SINGAPORE: An after-death cleaning services company posted the grisly sight of a flooded rental room above a shophouse in Bukit Merah where an elderly Malay man residing alone passed a few days before Hari Raya.
“One of the saddest case we have seen so far,” wrote DDQ (@ddqservices on TikTok and Instagram), the after-death cleaning agency that attended to this particular case.
The man’s body, who was in his 50s, was discovered on April 20, only two days before Hari Raya, when the shop owner below noticed a foul smell and water seeping through the shop floor.
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“We were notified of the case on April 20 at around 2pm. And around 4pm the same day, we were activated and we arrived at around 5pm,” DDQ told The Independent Singapore.
“His body was only discovered by the shop owner below when the smell and the pool of water mixed with bodily fluids had seeped through the shopfloor,” the team wrote in their TikTok.
“Upon entering the room, I was confronted with a shocking sight,” they wrote, referring to the flood almost ankle-deep with a “combination of water from a choked sewage pipe, bodily fluids, and remnants of decay.”
“The murky water was filled with maggots swimming through the tainted water,” they documented.
DDQ explained to The Independent Singapore that a cleanup typically takes around 3 hours, but in this case, it took double the time due to the flooding.
They shared that the scene was “distressing”, and they were “overwhelmed” by the tragedy in that small room.
The one thing that stood out to them among the debris was the clothes the elderly man had prepared in anticipation of Hari Raya.
“There, hanging neatly, was a pair of baju kurung, a damping, and a pair of shoes,” they wrote, citing that those items appeared in “stark contrast to the horrifying scene surrounding them.”
“The elderly man had no family or relatives left, yet he had been looking forward to Raya, excited to celebrate the special occasion even if he had no one to share it with,” the team shared the interaction they had with the shop owner who recalled the conversations he had recently with the deceased man.
The neighbourhood barber had also shared with DDQ that the elderly man was all set to finally receive the keys to his new home that he had been waiting for a very long time.
“He also shared his dream of finally owning a home, a dream that was so close to becoming a reality,” they wrote.
The TikTok has come close to a million views and is tugging at the heartstrings of netizens who are mourning the loss of the old man.
“He died in the month of Ramadhan, the holy month. A selected soul, may Allah eases his journey,” wrote someone in the comments, making a prayer for the deceased man.
“In the country where we tend to mind our own business more, there’s no pain in checking out how our neighbour is doing, especially the elderly,” expressed a netizen.
Others expressed admiration for the team and willingness to do this “honourable job.”
“As a team, this clean up is quite challenging because number 1, what ever is soaked with water will be heavier. So it really tested our strength to wrap the mattress and carry it down the slippery stairs. Also the smell, even with our full face mask, we can still smell the rotting smell of death. And we did the clean up while fasting and we break fast with only a quick drink,” said DDQ in an interview with The Independent Singapore.
DDQ comprises a team of highly trained cleaning professionals with many years of experience in after-death trauma cleaning and mould and mildew remediation and removal services. They can be found at www.ddq.com.sg