What you see is not what you get
17/11/2008 The Malay Mail By Reena Raj and Gabey Goh

Moving day proved to be an exhausting and frustrating experience for Nur Aliyah Karen Abdullah, with a crane and 10 volunteers to coordinate in a race against time on Friday.

She was the third resident to move into one of the townhouses of Merdu Kayangan Townvillas Damansara in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, and the third to hire a crane to hoist their furniture in through the balcony.

"I had to recruit my friends and family to help me as the crane only comes with the operator with no additional help for moving," said the 39-year-old insurance company general manager, who paid RM400 for the use of the crane for four hours.

However, moving frustrations aside, Nur Aliyah’s house woes began back in June.

When she got the keys to her new house, she found that it was not according to plan.

"The main door was narrower than the windows. My mother is wheelchair-bound and can’t get through the door," she said.

She added the staircase going up to the living room and bedrooms were so narrow and low that it was impossible to get furniture up there without staining the walls or scratching the staircase railings.

She was even shocked to see the utility room. The floor plan stated that it was supposed to be 5.19 sq metres, but found it was barely 2.5 sq metres.

"I bought the house for RM343,000 and I didn’t expect such things. When I brought it up to the developer that I was unable to shift in my furniture to the upper level, I was told to use a crane. Apparently, that’s what the others had done," she said.

"It’s unfair for the developers to show something else in their brochures and the end result turns out to be something else. And the idea of shifting furniture to the upstairs using a crane is ridiculous," she said.