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Buying a resale home can be tricky because you don't always know its history.
The Pohs fell in love with an 11th-storey maisonette at Block 121, Potong Pasir Avenue 1.
But there was a smell they couldn't figure out.
Said the wife, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Poh, in Mandarin: "There was a weird smell, like something had died. But I thought it would have been rude to ask the owner, so I didn't say anything."
The mystery of the odour was solved during the renovation of the flat.
When workers pulled down its false ceiling, about 200 dead pigeons rained down on them.
There were skeletal remains, carcasses in various stages of decomposition and even two live chicks.
The Pohs chose the flat because it is spacious and near St Andrew's Secondary School, where their 13-year-old son studies.
Property agents C.K. Poh , 34, and his 38-year-old wife bought their flat on Feb 29.
The $645,000 unit, which has a sloping roof, is larger than their former flat, a three-room unit in the same estate.
Renovation of the flat, which was estimated to $65,000, began on March 5.
Three days later, as the family of three left the flat and were about to drive off, a worker ran down and told them to wait.
Mrs Poh said: "He told us there were dead birds everywhere in the flat and asked us to check it out."
A worker had dismantled the false ceiling of the master toilet to check the plumbing and dozens of dead pigeons fell out.
Some were decomposing and riddled with worms, while others were just skeletal remains.
The contractor, Mr Sky Tan, who is in his 40s, told The New Paper that his three workers were shocked to see the dead birds.
He said: "There were so many of them. They covered almost the whole floor of the 4 sq m toilet.
"No one dared to touch them. My workers used shovels to put them in cement bags and they were thrown into rubbish bins."
Mrs Poh said her first thought was to ask her husband and son to stay away from the dead birds.
She said: "I wanted to faint. The smell was overpowering. It was so disgusting."
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