'Don't get a place without door': F&B owner on being 'naive' after strangers trespassed into unit

Finding a place with low rent is a dream for every business owner. 

But what if it is at the expense of one's safety?

First female pitmaster Jayce Ho, owner of SGBrisketKitchen recently took to TikTok about how she began her F&B business, including highlighting the rookie mistake she made that led to the police being called. 

Barbecuing meat professionally a.k.a being a pitmaster first started out as a hobby for Ho, and it's now a full-time business for this woman. 

In her two-part video posted on April 9, Ho shared that as a new business owner, she started with limited funding and as such, she sourced for cheap rental options for her kitchen. 

@sgbrisketkitchen Part 2 of my series where 💩 happens when you start your F&B business in singapore. And this unfortunately was one of my biggest mistake which resulted in a police case. #sgfoodie #sgsmallbusiness #SGBrisketKitchen #sgentrepreneur #sgfyp #sgtiktok ♬ original sound - SGBrisketKitchen

She added: "It didn't make sense to spend so much on rental when I only will be working at the kitchen from Friday to Sunday but it was the biggest mistake I made."

In that cheaper option, the kitchen had no lock, no door and no window, she described. 

But it wasn't a major concern as there was a partition in that unit which offered her some sort of protection when she had to stay overnight.

However, she thought wrong.

On 16 Dec 2021, she said that she saw two men trespassing into her kitchen on her phone that was linked to the unit's CCTV cameras.

"I got the shock of my life. What are these two uncles doing in my kitchen and touching my things?" she said. 

And from the behaviour of one of the men, she felt like it wasn't the first time he had entered her premises as he was showing his accomplice the workings of the kitchen. 

"I called the police and they came down immediately. But I didn't want to pursue the matter so they were left off with a stern warning," she said. 

Shockingly, this wasn't the first time someone had trespassed into her kitchen, said Ho, who is in her 30s. 

According to Ho, other tenants even slept on her bed and used her table on multiple occasions when she wasn't around. 

"I was so naive and foolish to think that this place is cheap and i should get it but it was at the expense of my privacy and security," she said. 

Ho shared that she learnt a major lesson that having some sort of security system is imperative even if Singapore is considered a safe country.

She told AsiaOne that the purpose of her sharing her video is to create awareness about personal safety.

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