‘I’ve never had an asthma attack this bad’: Tourist hit with breathing difficulties after staying in Bugis hotel room with ‘mould’

A tourist from Australia had his trip disrupted when he suffered a serious asthma attack after his first night in Singapore.

In a post on Facebook group Complaint Singapore on Wednesday (June 5), Nguyen Luoi said he had booked a three-night stay at a hotel in Bugis via a third-party website. The hotel is listed as three-star online.

After checking into the hotel on Monday, Nguyen was given a room that did not have a window.

When he woke up the next morning, he said he experienced breathing difficulties which persisted throughout the day. He attributed this to the presence of mould in the room.

His post included a video of what looked like mould growing on the room's air-conditioning vents, which he believed had caused his asthma attack. 

"I suspect the flimsy wallpaper also hides more mould as I've never had an asthma attack this bad," he wrote.

In a subsequent email to the hotel, he said that he did not bring along his asthma medication "as I have not had a use for it for a long time".

Nguyen did not reveal how much he paid for the room, but said that the listed price for it at the hotel's front desk was $190 a night and that he paid less through Booking.com.

At about 9pm on Tuesday, Nguyen saw a doctor and was prescribed medicine for his asthma. The bill came up to more than $300 and he said he did not buy travel insurance.

When he returned to the hotel, he asked to change to a room with a window, to which the hotel agreed.

However, despite taking his medication and moving to a different room, Nguyen's breathing issues persisted throughout the night.

"[The medication] has only provided mild relief. I still [had] great difficulty breathing," he wrote. "The mould seems to be deep in [the hotel's] air-conditioning system."

He wanted to open the window in the room for ventilation and approached the reception for help. However, he was told they did not have the key to the window lock.

Unable to bear with his breathing issues any longer, Nguyen checked into another hotel across the road at around 1am on Wednesday. 

He expressed shocked at the state of the rooms he had stayed in as he expected more from Singapore hotels.

"In my homeland, the hotel would be shut down the next day until the safety and health breaches were rectified," he wrote in a comment under his post.

He said he had contacted the hotel to ask for a full refund for his stay, as well as $1,000 in compensation for his medical expenses and the harm caused to him.

"I hope you are willing to see the faults of your hotel here, the health and safety risk, and make an effort to clean out your air-conditioning duct system efficiently," he wrote.

A check online found that there are hotels in Singapore which offer windowless rooms.

On the website of the hotel that Nguyen stayed at, photos of its rooms show that there are windows and there was also no mention of windowless rooms. The listed price for a standard room is slightly more than $190 per night. 

A check by AsiaOne found that Booking.com offers a lower rate for the same room at $100 per night.

The hotel has a rating of 3.5 stars on Google, with some reviews describing experiences similar to Nguyen's.

One guest wrote: "Reserved and paid for four nights, could only stand one night. With air-conditioning off, [the] tiny room was stifling (window locked shut) but musty air flows through mouldy air conditioner vent directly over bed. Woke up with sinus problems."

Another wrote: "The room smelled like mould... The air conditioner was noisy and the room was falling apart."

A number of reviewers took issue with the upkeep of the rooms and facilities, with some citing a lack of cleanliness and some others reporting faulty appliances.

AsiaOne has contacted Nguyen and the hotel for more information.

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bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com

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