Packed labour homes worry Muharraq residents
Homes packed with 10 or 15 foreign workers are going undetected during daytime inspections in old Muharraq neighbourhoods, where overcrowding and crumbling houses are leaving residents worried about crime and safety, a councillor has warned.
Muharraq Municipal Council member Abdulqader Mahmood said some tenants were packing rented homes with workers by sub-letting rooms or bed spaces.
He described cases in which a tenant paid about BD100 for a property, then charged 10 or 15 workers around BD20 each to stay there.
Some landlords, he said, did not even know how many people were living in their properties.
Council checks can miss the problem because inspectors often visit during working hours, when labourers are away at their jobs and the homes appear empty.
‘When inspectors visit, they often find nobody there because the workers are at work,’ Mr Mahmood told The Daily Tribune.
He urged neighbours to report suspected overcrowding and unlawful sub-letting, saying residents often knew which homes were being used in this way.
Families, he said, were worried about overcrowding and often did not know who was living nearby.
Empty and crumbling houses posed a separate danger.
Mr Mahmood said abandoned homes could draw trespassers and be used for illegal activity, while boarding doors and windows with plywood did not solve the problem.
Pulling them down, however, can prove difficult.
Some old houses belong to dozens of heirs, in some cases as many as 50, leaving families struggling to agree on repairs, demolition or who should pay.
Heritage rules can also stop a dangerous house from being pulled down.
Mr Mahmood said some ageing homes were protected because of their heritage value even when they had fallen into poor condition.
He said no heritage listing should leave neighbours exposed to a building that had become unsafe.
Mr Mahmood said he hoped the Royal Muharraq Development Project would clear derelict and overcrowded housing and bring Bahraini families back to old neighbourhoods.
He said that would also reduce the use of family homes as packed labour quarters.
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