SINGAPORE: A woman in Singapore went live on social media to highlight a distressing incident where she and her wheelchair-bound mother were left stranded at their HDB block in Tampines after all the lifts broke down.
The incident happened on Monday (9 June).
The woman, who goes by the name Auntie Fei on TikTok, said no one was answering the emergency maintenance hotline despite her repeated calls.
“I called the maintenance service, and nobody answered. Now me and my mama are trapped at level 1 of our house—I can’t go up,” she said in the video.
She also showed another resident who was stuck at the lift lobby, telling him, “It’s not going to work, you have to climb the stairs already. You see, me and my mom have been standing here all this time.”
Expressing her frustration, she added, “I don’t know what to do now. Me and my mother, we are trapped here. We don’t know what to do.”
Fei claimed this was not the first time the lifts at their block had broken down.
@auntiefei Gosh! Not the first time the lift broke down! #tampines #tampinesgreencourt #fyp #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #towncouncil #thankyou #follower #reels #viral #viralvideo #viraltiktok #tiktok #singapore #fan ♬ Sad – Sad Waves
Recurring Lift Problems Spark Outcry
The incident drew numerous responses from netizens, with many urging her to contact the town council.
Others, however, shared their own frustrating experiences of trying to get help during lift breakdowns.
One user shared that they had once called the town council for half an hour without anyone picking up.
They then contacted the finance department, which arranged for someone to return their call.
The user said, “I thought they would do the servicing quickly since I explained maybe got fire risk.” However, they still had to call again the next day before the issue was finally resolved.
The user described the situation as a failure on the part of the town council.
Another wrote that the situation seemed to be getting worse, adding that complaints to the town council often received no reply.
Some netizens lamented recurring problems with HDB lifts, saying issues often resurfaced even after repairs.
One remarked that after reporting faults, the lifts would sometimes develop “new problems”, adding that the breakdowns seemed unpredictable.
Others questioned the point of having an emergency maintenance hotline if calls were not answered during an actual emergency.
Several users also shared that technicians typically take about 45 minutes to arrive, citing their own past experiences of being trapped in lifts.
According to Fei, technicians eventually arrived and explained that a faulty fire alarm box was causing the lift shutdowns whenever the alarm was triggered.
However, the ordeal did not end there. Fei later posted another update, claiming that all three lifts had broken down again around 7.12pm.
“You all won’t believe it! It happened again. Someone kena trapped inside—I heard someone ringing the bell,” she said.
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