Woman calls cops after monkey invades her home
By Nathaniel Hong and Yuen Mun
The New Paper
Friday, Nov 16, 2012
SINGAPORE - Police officers carrying batons and a shield had to rescue a woman on Monday afternoon after a monkey broke into her house and became aggressive.
Lianhe Wanbao reported that the woman, who gave her name as Madam Deng, was in the second-floor study of her house in Upper Thomson Road when she heard agitated cries coming from her cats.
"As I have a total of three cats in the house, I thought that they were fighting one another," she told the paper.
"When I was walking downstairs, I had a shock when I saw a shadow with a long tail dashing past me on the stairs."
When she took a closer took, she realised that it was a monkey.
"I took a step forward, but the monkey suddenly turned around and bared its fangs. It looked as though it was going to pounce at me and attack," she said.
As the monkey was becoming aggressive, the home owner ran upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in before calling the police for help.
While in the room, she said she could still hear the sound of the monkey rummaging through her belongings in the living room.
A next-door neighbour, Mr Zhou, told Wanbao he saw three policemen arriving at the scene. He said that they were all armed with batons and one of them was carrying a shield.
Mr Chew added that after the policemen went into the house, they chased the monkey to a nearby children's playground. They then lost track of the monkey.
What a mess
Madam Deng surveyed her house after the monkey ran off and told Lianhe Wanbao that it had left her things in a mess.
She said the monkey had tipped over her trash, clawed apart soft toys and ripped plastic parts off a door. "The monkey is very smart," she said. "I believe he crawled in through a small window in the toilet."
Another neighbour told Wanbao that the monkeys started appearing two weeks ago in the area, smashing flower pots and stealing fruit from the trees that residents had planted.
Madam Xu, a housewife in her 50s, said she first saw the monkey at the children's playground two weeks ago.
Then last week, she saw a monkey climbing into her neighbour's house, weaving in and out of the metal gates.
"I believe it is the same monkey. It had a very beautiful coat of fur, but it also looked very aggressive to me," she said. "I worried that it might attack my home, as well as my two dogs."
Madam Xu said she has also seen monkeys stealing fruit from her neighbours' trees, gnawing through water containers and upsetting pots of plants that they placed on top of the walls surrounding their homes.
When The New Paper spoke to residents who lived along Upper Thomson Road close to the fringe of the forested area near the Lower and Upper Peirce reservoirs, they said that they have gotten used to living with the monkeys.
Mrs Low, a 58-year-old housewife who lives in Marigold Drive, said she uses traps when the animals cause trouble.
A monkey once broke into her kitchen and started eating the fruit she had left lying around, she said. It also smashed some eggs before it got chased off.
The family eventually got pest controllers to trap and remove the monkey. Another resident who gave her name as Emily said she avoids monkey trouble by not leaving food out and not having plants that the monkeys can eat.
Emily, who is in her 50s and has stayed at the Adelphi Park Estate near Thomson Plaza for 25 years, said her family had once planted sugarcane that the monkeys promptly dug up and ate.
Having pets, especially dogs, would also help, she said. "In the day, we have to shut all our windows," she said.
"At night, there are people at home so the monkeys won't come." [email protected]