Many of them fall into the traps a of loan shark and cause much harassment to them family.

Source: Asiaone News
URL: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120408-338318.html
By: Amanda Phua, The New Paper

SINGAPORE – Like little cannons pointed in all directions, five closed-circuit cameras stand guard in front of the Lim family flat.

Those cameras are there to protect the family from loan-shark harassment.

But they have irked at least one neighbour, who lives next door. She is unhappy because she feels it is an invasion of privacy.

Stall owner Lin Mei Ting, 48, told Shin Min Daily News there were initially two cameras at the gate of the flat in Block 742, Woodlands Circle. Even then, she felt uncomfortable.

Ms Lin added: “I feel like I’m being monitored and that makes me feel uneasy. That’s why I made a complaint to the town council.”

It is not known if the town council is acting on her complaint.

Foreigner Loan

She said her flat was also affected by the previous harassment acts. But she insisted that so many cameras made things inconvenient for her, and that her relatives also felt uncomfortable when they visited.

The flat owner’s mother, who wished to be known only as Mrs Lim, told The New Paper that two cameras belong to the police and the other three were installed by her son because the police would be removing theirs soon.

The cameras were installed after their front door was set on fire in mid-2011.

Even before that, the family had been suffering from harassment.

Mrs Lim said the runners vandalised corridor walls and lift landings with their unit number and ‘O$P.

But footage from the cameras helped nab six loan-shark runners, reported Shin Min.

Her son told Shin Min that it was a previous tenant who had borrowed money from the loan sharks.

But yesterday, Mrs Lim revealed that she suspected it was actually a distant male relative who betrayed the family’s trust.

She said: “In May 2009, I went overseas for a trip and my daughter-in-law met our relative. We are familiar with his family too.

“He told her that he had nowhere to live, so she invited him to put up at our home until he found a job and somewhere to live. He asked my son for a photocopy of his IC for his job application, and I suspect that he used the photocopy to borrow from loan sharks.”