ANYONE who regularly walks in the shadows of low-cost flats would have encountered near misses when falling objects land near them.
The items may have been thrown out or blown away.
As such, I usually give a wide berth to such buildings or walk under covered areas.
Recently, my wife spotted the glass panes of a louvre window hanging precariously from a unit of low-cost flat.
Some of the missing glass panes may well have fallen off. The tenant used raffia strings to tie glass panes to the metal bars.
It was done in a slipshod manner, and the strings would disintegrate over time, being exposed to the elements.
It is only a matter of time before the glass panes break off, which could cause serious injury, if not death, to those passing below.
My mother-in-law moved into a unit in the same block in 2004 when it was new, and I had noticed that the glass panes were cut short for easy fitting.
I bent the soft metal brackets nearer to the glass panes to secure them tightly. None of the glass panes have fallen off, as they are opened and closed gently and sporadically.
However, there are three blocks of low-cost flats nearby, with more than a thousand units.
Assuming each unit has 40 glass panes for the exterior wall, there would be 50,000 glass panes.
The number would add up to a few hundred million glass panes if all the low-cost flats in the Klang Valley are taken into account.
City Hall and town councils maintain offices and staff members at many of such flats. Officers should have spotted and reported such dangers to their superiors.
An initiative would be for them to request duct tape, the type made from cloth with long-lasting adhesive, that is resistant to weathering.
The officers should inspect the windows at the flats and supply duct tape to units that need fixing.
n Y.S. Chan, Kuala Lumpur