Divide the house into 125 'sleeping boxes' of 2-3 m2

Ho Chi Minh City: A 5-story, 516 m2 house divided into 125 rooms has been shut down due to lack of fire exits, fire protection system, and illegal construction.

On the morning of October 13, the interdisciplinary team inspecting fire prevention and fighting and construction work discovered a series of fire prevention violations at the 5-storey house on Nguyen Thien Thuat Street, Ward 14, Binh Thanh District such as: no exit, escape corridor, equipment, fire prevention system...

The house has only one entrance, less than two meters wide, with a ground floor for motorbikes. Each floor is divided by aluminum walls into 25-30 rooms, each 2-3 square meters wide, stacked on top of each other, with stairs to go up and down. The passage between the sleeping boxes is about 30 centimeters wide. The small rooms have locking doors, shelves, wooden tables, and ceiling heights of only about 1.5 meters, sharing an air conditioner.

The inspection team inspected a house with 125 "sleeping boxes" stacked on top of each other, with a passageway only about 30 cm wide in the middle. Photo: Minh Hoang

Working with the authorities, the owner of the facility said that he had built this "sleeping box" since 2022. At that time, he submitted an application to the Ward People's Committee for permission to rent it out, but he had partitioned the room too small to reduce the rent and attract people to stay.

A representative of the People's Committee of Ward 14, Binh Thanh District, said that the house had a license to be a private residence but had been arbitrarily converted into a motel, which was against its intended function. The owner then illegally designed it into a "sleeping box". "The unit has forced the owner to stop operating the house to fix the current situation to ensure safety," said a representative of the People's Committee of Ward 14.

Sleep boxes are a popular service at airports, allowing travelers to have their own space to rest, relax or work while waiting to board their flights. In some districts in the center of Ho Chi Minh City, there are also many establishments developing this model.

However, Vietnam currently has no specific regulations on construction permits for sleep boxes. According to the 2014 Law on Real Estate Business, temporary accommodation services such as hotels and motels must be licensed by state management agencies.

Inside the "sleeping box" about 2-3 square meters wide, there is no fire protection equipment. Photo: Minh Hoang

According to Colonel Huynh Ngoc Quan, Deputy Head of the HCM City Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Department (Head of the inspection team), this type of sleeping box is a new model, just a bedroom to serve workers and students to rent at a cheap price. However, the house above has seriously violated many fire prevention and fighting regulations, which is very dangerous in case of fire or explosion.

Colonel Quan cited that the staircase here leads from the basement to the upper floors, so when a fire breaks out, smoke spreads upward very quickly and easily. While the walkway is less than a meter wide, victims will be trapped and have difficulty escaping.

Ho Chi Minh City began a general fire prevention inspection at boarding houses and mini apartments from October 6. Many establishments have been fined and suspended for violating fire prevention regulations. On October 11, the inspection team fined the owner of a 7-story boarding house with an area of ​​624 square meters and 255 people on Khuong Viet Street, Tan Phu District for building 135 more rooms than the number required, violating a series of fire prevention regulations. According to the construction permit, the boarding house had 41 rooms, but the actual number of rooms at the time of inspection was 176; the floor area increased by 26.8 square meters...

Dinh Van

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