SINGAPORE — Workers’ Party MP He Ting Ru asked Sengkang residents for their understanding of estate workers who may need more time for clearing areas, given the number of people doing extensive home cleaning before the Chinese New Year celebration.
“We hope for your understanding as #TeamSengkang and our estate staff work to clear the higher than usual volume of items being disposed of, and to please let us know if any assistance is needed,” the MP said.
Many families traditionally do a thorough cleaning of their houses just before the start of a new year. House cleaning is symbolic of driving away bad luck from the previous year, with the word “dust” in Chinese being a homophone for the word “old.”
Ms He, who has been representing the Buangkok division of Sengkang GRC since 2020, wrote in a Facebook post on Monday (Jan 9) that she has noticed during recent estate walks that there are more bulky items being disposed of at present because “many residents are spring cleaning in earnest before Chinese new year.”
Ms He, who is a lawyer by profession, said that not only do estate walks give her and the WP team at Sengkang “the chance to catch up with residents in perhaps a more relaxed manner,” but they are also “opportunities for #TeamSengkang to learn more about different aspects of what makes our communities good places to live in.”
She added, “Sometimes this might entail things like looking for ant nests in trees as we had to do this weekend.”
In a previous post, Ms He had called 2022 an “annus horribilis” which means “year of disaster or misfortune,” explaining that health challenges made this so.
“As we count down the last few hours of the year, I’m taking quiet time and reflecting on what was for me an annus horribilis. So many around us have really struggled with our health this year across the board, with too many in the family ending up with hospital stays for serious illnesses,” she wrote in a post on Dec 31, 2022. /TISG