New immigrant workers from China would take up temporary residence at lodging houses. Most of these spaces were crowded and grim. They were used to house transient workers until they found work in Singapore or left to work in the Malayan interior. Often, opium smoking was a form of release for many of the working-class men living in these cramped houses. Those who could not afford the rent because of their opium addiction would normally be turned out by their landlords.
