When mediation fails, neighbours need to be protected from escalating disputes: Forum

I was saddened to read about the death following a dispute between neighbours at Block 55 Lengkok Bahru (Man, 59, dies after fight between neighbours in Lengkok Bahru; one person arrested, July 21). According to reports, residents described a longstanding feud.

The incident raises an important question: Are our current law enforcement and dispute resolution mechanisms adequately equipped to prevent neighbour conflicts from spiralling out of control?

I, too, had an episode with a neighbour in 2025.

Within the first week of our moving into the condominium, the police visited our home four times after the next-door neighbour complained about “excessive noise”.

Our children were simply practising the piano at around 3pm. Each attending officer concluded that we had done nothing wrong. We even installed additional soundproofing, but the complaints continued.

After I warned the neighbour that repeated unfounded police reports could amount to harassment, the complaints shifted to our condominium’s security team.

Matters later escalated. Loud, disturbing sounds were played late at night or when our children practised on the piano. When we sought police assistance, we were told that our neighbour was entitled to play music and that we could only continue filing police reports.

The Community Disputes Resolution Tribunals was not a practical solution either. Mediation was a prerequisite before a claim could be filed, but our neighbour repeatedly failed to attend. Pursuing civil action under the Protection from Harassment Act would have been lengthy, expensive and unlikely to restore a workable living relationship.

What surprised us most was discovering that several adjacent households had experienced similar treatment over the previous two years. One by one, they gave in. Eventually, we did the same, forfeiting three months’ rent simply to restore peace for our family.

Cases leading to death may be rare, but they may also obscure the many neighbour disputes that never reach the headlines, with victims giving up or tolerating the persistent distress.

Perhaps it is time to review whether our current framework gives law enforcement and the courts sufficient flexibility to distinguish genuine neighbourhood disagreements from persistent patterns of intimidation.

Earlier intervention in such cases could protect law-abiding residents, reduce repeated demands on police resources and, in the most serious situations, prevent seemingly minor disputes from becoming irreversible tragedies.

Goh Jong Mun

Man, 59, dies after fight between neighbours in Lengkok Bahru; one person arrested

A man died after a fight between neighbours at Block 55 Lengkok Bahru on July 20.

The police said a 59-year-old man who was arrested at the scene will be charged with murder on July 22. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Alerted to the incident at about 4.45pm on July 20, the police went to the scene and found a 59-year-old man lying motionless at the lift lobby on the 16th floor, the police told The Straits Times on July 21. He was taken to hospital and later died.

Preliminary investigations revealed both men knew each other.

When ST visited the block at about 11.45am on July 21, drops of blood and a bloody footprint were visible along the corridor.

A resident who gave his name as Joel told ST that he found out about the incident while reviewing footage from the security camera outside his home, which captured audio of the two men arguing.

In the footage seen by ST, two men can be heard shouting at each other, with one person threatening to hurt the other. The dispute lasted for about three minutes.

Joel, who works as a private tutor, said he had a cordial relationship with the dead man.

The man who died never got along with the other man, and “would take the stairs just to avoid him”, he added.

A 49-year-old resident who lives on the 15th floor said there had been a longstanding feud between the two neighbours.

The resident, who moved into the same block about four years ago, said the two men, who lived several units apart from each other on the 16th floor, would start arguing in the morning.

He believed both the dead man and the other man lived in two-room flats. “They would be topless and start shouting Hokkien vulgarities at each other from about 7.30am,” he said.

The neighbour, who had not spoken to both men, said: “No one thought it would escalate to this.”

Another neighbour who declined to be named said a knife was thrown from the 16th floor and landed in front of a coffee shop.

There have been several knife-related incidents reported in recent months.

There were 137 knife-related incidents in 2025, a slight increase from the 131 cases in 2024, said the police in their release of annual physical crime numbers in February.

On Sept 24, 2025, a violent attack over a noise dispute between neighbours resulted in the death of a 30-year-old Vietnamese woman.

The fight allegedly broke out in the morning at Block 323 Yishun Central, with a man using a knife to injure the woman and her husband.

The man, Koh Ah Hwee, 66, was charged with murder the next day.

On May 26, a 21-year-old woman died after she was stabbed by a 22-year-old man near the lift landing on the 12th floor of Block 248 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 2.

The man, who later fell from the same block and was taken to hospital, was charged with murder.

A 70-year-old man died on March 9 after he got into a fight with a 48-year-old man in a red-light area in Geylang. ST understands that the elderly man suffered stab wounds to the chest.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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