High price to pay on the roof

ABU DHABI // The shoddy construction of Anwar Hossain's illegal rooftop flat was never clearer to him than during last winter's rainstorms. The torrential downpours flooded the money-exchange worker's Hadbat al Zafranah home, perched on top of the roof of a three-storey building. "The roof is not protected. From the ceiling, there were some cracks," Mr Hossain, 38, said yesterday.

For Dh4,000 a month split with another Bangladeshi couple, he considered that he was getting what he paid for. "It's cheaper than the other place downstairs," he said. "If we lived downstairs, I think we have to pay Dh800 or Dh1,000 more." This was not always so. Mr Hossain recalled moving to the capital six years ago and finding a furnished downtown apartment for Dh800 a month. "Now if I want to move to that room, I have to pay Dh3,500 or something like that in the main city."

At his rooftop home now, his wife worries about the risk of fires or any dangers if the couple had children. The neighbours downstairs even began dumping rubbish outside their makeshift flat. Mr Hossain scrawled a note on the wall urging other tenants not to treat the roof like a dumpsite. "We warned them not to do that, but they don't care," he said. "It was their garbage - like old furniture, old benches, old mattresses."

The two couples occupying the roof must vacate it in three months before the building is demolished. They were aware the municipality considers rooftop extensions to be eyesores and they do not want to cause trouble, but rents elsewhere are high. "I would rather stay downstairs rather than on a rooftop, but if I don't get it for a good price, then maybe I have to take a rooftop," Mr Hossain said. @Email:mkwong@thenational.ae