Is this the world's smallest bathroom? Po Tin Estate residents think so
Residents of an estate in Tuen Mun are fed up with feeling the squeeze every time they wash
Toilets may be a welcome relief for their users, but the bathrooms on the Po Tin Estate, a temporary accommodation facility that's been turned into a public housing estate, are giving its residents a pain in the backside.
"With a bathroom like this, I don't know how I'll be able to take a shower when I'm even older," said 72-year-old Wong Chong-choi, a resident of the Tuen Mun estate for six years. "I can barely move in the bathroom, never mind fitting in a helper to assist me in future."
"You towel yourself in the bathroom only if you want to get bruises," said 51-year-old Flora Chow Kwai-fong. "I don't mind doing it in the living room because I live alone. But what about other families?"
About 40 of the estate's residents protested outside the Legislative Council yesterday before its housing panel met to discuss how to improve living conditions on the property.
The estate - originally built as interim housing for people awaiting government flats and made into public housing in June 2004 - comprises nine 28-storey blocks whose 8,736 units measure from about 90 sq ft to 300 sq ft. The bathrooms are as small as 10 sq ft.
"The government should immediately change the layout [of the bathrooms]," said lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun of the New People's Party.