SINGAPORE: When Ms Ena Lee, her father and their two child moved into their fresh five-room Hougang even, what was meant to be their place of refuge quickly turned into a problem.
” The children were frequently tired,” they said. At one level, my brother was ill for a continuous two weeks”, she told CNA.
It took three months for them to realize the source of the problem, which was a cancer-causing substance called formaldehyde, after their great move in January of this year.
” My companion came over – she’s really an engineer – when she opened up one of the units, she was like,’ Oh, strong formaldehyde odor!'” recited Ms. Lee, who is in her mid-30s and is the company’s chief operating officer.
This flavor – what some call the “new home smell” – is usually present in wooden furnishings.  ,
However, when one gets closer, they might start feeling stinging in their nose and eyes from what can only be described as a powerful nasty jam taste, which is a sure sign that something is wrong.
Ms. Lee claimed that she reached out to her interior architecture firm after her friend visited because of the unpleasant odor, but they repeatedly told her to “give it some period” and that it would “eventually get away.”
Additionally, she purchased activated charcoal and formaldehyde treatment gels from the e-commerce program Shopee to get rid of the smell.
When the difficulty persisted, she ended up contacting an air quality expert. He quickly discovered that the benzene concentration levels were significantly higher than what is considered safe using a benzene meter.
Workers were dispatched to apply a special solution that helps benzene crumble to the damaged surfaces.
The intensity levels finally dropped into the safe area after almost seven hours of therapy, which cost about S$ 1, 000.