There’s no empty space on the floor. The sleepers, mostly manual laborers and peddlers from rural provinces who come to Ho Chi Minh City for work, all sleep on their sides, elbows and knees touching on the hard, cold tiles.
It costs them VND10,000 to get a space just large enough for their bodies; enough to take a brief rest for a couple hours between late work nights and early working mornings.
“It’s common for landlords to stuff between 200 and 250 people to a room,” said Nguyen Thi Mien from the central province of Quang Ngai.
“At the end of a year, more migrant workers will come to town and some rooms will have up to 300 people,” said Mien, who rents floor space at house No.155 on District 1’s Ben Chuong Duong Street.
“The price will go up to VND12,000 too, but it’s still on a first come, first serve basis.”
As each crowded house is equipped with only one bathroom, the toilets can be a mess and lines can be long.
“During rush hour three to four people try to use the same toilet at the same time,” said a woman in her early fifties renting a place on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in the same district.
Despite all the inconveniences and the rather costly price compared to their income, many of the workers just don’t know where else to go.
“We don’t know where else to sleep,” one said.
Hand to mouth
Nguyen Thi Lan, 65, from the central province of Binh Dinh, said she had worked as a peddler in HCMC for eight years, spending every night that whole time in stuffed boarding rooms.
Lan said she at first rented a room in District 4 with several other people, but the landlord locked the door before she came back late at night and wouldn’t open it until late in the morning, whereas she had to be working early in the morning to earn a living.
She finally ended up renting floor space instead. Lan said many of her peers faced the same situation.
Vo Thanh Em said he didn’t rent a proper room because he only earned tens of thousands of dongs a day as a cyclo driver and a peddler, which meant he could never guarantee a monthly rental.
Many boarding houses offer such services across the city, bringing in tens of millions of dongs a month. The landlords usually admit anyone, including thieves who come only to steal from the sleeping workers.
Source: Tuoi Tre |
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