Nothing sums up Lamma quite as fiitingly as learning to embrace dogsh!t.

Welcome back, Eileen!

It's been a while since you've left us for your ancient "castle" in the UK. Moving back to Pak Kok maybe?

reason808, yes, I know you and I remember you talking to me writing a few impressions of a Lamma newbie of your new home for the Lamma-zine?
You could start your impressions with your dog poo story above, if you like!

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If this map cannot scare people away from Lamma, then I don't know what can:

http://civcal.media.hku.hk/sewage/stone ... elplan.htm

It should be posted somewhere near the ferry pier, saying that it shows how delicious sewage from all over Hong Kong is collected together and sent through one big pipe to Lamma, where it is disposed into the sea near some of the best beaches.

As far as I know this layout of outfall tunnels beyond Lamma is from end of nineties. It is much revised now. What is shown as stage 3 is now being constructed as stage 2 with many changes to layout. Outfalls South of Lamma are probably far future. Sewage form treatment plant on Stonecutters Island goes to Victoria Harbour actually boosting property business on Lamma.

About Lamma:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserRevi ... egion.html

another reason to avoid moving to Lamma:

1. Scorpions, Centipedes, Snakes, Mosquitoes. (I love nature)
2. Rude shop keepers. (Grocery store in Tai Wan New Village)
3. Streets full of tourists at the weekend. (Maybe that was mentioned before)
4. Lousy estate agents will charge you triple the usual rents.
5. Turning into, or is, the most expensive outer island in Hong Kong.
6. Beggars in the street.
7. Burglars.
8. Alcoholics

I am very surprised that so many people on this forum have such a simplistic view on property prices. Although I dont agree with or like the recent surges in prices both on the rental and sales market why should Lamma be exempt from the pressures that affect the rest of HK and the world???!!! People keep saying that a 700 sq ft flat should cost $6,000. Why? Because thats what it always was? Surely not all property is worth the same purely because it is the same size. its just ridiculous reading some of these posts. Why should a landlord charge the same for his brand new 700 sqft flat in a great location as a landlord who owns a run down, 20 year old in a not so great location. Have any of you ever heard of supply and demand?? We currently paying 6k for an older place but am choosing to move somewhere nice and am going to pay more. OF COURSE - that is how the world works.

It's the converse that pisses people off.

Years of tremendous work on this website to promote Lamma…

On the ferry deck seats, feet and toes on your armpieces.
Also on the ferry deck, ear-piercing and pretentious laughters.
Also on the ferry deck, scene of one-sided love making.

What is one sided love making and how does it work? Go on...

I have a very simplistic view of property prices, as do most of the forum users on this topic. If you have a landlord who has just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating, then fair enough the rent increases.

Or if you have a new house, with the added bonus of a seaview and a short distance to the ferry pier.... the rent increases tenfold,...fair enough. You get what you pay for.

And if people are willing to pay a 1Million more than the bank's market price for this property,... well..... what can I say.

But when a few flats sell for quite frankly ridiculous prices IMHO.... then most of the landlords rub their hands with glee and think..... people are willing to pay more, so lets just put the rent up for the same place, there is just pure greed at the end of that.

Myself and most of my friends who are long term residents on Lamma have all had to move flat, as the landlord has basically wanted to sell. Understandable, it happens.

But when all the landlord does is repaint the flat, and installs all new aircons, and leases it out again for 50% more than before, I disagree with that.

You get what you pay for. The prices on Lamma just don't reflect what you should get when you live on a island, with communiting time and cost, and temporarily living on a building site (hope it's temporary....... who knows what will happen in 2014 with the HSY reclamation.)

I have had/and can still have the same size flat in HK side for what I am paying now.

Prices are completely overpriced here. The rentals and sales have doubled almost in the past 5 years.

So are you saying that if you owned the flat and had the opportunity to increase the rent by 50%, you wouldn't take it?

Well, that's the tough question, isn't it? How greedy would you be if you had the opportunity, being a landlord? How many months would you wait for the maximum rent before you'd lower it to a more reasonable increase?
In my own case, there'll be no renovation of any kind or even repainting, but the next tenant, beginning of Aug, will be a asked for a 50% higher rent. Dollarful might well get lucky and find some off-islanders strolling by their shop on a weekend checking flats for rent, so many of them with 5-digit figures/month. The recent multiple newspaper stories about a top sale of $5,000/sqft for a property over 30 years old don't seem to deter these new residents.

Personally, we've got a nice off-island landlord; he's been great, getting anything fixed, aircons cleaned or even upgraded on short notice, always for free, no complaints. The rent is high but worth it till now, but it's becoming unaffordable now as the landlord is making a quite understandable and all-too-human bid for a maximum rent. No real grudges from our side, just some low-level grumbling....

So we'll have to give in and move, belonging to the underclass of rent slaves, paying off our landlords' mortgages and enriching the banks and property developers beyond reason.

Well, c'est la vie, at least till we could ever afford to buy ourselves and rent it out to get the mortgage paid off by somebody else....

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I do understand the frustrations of rent being increased in what can be seen as an `unfair' amount but if people are willing to pay that then that's what's going to happen. It is happening all over HK and unfortunately that means people are pushed to places like Lamma that, in their opinion, offers value for money. I just dont get the mentality that Lamma should be cheap as it always has been.

and so many second-hand sales these days..an exodus from lamma.

Understanding why you're getting shafted doesn't make it any more pleasant.

How understandable is it? If I were a landlord and I had good tenants paying an already-high level of rent I'd be inclined to play safe and stick with them. But yes, greed is a very human trait.

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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

Crazy young drunkard expats who push aside old tired hobbling men, and then beat you up for no reason afterwards, because the Yeung Shu Wan main street is a thin bottleneck.

But other than that, the Y is a nice place to live.

1. Scorpions, Centipedes, Snakes, Mosquitoes. (I love nature)
(But I have yet to see these Scorpions).


2. Rude shop keepers. (Grocery store in Tai Wan New Village)

(???, then don't shop there lolz. It's like that scene on Don't be a Menace, where the two boys are in a liqour store, and the shop keeper gives them grief., I would have just said. I'm taking my business elsewhere. ptttblh, and why not do what others do, do a monthly shop, for big important stuff, over in Arbedeen, and grab the ferry to Yeung Shu Wan?)

3. Streets full of tourists at the weekend. (Maybe that was mentioned before)
(But they're brining money and prosperity to us though. how else can we generate the 1.21 Giggawatts of electricity? (movie reference.. but how else are we to generate income (BESIDES working in the city),

4. Lousy estate agents will charge you triple the usual rents.
(This one is a big beef with me, When first came here, I had crazy faucets that whe you turned on they made this angry gagagagagagagaga virbration sound. or grgrgrgrrrrrrrr, like growling lions of the Tin Hau temple, So then the guy replaced them no charge.... There are no screens here, so mosquitoes have their way with me), I'm going to put them up for my own sanity, and for the next dude who lives here.

5. Turning into, or is, the most expensive outer island in Hong Kong
(Insuficent data for rebuttal).

6. Beggars in the street.
(There's that one guy I've seen begging, he has no limbs but he's over at the IFC all the time), I've seen no beggars here except those kids asking for donations).

7. Burglars.

(Szchenchen yes, Lamma no).

8. Alcoholics

(HELLLL YES, like this one time this club hopper and his "wife", decide to push a feeble hobbling old man to the side, (because he was older, had prostrate problems and was trying to hold it in, (well we'll all get that way eventually), plus he has a bad back and hasn't been taking care of himself too well. Especially with the poisons from the mainland consumed). Naturally his son takes offense to this rude "lady"'s rudeness. (Pushing aside an elderly), and things escalated from there, Lucky for naieve boy, there were Lammites on hand to try and detere the melee. But come on you're suppose to drink and have a GOOD time not drink and be an angry bleep head. Who we had a rough time holding back. Granted the kid was an idiot for retorting a very foul description of the wife, and continuing to egg the clubber on.. dumb dumb dumb..... just let it go. But pushing aside older people.... That's just evil.