Woman irate after HDB comes to speak to her about “cooking smell” complaint from her neighbour

A woman was taken aback after receiving a note from the Housing Development Board (HDB) about wanting to speak to her about the “cooking smell” coming from her unit.

The woman, and her cousin ‘L’, who use the flat, wrote, “Housing & Development Board seriously?? Now we can’t cook in our own homes????? Cooking smell??? So, what’s the point of having a house, when you can’t cook???? Seriously??

We don’t do heavy duty cooking. We rarely cook. So what’s going on?? We can’t cook at home, HDB??? REALLY?!”

The notecard from HDB read, “You were not around when we visited. We would like to speak to you on the following matters”, with the boxes for ‘lease tenancy’ and ‘others’ checked, and the words “cooking smell” handwritten.

In her post, L’s cousin also wrote that her family did not do any cooking and that they rarely cooked at home.

“Funny how we got this notice since she hasn’t been home much last few days & not cooking much ‘cept for Maggie, scrambled eggs”, they added.

Last year, a similar incident occurred, where a letter that a HDB-dwelling Malay family received went viral. Mr Daud and Mdm Sari were sent a letter from the Housing Development Board (HDB) to ask them to curb their cooking as a result of the excessive smell emitted.

The letter was titled ‘Feedback on excessive cooking smell’. It stated, “Please refer to above subject matter. We had received feedback on excessive cooking smell coming from your unit”.

Many Singaporeans who chanced upon the earlier post, as well as the one by Lily were outraged and shocked that even an issue such as this was brought up. The HDB letter, shared on Facebook page All Singapore Stuff was captioned, “What are they cooking siol? Where is the harmony among neighbours lah, dey?”

TISG has reached out to the woman for comment and clarification, and they explained that they spoke with HDB officers earlier today.

“Turns out, someone has been providing photos of food she uploaded on social media as a form of complaint – they accused her (L) of doing heavy duty catering in her unit. Yes, we may be a small home-based caterers, we don’t take orders more than 50 pax & dishes are limited to 3, 5 max. Simple dishes such as chicken rice, roti kirai, fried bee hoon. Most often done at our mom’s place. With proper equipments. Anyways, the officer will be coming by again on Monday afternoon.”

She also added that they are properly licensed for their catering business. /TISG

Read related: Neighbours complain to HDB over “excessive cooking smell” from nearby unit