemagoers The Straits Times spoke to said that the problem lies with the fact that cinema halls here do not have dustbins for people to dispose of their trash, which is why the option of leaving their rubbish behind is more convenient.

Mr Kay Chan, 34, who works in marketing, believes Singapore cinemas should emulate their American counterparts. He said: 'There, the ushers will carry in large bins and start shouting for people to throw their trash as they exit. We should do that here.'

Technician Mohamad Isa, 31, suggested putting up signs to tell people to take their trash out with them. He feels his suggestion will work. 'It works on the MRT because Singaporeans are generally quite obedient.' He carried his empty popcorn cartons out with him.

An American couple, who declined to be named, said that a year of living in Singapore had cultivated in them the local habit of not clearing their own trash. With higher ticket prices now, they added, having someone pick up after them should be 'part of the service'.

The cleaning supervisors said they occasionally find 'interesting' items left behind.

Mr Mohd Isa has had to sweep up condoms, presumably left behind by less-than-discreet couples in the back rows of the darkened cinema.

Mr Tan said he has come across a pair of shorts and the smelly insoles of someone's shoes.

He said: 'It's very unpleasant. Just because they're paying customers, they think they can do whatever they like.'

But Mr Tan is hopeful. He said: 'Good values need to be instilled from young. That way, people will behave with consideration and respect in any circumstance.'

Clutching his broom and dustpan, he then made his exit, stage right. Till the lights come on again.

---------------------------------------

Damn irritating, right? Ok, I admit I do usually leave my trash in the theatre for them to clean up. BUT.... my trash is usually limited to only UPRIGHT drink containers & pop-corn packs. Can you imagine? Even condoms are found in there! Wonder how the couple is able to carry out the act without generating 'extra' noise or to get detected.

I hate it when :

• the persons around me takes up more then his/her fair share of space
• the persons around me keep talking to his/her companion
• the phone rings during the show (I sometimes wished they can install jammers in the theatres)
• eat/drink, making lotsa noise in the process
• sit very upright, thus blocking those behind (me)
• slouch on the seat and prop both knees against the backing of my seat
  
• keep rocking the seat back and forth
• keep walking in and out of the seats be it my row or the row in front of me

Am I very mean? I doubt so because I believe the above are reasonable requests such that everybody can enjoy the show. Be considerate for others, not be self-centred!