In 1963, after the British left and the Japanese

occupation still stank in the bones of Tiong

Bahru, Ah Ma Lim, 78, refused to move from her

kampongturnedHDB flat when the government

offered $1,200 for her threeroom unit. She’d

buried three husbands there — one under the

kitchen sink, one behind the toilet, and one in

the cupboard where the rice was kept — and the

ghosts didn’t like being uprooted.

The HDB officer came twice. The first time, he

brought forms. The second, he brought a

bulldozer sketch. Ah Ma Lim didn’t speak. She

lit joss sticks at dawn, whispered in Hokkien to

the shadows under the bed, and left bowls of bak

kut teh on the landing. By night, the ghosts

started knocking — not loud, just three taps on

the wall, then silence. Neighbours complained.

The flat below heard the creak of a rocking

chair where no chair stood.

The world changed because the dead here didn’t

rest — they bargained. In the old kampong days,

spirits demanded offerings; in the new HDB

blocks, they demanded rent. Ah Ma Lim had

learned this when her first husband’s ghost

started folding his own sarong and sitting at

the table every evening. He never ate, but he

always waited for her to pour tea.

When the Housing Board sent a surveyor with a

tape measure, the ghosts turned aggressive. The

toilet flushed itself at 3am. The fridge hummed

the old Malay lullaby Ah Ma used to sing to her

children. The officer’s clipboard vanished —

found three days later stuffed in the rice jar,

wrapped in a red envelope with “For the Dead Who

Pay Rent” scribbled in chalk.

Ah Ma Lim didn’t cry. She didn’t beg. She posted

a notice on the block’s noticeboard: “Tenants of

the unseen: rent due every full moon. Pay in

joss paper. Eviction notice invalid unless all

ghosts sign.”

The HDB couldn’t evict a flat with active

spectral occupancy. No law covered ghosts. No

court would hear a case where the plaintiff was

a 1942 war widow who swore her husband’s spirit

had filed a tenancy appeal under the 1958

LandlordTenant Ordinance — amended in secret by

the spirit council of Pulau Ubin.

By October, the block had become a tourist

curiosity. Schoolchildren came with offerings. A

TV crew from Radio Television Singapore filmed

the “haunted HDB” but cut the segment when the

camera caught Ah Ma Lim handing a ghost a plate

of kueh lapis.

The Housing Board revoked the resale order. Not

because of policy. Not because of pressure. But

because the ghost of Ah Ma’s second husband —

the one buried under the toilet — started

squatting in the HDB director’s own flat in Toa

Payoh, flushing his toilet every morning at 6am.

Ah Ma Lim kept the flat. She sold the rice

cooker instead. Used the money to buy more joss

paper. And every evening, she still poured tea.

The ghosts never asked for more. They just kept

knocking. Three taps. Always.

Her kiasu spirit had turned death into a tenancy

contract. And in Singapore, even the dead learn:

if you don’t pay, you get evicted.