Before you ask why a man would be driven to toss a clump of worms into his neighbor’s house, he had his reasons.
But harassment, regardless of how odd it seems, is still harassment, and 58-year-old Goon Yoke Seng was not able to worm (that’s an easy pun) his way out of four weeks in prison and a S$3,000 fine last Friday, Yahoo News reported.
A pretty hefty sentence, but to be fair, the man did more than just throw creepy crawlies into a neighbor’s HDB unit — Goon also flung down laundry stands from outside the ninth-floor flat, among other larks. In court, he pleaded guilty to one count of harassment, one count of committing a rash act, and one count of causing mischief.
His frustrations with the neighbors — who live in a unit one floor above him at a block in Toa Payoh — started sometime in October last year, the court heard. He confronted them because he thought they were making too much noise, and the neighbors promised Goon that they would try to reduce their noise levels.
Things were alright for a bit until Nov 7, when Goon went up to the unit to confront them once again about the noise. Again, the household assured him about reducing their noise levels.
This time, however, Goon couldn’t take it any longer. He later grabbed a handful of live and dead worms — food for his pet fish — and tossed them through an open window of the unit. Upon discovering worms on their bed, in the living room, and in the garbage left outside the house, the neighbors called the police and installed a CCTV camera outside.
That same month, Goon continued his campaign of harassment. He removed a shoe rack, two metal laundry stands, and a lamp outside the neighbors’ unit and threw them down from the ninth floor. After noticing that there was a CCTV camera, he used pliers to cut its wires.
Fortunately, no one was injured by Goon’s killer litter. Nonetheless, the neighbors moved out of the unit a couple of weeks after the incidents, Yahoo reported.
In court, Goon represented himself and argued that his family had apparently been subjected to noise from the neighbors for months on end. He claimed that the constant racket caused distress to his family, severe enough to make him lose a lot of weight.
“Truly speaking, we are the real victims,” he said, requesting for the minimum sentence.
District Judge Terence Tay said in response that he should not have overreacted the way he did, and encouraged Goon to seek mediation for any neighborly disputes through the Housing Development Board.
“Take this as a lesson for your actions,” the judge said.
“You will have to be more tolerant towards your neighbors.”
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