As we grapple with a solution to fund the remaining stretch of fencing, it dawned upon me that the victim is probably less equipped than most of us residents in Temasya to handle this loss. A foreign worker coming to Malaysia for a better life, only to come face to face with a knife pointed at his direction. All the while, there are those among us who conjure justifications for not paying their share in the security arrangements proposed and passed during our last EGM.
"I need to speak to my spouse."
"My landlord has not reverted to me."
"Why pay so much?"
"I am selling my house soon... not my problem."
"Ask developer to pay la... I know this Dato'..."
... "RA making money is it?"
I am not writing as a member of the committee. If this posting sees me voted out of it, I welcome that with open arms. While I am grateful for the majority of neighbors who see the simple objective of what we are doing, it irks me to think the least wealthy among us are paying the price of our impotence. True this happened outside our perimeter (just)... but does anyone think Temasya is truly impregnable?
Do we wait until a loved one from a more privilege family becomes a victim? Do we wait for Island and Peninsular to develop a social conscience to realize that the welfare of their customer is more important than mind games? Are we so blinded by our selfish interests that we forget our responsibility as a neighbour or just a human being in general?
I heard that 2 weeks ago, at Jalan Pendaftar U1/54 (parallel to Jalan Jurubina, just outside of the perimeter fencing), 2 workers who stay at Temasya were on their way back from work on payday who were robbed of RM1,500.
ReplyDeleteI hope that more residents of Temasya will realise that we have to help ourselves since we totally cannot rely on police. By helping ourselves mean "sharing" the cost of security guards to at least deter as much as possible the crimes from happening at our homes, supposedly where we feel safest.... We are just a small community, and if everybody chip in, the burden will be much less.
We are all neighbour, helping each other are important. If 133 house are all paying, then we don't have to pay RM2,500 per year. Maybe RM1,500 will be sufficient. We need to encourage each other.
ReplyDeleteRM2,500 mean a lot to us too. I am paying ZERO (RM0) at my previous house too. Due to uncooperative resident and limited houses (only 80), the guard & fence scheme NEVER TOOK OFF. Within years, so many houses had been broken into. Even a corner unit belonging to a police inspector also kena. My next-door neighbour move out, my opposite is empty also. Frustrated and living in fear, we decided to move to Temasya. Therefore we hope we can work together to solve this challenge.
BY NOT supporting this scheme, this project will fail as many will stop paying. In a matter of time, we will leave with no guard and put ourself in big risk. Reviving a fail project will face even more hurdles. Don't let this cycle begin... come and contribute to this good cause.
I believe when all of us support this, we will be paying much lesser than RM2,500 per year now.
We should instal a CCTV with 4 ports with 2 cameras at the guard house (1 zooming in on the driver and another at incoming cars) and another at the junction of Jalan Jurubina and another at the junction of Jalan Jururancang. Pulling the wiring to the other end (near the shoplots) will cost a lot more as wiring can be expensive at that distance. I expect the whole system should not cost more than rm3,000 including wiring as i had fixed my house for about rm2,500.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a great deterrent as robbers are afraid of getting their faces or vehicles caught in action.
Hi,
DeleteFirstly, thanks for the ideas. Would be nice to know who this is.
I think the concept in good, but in reality, we need to be careful about details. For wiring, we will need armoured cabling to withstand outdoor conditions - or run the risk of short circuiting the system when it rains. The cameras itself need to be all-weather.
As for actual execution, we are assuming that the videos are HD enough to capture faces. What happens if it isn't or the robber wears a helmet?
Not pouring cold water here, but just pointing out that we need to think carefully before spending the residents' money...
regards
I walk the neighborhood every evening, and with the tags secured at the gates, it is easy to see who contributed and who did not. One observation made by my 10 year old girl... "Daddy... they can drive such nice cars, but they cannot afford to pay for security. Why is that? Are they not concern for their security?. Nice cars attract attention and they are the ones that should contribute!!!"... If a 10 year old can deduce such logic, then I hope the non contributing houses will do so soon.
ReplyDeleteI do hope our neighbour that still unsure about the RM2.5K, come talk to RA and understand the scenario. We need all support we need.
DeleteIt is appalling and embarrassing to see that some neighbors are content to freeload off neighbors who are actually paying.
ReplyDeleteThese freeloaders are also enjoying the security services being paid for by the other residents.
The excuses offered by some of the occupants are downright lame..."this is my husbands house", "I'm only a tenant", "I'm not free at the moment".
Real estate agents are marketing our neighborhood as a guarded estate (therefore raising the value of the houses) and it irks me that these people who choose not to pay are benefitting from it. With the tags in place it is apparent that the ones who are seeking to benefit fr the guarded concept are the very ones who are not supporting the project.
We all need to do more to protect ourselves these days where armed thugs are behaving in a more desperate and daring manner.
For those of you who read this blog, please encourage your neighbors who have yet to contribute to the security fund to please do so.
What is there to say? Some who are so vocal during the egm, have apparently not contributed at all. It is so sad to see their true colours. You are right RM2,500 means a lot to all of us, heck we could have chosen to use this amount of money to beef up our house internal security but we instead decide to put it into the community security so pls to those neighbours who have yet to participate in this scheme do reconsider and not be so selfish.
ReplyDeleteOur houses are worth more than a million and lots of my neighbours drive big luxurious cars and heavily renovated their houses, isn't this additional security and peace of mind worth it? Set aside all the disagreement and look at the big picture.