Letters | Hong Kong’s water seepage complaints office still leaving residents high and dry

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Residents of old residential buildings in Hong Kong often have to battle water seepage problems. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 7:10am, 6 Dec 2019Updated: 7:10am, 6 Dec 2019

The Joint Office for Investigation of Water Seepage Complaints, set up by the Buildings Department and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, has long been criticised for its ineffectiveness in handling water seepage complaints.

In its defence, the joint office has cited rapidly increasing case numbers, resource constraints and the high burden of proof under criminal procedures in taking enforcement action.

I shall share my personal experience in the hope of improving the operation of the joint office. Almost two years ago, I made a seepage complaint to the office. After visiting my home, Food and Environmental Hygiene staff carried out a colour dye test on the sanitary fitments of the premises suspected to be the cause of the seepage.

Several weeks later, they revisited my home to monitor the results. Although the dye was clearly visible on my bathroom ceiling, they insisted on collecting specimen samples for government laboratory analysis, not heeding my emphasis on the necessity of chemical analysis at the scene.

The analysis failed to detect the presence of dye and my case was passed on to the Buildings Department to follow up. I was left with the very negative impression that the laboratory analysis was an excuse to avoid the responsibility of enforcement action.

I am not going to challenge the professionalism of the staff. But clearly, the accuracy of a laboratory test would have been affected by the concentration of the dye used and the presence of impurities in the sample.