[Krawall]

Just moved in today. Err, yesterday.

Good thing is I live low floor, means, I spend less time in the elevator. Bad thing is my carpark is still in Ocean Pointe, hence, I have to do some morning exercise.

Airplane noise seems more here, or maybe it was just the wind direction yesterday. I was facing towards Tsing Yi/Tsuen Wan in Ocean Pointe maybe that was the reason I've got little noise from Airplanes over there, even though I was living high floor.

What I particularly dislike is the sewage smell everywhere here. I managed to get it mostly out of our flat, but it came back in the bathroom. No real idea why. Will give it a few days and ask the management what's the deal with it. The smell is present in many places around Tower 1, especially on the ground floor and parking lot.

[larac]

There is a kind of weird, wet concrete mixed with drains smell in Tower 8 too but it is also outside the building. I would like to know what it is and if there is anything that can be done about it too. I thought it was the whole area but with you moving from Ocean Pointe it can't be. Keep us posted and let me know if there is anything I can do to help get the management to address it. it is quite offputting and we keep our windows shut most of the time and have several plug in air freshners in our apartment because of it now.

[larac]

Does anyone own their own apartment? If you do have you looked at the new website for the building for owners only? Anything interesting?

[DaveD]

Originally Posted by larac

Does anyone own their own apartment? If you do have you looked at the new website for the building for owners only? Anything interesting?

Do you mean www.hkbellagio.com? It's not only for owners.... I did receive the login details a couple of weeks ago.

[Krawall]

Originally Posted by larac

There is a kind of weird, wet concrete mixed with drains smell in Tower 8 too but it is also outside the building.

Now you saying that, it reminds me on the sewage channel just a couple meters away towards the village. I always remembered having the smell when walking from Ocean Pointe towards the village so I think nothing can be done for outside smell, as it just comes from the village (or they get proper sewage done over there)

But what I mean is the smell inside the towers, esp. our apartment

It was quite bad from the beginning, then I started up filling all syphons with water and it all went away only to come back just on the day we moved it - only the bathroom though.

[Krawall]

Originally Posted by DaveD

Do you mean www.hkbellagio.com? It's not only for owners.... I did receive the login details a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah I got it too, your landlord should have the data. Nothing too interesting there, though.

[psampras88]

This seems to be a common problem in HK: sewage smells.
In all the various places I have rented in HK, always had this problem to various extent. Worst was having giant cockroaches coming out of the siphons from the kitchen in South Horizons...

One needs to get used to the overall poor quality of the residential buildings in HK; after all, the HK economy is controlled by private property developers, who in turn control the local political scene (looking at the developers congratulating Donald Tsang on his election in the SCMP is a real life satire) - in most developed countries, these poor construction standards coupled with obvious political connivence, would not exist; in HK, it is part of the developers profitability...and part of our daily life.
To cheer you up, just think that the quality of a Queen's garden (Old peak road, HKD 80k/mth) apartment and a South Horizons (Aberdeen, HKD 10k/mth) one is actually the same...

Dropped by Bellagio on this pristine evening and the view was just fantastic. This, the property developers did not create...

[Krawall]

Originally Posted by psampras88

This seems to be a common problem in HK: sewage smells.
In all the various places I have rented in HK, always had this problem to various extent. Worst was having giant cockroaches coming out of the siphons from the kitchen in South Horizons...

Hmm. well. Not really. I have rented a few flats, and all have been in the area here. 4 of them in Sham Tseng, one in Tsing Yi.

As a matter of fact, the "hyped" estates were always worse in terms of quality.

I lived in Sea Crest Villa, and though the place is a bit oldish now (it also wasn't new when I moved in), it was fine.

I then moved to Tsing Yi on top of the MTR, and that was really bad.

Now I understand you may run into some initial smell when you rent a flat, and you probably have to get rid of a few silverfish for the first days, that's not a big deal.

But in Tsing Yi, the bad smell wouldn't go away. It was just designed to have sewage problems. The flat in Sea Crest was fine, the quality was fine. It appears old, but the quality was good. The walls were straight, the doors even, the windows ok. The kitchen was good, nothing was smelly. Yes, it was oldish when I moved in already, but it was good.

Then I went to Ocean Pointe, and the quality was good again.

Now I moved into Bellagio and the quality is so-so. Some parts are good, some parts are bad. The smelling problem really puts me off but there's not many things we can do about it. Mostly, get to live with it. But by no means that's a problem you have everywhere.

I think smaller estates tend to be better. In that respect, Bellagio and Tsing Yi were the bigger ones I lived in, and they were not as good as the smaller ones.

I can't even start counting the problems our current flat has. There are a number of (expensive) fixes that needs to be done, I wonder when they are doing it. Some broken things were reported to the developer a while ago, according to the landlord. Nothing has been fixed yet.

[psampras88]

Krawall,

Worrying indeed that such a new development would have that smell problem and those defects - what did Management tell you?
Is DaveD having the same issue as well?http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/images...s/confused.gif


Went so many times to Bellagio visiting flats and walking around the podium, but never smelt anything else than the (nice) smell coming from the BBQ area. No smells inside those empty apartments left for weeks with closed doors and windows.http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif


In the CHinese press, people living in Bellagio usually complain about the Clubhouse facilities being overbooked or the aircrafts landing on runway 25R (thank God, this happens rarely - planes take off toward Kowloon most of the time for safety reasons to avoid Kowloon high grounds while on final approach) but no reports of bad smells (and we know how sensitive to smells Chinese can be!)

By the way, I also visited some flats on Tsing Yi - horrible density of population in there and outrageously expensive rents for such a place...http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Krawall]

Anyone of you doing regular sports (such as tennis or squash?)

I'm still in possession of my Ocean Pointe Club House Card (after all, I'm still renting this place) so that doubles my odds in getting an available court. Someone's interested to play?

Thanks

Krawall