Korean Job Discussion Forums

[NM14456]

As unbelievable as it seems to be reposting on the subject here it goes.

I've had an ongoing mosquito problem. I've tried all of the normal suggestions you'd expect from the regulars here and basically none of them work at any level that really changes the situation.

About two days ago after again raising the problem again and yet another visit by the landlord to try and plug more possible gaps the landlord (according to my co-teacher) admitted that he's had "problems" with mosquito's in a couple of the rooms in this building.

I've lived in Central America so I'm hardly new to mosquitos but I'm mystified that this is such a persistent problem inside a house with screens on the windows etc.. What I've noticed is that things like an inner sliding door doesn't sit flush, the clothes closet sits a quarter inch away off the wall etc. etc. I also notice occasional cigarette smoke smell but it's hard to place the source of it.

All I can come up with is that it is a shoddily built building, hence the problems listed above. I'd like to negotiate some part of this in the upcoming contract - a different landlord, at least a different room in the building and so on. When I brought up the idea of putting up a mosquito net to my co-teacher she said he said it was "difficult" to put one up. Someone's full of crap - my co-teacher or the landlord as I know people who make $3000/year who manage mosquito nets. I've heard it's not unheard of for Koreans to do as well.

My question is really about the housing itself. Have people generally experienced crap construction in the buildings they're in?

I know it may be well intended but don't even bother with specific mosquito fighting stuff - I've done it all.

[BoholDiver]

Construction in Korea is a kind of employment project. They purposely build them shoddily.

They certainly have the ability to build good buildings, but then they wouldn't be able to rebuild them within 10 years.

[eamo]

You can get apts with decent construction quality and fitting if you pay enough. Apts worth over 600,000,000 work fine. Usually.

It's accepted here that apts within the price range of the average joe will be a bit crappy.

[Jake_Kim]

Is your place an apartment with balcony, perhaps with a drainage pipe from the building roof inside the balcony? (as opposed to outside the balcony window along the outer wall)

[NM14456]

[NM14456]

[NM14456]

[Jake_Kim]

[Caffeinated]

At my school desk telephone wires are sticking out of the outlet and the electrical outlet is held down by packing tape. The toilet stall doors don't close flush with each other, one urinal sprays water at you, the sink isn't level so it collects water at the corner and the bottom part of the hand dryer has fallen off. I hope there's never an earthquake as 'Korean standards' seem to be an oxymoron.

I figured my mosquito problem is pipe-related as well so I poured hot water down the drains time to time.

[toby99]

The adjosshis generally do a crap job at construction in general. Just take a look at the sidewalks for cripes sake. It's like they were drunk or something during construction. Oh, wait...

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[oldfatfarang]

After living in apartments in Germany (some hundreds of years old) - and living in many other houses, apartments, hotels etc in other countries, and building my own house at home - I've got to wonder at the 'building codes/standards' for Korean construction.

In Korea I've lived in Office-tels, apartments and single rooms - and they've all been shodily built. Paper thin walls, sagging floors, unsealed windows, rotten concrete, ineffective/smelling drains. Basically the accommodation I've had in Korea were just temporary chicken coops (with outside stone veneers to make them look solid and dependable).

Perhaps it's their Buddhist roots (nothing is permanent etc), but I'll never understand how Koreans sink so much money into shoddy buildings/apartments. Heck, in one snall town I lived in about 40% of the buildings were made from cheap temporary buidling materials (metal side veneers with foam sandwiched between them).

One apartment I lived in was only 25 years old, and it was falling apart (rotting concrete, major wiring and plumbing problems - leaking roof etc).

Like my previous apartment, these buildings will have to be torn down in less than 20 years - and replaced. Replacing shoddy housing is going to be a major headache for Korea in the future - especially when their overseas manufacturing income shrinks (with the expected rise of Chineese and Indian manufacturing standards).

One mid sized earthquake is going to level this country (if many of the buidings don't fall down first).

[eIn07912]

It's true that apartments and office buildings here are built rather shoddy. For a good reason though. I new a guy who tutored an engineer once, he said that all the buildings built outside of the Gangnam area are built to what they call "Korean standards" (all the buildings in Gangnam are built to Western standards.)

Because Korea has been a country constantly remaking itself the last half century or more, they are constantly tearing down old neighborhoods to build new ones on top. The Korean standards are that any building, is only supposed to have a life span of 10-20 years. It's essentially designed to start falling apart by then. Now, due to the current state of the economy, they aren't always able to move in and rebuild a neighborhood as planned. And of course, a lot of land lords are going to try to squeeze every year out of those old apartments before they have to drop the cash to build a new one.

As someone said before, construction is one of the biggest employers of middle and lower class Koreans in this country. If they built all the buildings to stand for 50 or 100 years, there would be massive unemployment inside a generation.

[oldfatfarang]

[jvalmer]