I've always been a tad jittery whenever I use any pavement adjacent to a block of flats. Yes -- I've got a phobia of being hit by things which people may throw out (deliberately or otherwise) of their apartment windows or corridors.
Haven't we all read of cases where people have been injured by such stuff?? The most recent being a month or so ago, when a baby, cradled in the arms of her father, was hit by a considerably large piece of cardboard which had somehow fallen from one of the upper levels of a HDB block. Apparently some kids had been playing with the thing along the corridor and it had, allegedly, fallen by accident when it was left on the parapet. If I'm not mistaken, the baby suffered a concussion, developed a fever and went into ICU for a few days. The father was convinced the incident had done some irreparable damage (though to a questionable extent) upon his baby's mental development, and thus, sued the parents of the responsible children. I didn't follow the outcome of this case, but it has certainly highlighted the perils of killer litter.
Fancy seeing a glass window hurtling down from above and just narrowly miss crashing into your head? Every month or so, there would be such an incident in the news though fortunately there hasn't been any casualties. Although such incidents are not directly human-induced events, they have, nevertheless, reinforced my phobia of falling objects.
If such random accidents aren't bad enough, there are still irresponsible citizens who discard unwanted items intentionally out of their windows because of mere convenience. Of course, soiled tissues, sweet wrappers and the occasional banana skin or apple core might not actually hurt anyone physically but can you imagine the disgusting stains these stuff could make on your best/favorite shirt -- and the unbearable frustration that could result from trying to clean stubborn stains from your best/favorite shirt???
There are worse things too, that people might throw out. Bags of rubbish, ceramic vases, beer bottles, aluminium cans etc, etc. And didn't Constance Chee, former air-stewardness and Science graduate from NUS, "hurl" four-year-old Sindee Neo down to her death?? That's what I call "kill-ing" litter. Hehe~ So lame right?? (On a sidenote, it remains to be seen if Constance is really guilty of purposefully causing Sindee's death. I'm more befuddled by the fact that she had an affair with a married karung-guni man. Air-stewardess and karung-guni man = match-made in heaven?? Not. Moreover, she was dumb enough to have "lent" him a whopping $50k!! She must have really loved him. Either that or karung-guni men make excellent sex-partners.. =p)
Well anyway, the most horrifying thing that could fly down a HDB building (apart from a screaming four-year-old, I suppose) is this... (see picture on the right). Blood-soaked sanitary pads on your head anyone?? LOL
