Dubai
Every year, our service charges for the apartment in Dubai’s International City are rising, but the quality of the services are becoming worse. I have been living in this apartment for three years and have already complained twice regarding the various issues, but no improvements have been made at all.
In the beginning, there was a table in the lobby area for the watchman, who was controlling people’s entry into the building. It has been missing for the past two years and a lot of people enter now without any access cards. Most of the times, the access door is left open. This is affecting the security of the building’s residents.
All the boards, walls, garbage bins and lighting poles around the building are covered with advertisments for bed space and nobody is removing them!
Every day, buses come to the building to pick up and drop off big groups of people. There is always a queue at the elevator, which is not designed to cater to such traffic.
I even notified the developers regarding sharing apartments, wherein six to eight people live in a one-bedroom space. But, no action was taken and it is slowly becoming impossible to live here with a family.
Another issue is that the parking spaces are always filled with commercial vehicles, such as minibuses and trucks carrying gas cylinders. When I arrive home from work after 7pm, there are no parking slots available.
There is a signboard placed in the area that clearly states that parking isn’t allowed for commercial vehicles, but nobody seems to care.
Old and broken furniture is placed outside the building on the street for months. There are no trash cans placed next to cafeterias, barber shops and other offices at the ground floor, so people are dumping litter directly on the ground. Even though there is a fine of Dh500 for littering, no one is following the law.
The elevator in the building is always dirty and smells bad, corridors are full of pests. And the worst of all are the thousands of massage parloud cards that are thrown around everywhere.
The corridor walls are painted every year, but soon after the paint gets spoilt and needs to be done again. Cracks are visible on the external walls of the building, which are always discoloured. The concerned department needs to use proper material, which will last longer.
Finally, some of the residents take their laundry outdoors and leave it to dry on the plants, shrubs and greenery around the building. It is a terrible sight!
The International City is a good and affordable area to live in, but some improvements are needed urgently in order to make it a better place for the residents. The developers and those managing the property need to be a little more attentive towards the tenants.
— The reader is based in Dubai.
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Editor’s note: The reader’s concerns were raised with the management of Nakheel, the developers of International City. However, despite repeated reminders, they did not respond.
