Social worker goes knocking door to door to investigate 'foul stench' complaint, finds decomposed body in Aljunied flat

After receiving a complaint from a concerned Aljunied resident about a foul stench emitting from somewhere in his block, a social worker went door-to-door hoping to find the source.

To her horror, she discovered that an elderly woman had died in her unit on the 10th floor. 

The social worker, surnamed Zhu, told Shin Min Daily News last Sunday (Jan 8) that she visits this particular block every Sunday to deliver food to the residents.

A 70-year-old resident surnamed Lin, who lives on the 11th floor, then told Zhu he had noticed the smell lingering for about a week, but couldn't identify the source. 

Worried that someone had died in their home, he called Zhu to investigate the matter. 

The 53-year-old social worker then began her search on the sixth floor of the block, going from unit to unit, floor to floor. 

After some searching, she finally pinned the source of the smell down to a unit on the 10th floor — the one directly below Lin's. 

"I contacted the authorities, who called the police," she told the Chinese daily. 

Unable to remove body due to clutter

When the authorities arrived, they reportedly found her body next to her bed. However, they were unable to move her body out of the unit due to the massive clutter in the unit. 

It took cleaners some 10 trips to the rubbish dump to clear the miscellaneous items before they could move her body. 

According to Shin Min, the elderly woman was suspected to have died about a week ago. 

Lin recalled that he would hear a noise coming from her unit whenever she closed her windows but realised that he no longer heard the noise when the foul stench appeared. 

The deceased's neighbour, Yang, further added that the smell was especially bad last Wednesday and Thursday, but he didn't think anything was amiss as the deceased often returned home late.

His interactions with his neighbour were also few and far between, as she was rather reclusive.

"I've lived here for more than a decade, and I've never said anything to her.

"I've only seen her working at a nearby coffee shop a few years ago, and she would return home very late at night," said the 71-year-old. 

In response to AsiaOne's queries, the police said they were alerted to a case of unnatural death along Aljunied Crescent last Sunday. 

A 69-year-old woman was found lying motionless and was pronounced dead at scene by a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) paramedic.

Based on preliminary investigations, the police do not suspect foul play. Police investigations are ongoing.

Mother and son found dead in Tampines flat

In October 2022, a 70-year-old man and his 92-year-old mother were found dead in their Tampines flat. 

Their neighbours had detected a foul stench originating from their flat on the 11th storey of Block 285, Tampines Street 22. 

Desmond Choo, an MP for Tampines GRC shared that mother and son were a "reclusive pair", adding that grassroots and community volunteers had reached out to the pair at least five times in the past seven years, with little success. 

“It’s unfortunate and very sad, and we understand from the police that there was no foul play suspected, and they are likely to have died from natural causes,” said Choo then. 

Choo also emphasised the importance of outreach to the elderly so as to prevent such cases from happening again. 

ALSO READ: 5 cases of seniors in Singapore who died alone at home in recent years

claudiatan@asiaone.com