My neighbourhood has gone to the dogs

I refer to the letter about selfish and inconsiderate dog owners Dog owners have to be responsible which has highlighted the problems faced by 'non dog' owners in Petaling Jaya, but which is also applicable all over the country. Most serious among them,as the writer has pointed out, is the selfish act of these dog owners, who "take their dogs for walks not for the love of the animal but to make sure their pets do not dirty their own premises with their droppings... Even the children’s parks/playgrounds are not spared..".

I live in Section 11, a matured part of PJ and I can understand the anguished cry of the writer. I have seen owners of link houses who own 3 dogs per house but who do not bother even to take the dogs out to 'do their business' in other people's premises. These wretched animals are locked in the whole day, and sometimes take to barking needlessly at all hours of the day. Other houses with lesser number of dogs, however, just open their gates at certain times of the day, and the dogs roam around the area, 'doing their business' where they like, with the owners nowhere to be seen. The dogs run around freely without leashes, and also take the opportunity to raid those plastic garbage bags left by tenants, who cannot be bothered to buy rubbish bins. Some of these link houses are in dilapidated condition, and are almost like 'cheap hostels' occupied by legal or illegal migrant workers.

Why does MBPJ allow the area to deteriorate into such a sleazy area? Are there no building codes and guidelines on how such premises are to be maintained in a hygienic condition, how many 'pets' are the owners allowed to have, are the owners allowed to bring their pets to their neighbours' houses to 'do their business', are house owners allowed to let their houses run down without maintenance, and rent those houses unscrupulously to migrants(some of them suspiciously 'illegal' looking), who literally use the houses as 'dumps"? Also, are these owners allowed to "increase" the number of rooms in the house illegally thus making the house a fire hazard in addition to being a very unhealthy place.

What has become of the Councillor's promise to make Sections 11 and 12 PJ into a "model section"? This is getting tiresome, and to me, MBPJ is beginning to sound like a broken record !!

My neighbourhood has gone to the dogs