The client : Then a 50 year old American, married to a 28 year old Filipina and they have 3 children aged 2, 5 & 9.... he is a wealthy man as he is a venture capitalist. He owned the intermediate unit and bought the corner unit.

The project : It is 2 semi-ds being converted into 1. My scope of work was the building, lights, ceiling, roof, floors, bathrooms and kitchen as well as the project management of it. I wasn't incharge of the ID works. Basically the corner house was where he and family were to live, 5 large bedrooms, big living room and the works. The intermediate would have a 20 car garage, 3 store rooms, his office, his workshop, his music room and where his maids would live.

During the design stage he amended aspects of it 27 times. During the construction phase the house was demolished twice because he changed his mind.

The only thing wrong with the house was there were several rooms and halls that had triangles in them, had plenty of dead corners and plenty of areas of the house that sunlight doesn't get to. It had poor air circulation as well as the central air conditioning system utilized a closed recirculatory system and had no exhaust or air exchanger systems. Oh well it was what he wanted so what he wanted I gave him as I needed him to pay my fees

He was a happy man when I handed him the keys and told him I hope the house will bring him many happy moments, I felt somewhat sentimental for that house as after I built it 7 other house owners asked me to help renovate their house and there was 1 that copied the facade.

When I left his with the keys, I looked at the house and was mostly upset with myself. I hated how it turned out and uhhhh it looked terrible. Also felt I didn't particularly do a great job as there were so many things wrong with it but as with anything I always believed the customer is always right and as the architect it isn't my job to dictate what he should have, it is my job to deliver what he wanted and finding ways and means to make the impossible a possibility.

4 months after he contacted me, he said there was a problem. I met up with him at his office. There was a gigantic desk in there with the EIC crest on it, supposedly belonged to a former colonial administrator and he had a bed in there too also with the EIC crest carved on it. He told me he bought those at an antique shop in Malacca and it must have at one time been at one of the many official residences for EIC / Straits Settlement, both were very ornate and very well preserved. The entire office was decorated with numerous knives and swords as well as rifles. He then told me had a thing for weapons owned by very powerful men.

He told me he wanted to demolish a wall to move an antique bed into his bedroom. I told him it can't be done because that house's exterior shell was made entirely from board formed reinforced concrete. I asked to see the bed, he brought me to one of the storerooms, it was a 3m x 3m x 1.5m sized bed. Solid thing with the crest and VoC carved into it. There was also a desk that was 5m wide with the VoC carved on it. He said it was from the residence of a Governor General of Batavia. He said the bed and desk couldn't be dismantled and he shipped it whole. I told him to let me figure it out so I took some photos of it and sent to someone I know who knew a thing or two about antique furniture. Also showed him photos of those with the EIC crest on it as I was curious on its origins as well as how old it was.

He then showed me the rest of the house, starting with the attic AV room, it had something rather interesting, it had 5 chairs in there that appeared more like beds, I asked him what was the story of those chairs, he then told me all 5 of them came from an opium den. I was like holyfuck why would you want to have those.... he told me those dens were always owned by very powerful persons.

Then he showed me his bathroom..... I was like OMFG, it turned out besides being an avid and enthusiastic antiques collector he was also a relics collector. He had a stone carving cut off from some ancient temple in Cambodia and it was framed into his wall.I took several photos of the house and asked my friend about it. He called me straight away and told me to stay away from those opium den chairs. He also told me to advise him to remove that stone carving and return it to the temple. He also told me how that bed and desk were joined and there was a way to dismantle them, he then asked me if I was aware many of such beds were once used in brothels. He said the EIC bed most likely would have been thrown away before WW1 era and it appeared many brothels bought them because a curtain was all that was needed. He said same goes for the VoC ones.

I told my client I knew what to do with it and he asked me to try and address the creaks, rattles and squeaks of the bed.... said he enjoyed hard and rough fucks and those bed noises won't be something he could tolerate. He also told me to help him out with the bed and desk in his office as it could do with a bit of touching up. Told him I'd do my best.

I brought 2 carpenters and that contact of mine I had communicated with regarding the furniture. The bed was taken apart, repaired and given a light sanding and clear coat, then assembled in the bedroom, same thing for the desk. The one in the office was given a deeper sand down and removed all the layers of varnish till it was bare wood, I then had it coated with 2 coats of pork lard oil, 1 coat of coconut oil and a coat of infused lemon + lime oil + garlic oil. I read it somewhere back then that it was a good conditioner for wood. It was then sanded and given a coat of beeswax.

He paid me and told me he wanted his money back if the bed squeaked. Everything worked out fine.

When everything was put in place, he told me last piece of the puzzle been solved and his dream had come true. He was a happy man. I never saw him for 4 months after that.

On the 4th month I met his wife, she tried to avoid me but didn't succeed. I asked her how were things in the house, she said the house is fine. I got talking to her and then she told me he had become a monster. I was like hmmm.... she then showed me her bruises on her arms and inner thighs. I thought he was just into BDSM which isn't common for many American men married to women from less advanced countries. I suggested she speak to him about it if it was something she didn't want, she walked off.

2 weeks after that a common friend of ours called me to ask if I could help, it seemed he was arrested and held in remand..... domestic violence. I asked him how's the wife, he told me she is at a certain hospital. I drove to that private hospital, went to see her.... yup he had certainly bashed her up quite badly. She said she'd return to Philippines with the children for awhile. She never told me why or what triggered him to beat her so badly.

I went over to the police station, met our common friend and I told him I'd do the talking. I negotiated with the cops to release him and said it won't happen again. I went to speak to him and asked him what the heck he thought he was doing. I asked him why he did that to her..... he said she accused him of infidelity and she insisted he was cheating on her when he had not done so. I told him I've negotiated his release and to not do it again and to get some help. His friend gave me the cash to pay the coffee money and we brought him home. She was there packing her bags. She told him she was returning to Philippines, he in a cool and calculated manner asked her with what money. Oh yeah he had frozen the bank accounts and credit cards, he told her to get to the bedroom as he would be teaching her a lesson she won't forget anytime soon. Our mutual friend and me tried to calm him down and coax him not to be a jackass, it mostly worked.

A week later I happened to have a project where I brought in a Sarawakian shaman. I showed him that house that I had done and he told me that house was an evil house. I was like no way.... he insisted it was true.

I phoned up my client asked if he minded if I brought an anthropologist to see his antiques and relics. He said no problem come on by and also asked me to bring some meat and beers we'll fire up the BBQ.

We had a look around the house, then my client and me decided to go BBQ while the shaman and the client's wife talked and she showed him around the house.

I asked him what was the part he liked best about the house, he told me the office and bedroom because it made him feel very powerful and the home theatre room because it made him feel completely relaxed and chilled. I thought hmmmmmmmm really... that's interesting. Then the beer (This bloke has really poor tolerance for alcohol, 3-4 beers his tongue loosens considerably) started doing its job, he started telling me about his sexual habits..... then I actually knew deep down this fella is a true blue through and through racist redneck from Georgia with slavery fantasies but due to his "undersized member" the only ones he could carry out on were Asian females. He was quite happy to boast every 10 years he gets rid of a wife together with the children and finds a new one as he had been doing since he was 20 years old. First "bitch" as he liked to call his 1st wife was a Malaysian Chinese, 2nd an Indonesian and he said his next would be a Cambodian or Burmese. I steered the conversation away and asked him to tell me more about his businesses and to show me what has he parked in his 20 car garage. He showed me his 20 cars, by the way.... the area where he parked those cars are air conditioned to remove the humidity and heat. Again it was the same story, he had several cars that were once owned by either Sultans, ministers and very powerful businessmen and one of the cars he had used to be owned by PM#2 and another by Lee Kuan Yew, also in his collection was one of the cars used by Marcos. I never knew some of those cars still existed and they were indeed very very rare cars or rare version of such cars. He said he'd love to buy a car owned by Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Hitler someday.

We then continued on with the BBQ, the shaman joined us and steered the topic towards paranormal..... my client said he didn't believe in it but his wife does. I stated I believe in live and let live, don't disturb me I don't disturb you basis.

Suddenly the client asked what was it that was disturbing his wife that each time he fucks her she accuses him of cheating. Shaman said he knows how to find out and can come back in a few days time if he was interested. Client said sure but its unlikely anything could be found.

I brought the shaman there together with a Chinese medium as in the car the shaman told me in that house, the bedroom alone there were 40 different demons/spirits there. I asked how and why the house had so many as the house was a brand new house and before it was built I had it "checked out" The shaman said he was unsure but can find out.

They went into the bedroom, was in there for a good 2 hours. They came out sweating like as if they ran a marathon. The medium told me there was something very strange about the room, he said there were the souls and spirits of 6 men and 40 women. They chase one and then it comes back to be even stronger which they had no explanation over.... there were 3 different "men" that guarded that desk in the room. I asked him to go take a look at the bathroom. They took a look and then said nothing to do with it as that stone were just decorative in nature and had no religious or spiritual meaning behind it but not good to have them in a house. I asked them to go take a look at the office to see if there is anything there. The shaman said there are but those only affected the energy balance and it came mostly from all the weapons in there. He said the desk and bed had absolutely nothing to it. I then told the shaman maybe I had cleared it away because I had retreated the wood with pork lard oil. He did say that is certainly true, many do leave from pork lard oil or blood being applied to a certain object but not always so as some as immune to it.

They were then showed the home theatre room.... immediately the medium said those opium den chairs had "stuff" on it that even he is afraid and left the room. The Sarawakian shaman said he will try what he could. I asked the medium why were those opium den chairs so dangerous he told me those days opium dens were extremely competitive places and most owners of such places placed something at the legs of those chairs to help with the addiction process. The other reason was during those days that opium den chair would be the last place many would have sat on before dying as it was also common for many homes those days to have an opium chair/bed and also many addicts would hold on firmly to the chair legs when the den keeper chased them out, often they'd have their hands beaten to let go of the chair so they could be kicked out of the den. Seems those beatings often splattered blood on the legs and it was deliberately left there for "consumption". I then told him my client always felt a certain element of relaxation whenever he went into that room, the medium said it wasn't a surprise because the "stuff" on those chairs are essentially zapping his soul or energy away and while that is happening it is normal to feel relaxed or weak. What he said is if he didn't have those weapons in his office it is very likely he'd be very sick by now.

The Sarawakian shaman came out he was literally sweating from head to toe. By this time the client was home as well. We were all like are you alright as that house had a central air conditioning system that kept the entire house at 20 degrees all day long. He told us 2 of those opium beds had "stuff" so strong on it that it kept overpowering and fighting him instead of being able to cast it out. He said nothing can be done about it other than burning those beds especially the one nearest to the door, said that one had 30 different demons possessing it.

The medium and shaman then said they'd attempt the bedroom again and this time they'd first try to understand what was there before trying to straight away get rid of it. They tried to get an understanding who was VoC and where that bed came from and straight away the medium asked where was it last used, it seemed many of these 4 poster styled beds were famously used in a lot of brothels and if that was the case there was good reasons why it was sold off as such furniture doesn't get sold unless it had been sold off long ago. They brought some incense, some banana, some rice and some tapioca as well as coconuts. The client and me decided to go to the garage, he showed me his new toy a Jaguar E-Type Series 1, said it used to belong to one timber tycoon. We went for a spin in it to get some beers and then sat by the pool. While at the pool the medium and the shaman came by to tell us they couldn't do anything. Client shot back that yeah of course they couldn't do a thing because it didn't exist. I asked the shaman what was the story, he told me there were 6 spirits of what must be Japanese soldiers and 38 of various females, some appeared to be of Javanese, some Chinese and 2 were European. Said the only thing that doesn't disturb were the 2 European ones and 1 of the Javanese ones, only problem was the 2 European ones if it is a woman that type of "beings" would mess with her intuition. The medium then said the reason why the client's wife keeps accusing him of cheating on her was because of those 2 messing with her intuition and their presence would make her intuition feel as if another woman was present. I was amazed as always thought that intuition wasn't real judging by the number of times I had piaped other women over the years and never got caught. Client said it was preposterous a story and mostly dismissed everything. We left and it was just that.

2 years later, I asked our mutual friend how was the client doing, it turned out his wife committed suicide by slashing her wrist. According to the children she suffered lots of domestic abuses and in the end she couldn't take it any longer. I had not seen him for a while as I became quite busy with my work and never really clicked all that well with him. Basically I didn't want to mix with him because after the round where I brought the shaman I was kind of worried what might happen if I was in a situation where I was invited to sit on his opium den chairs. The times we met at pubs, he usually became full of himself and enjoyed talking about his sexploits and what he could do in bed which I didn't really care to know as basically it was all the stuff you could think of that are disrespectful it was what he would do and I stopped wanting to be around him the day he told me if ever his wife pissed or ticked him off the proper punishment was ramming her cervix with his dick..... I walked out of that gathering when he said that. The reason why I wanted to meet him was to find out whether he would be interested in turning around a company that my father in law owned and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Alas we couldn't find him then.

When I did meet him 4 months after asking about him, I could barely recognize him, he had become stick thin. I met up with him at the house together with our mutual friend. He had become a chain-smoker, a drunkard and one that was addicted to prostitutes who also supplied him with his fix of drugs. The 20 cars?? Only a 5 year old Honda City remained. The children were sent back to Philippines. The house was in a pile of mess, there were rubbish absolutely everywhere. The weapons?? Most of it were gone. The house was mostly stripped off all its valuables, literally nothing was left of it other than the furniture and things that were too difficult to be moved. he told us he had basically run out of money and he owed tonnes of people money. As he talked, he drooled, hands trembled and if you starred hard enough you could see the worms moving under his skin.

I had one Buddhist mission with a cold turkey tank pick him up. Placed him in a dark room for 10 days and then had a medium cast out all the demons that was within him.

He finally realized his life was mostly over, I told him to return to America and forget about everything else. He said he wanted to go but he had no one to turn to once he returned. That was in addition to him not having any money. I told him I could try to help him sell the house and I told him he could try to start over again. Yeah in that 2 years he had literally blown every single sen he had earned over the previous 35 years, companies he took over that were successful after being turned around became failures.  Real estate he had bought mostly had been repossessed and just about every deal he did in the previous 2 years failed miserably.

I made him a deal, I would arrange for a safe passage for him back to America, he passes me the keys to the house and once it is sold I'll pass him the balance after taking out my "fees" He agreed.

I contacted my former church in Seattle, informed them that he is a victim of witchcraft and to organize a rehab and  to resettle him after he had gone through rehab.

I tried to sell both houses as a pair, it had no takers as the market had just crashed then and no one was in the mood to spend RM9,000,000 for something like that.

The opium den chairs, the colonial beds and desks were still there.

I cleaned up that Honda City and had it sold, I passed the money to the church and told them to slowly channel it to him and perhaps try to set him up as an Uber driver.

I tried to sell it as separate houses on an as is condition, it didn't sell as both houses needed too much work to make good as towards the end he had destroyed a lot of the copper pipes and cabling of the house.

A year later I told him I'll take both off him for RM3,500,000 NETT, he agreed after swearing he'd come after me for low-balling him.

Well greed and selfishness had indeed taken over me. I was rather broke.... it seriously became a time of my life where I looked forward to pay day by the 20th of the month. There were 2 things that were wrecking my head at that time, 1 was this house and the other was a factory I had taken over from my then ex-FIL. I also started developing hypertension right around this time. In a short span of 8 months, there were moments where my blood pressure from 125/80 shot to 170/110 which my cardiologist said there were no signs as to what the reason may be as BMI was fine, blood tests were fine, ECG were fine and even MRI turned out fine. I took a cocktail of medications to control the BP. Only ate oats and soymilk for breakfast, a piece of toast, tomato soup and grilled tofu for lunch and salad with grilled salmon for dinner every day.

I sorted out the factory by selling off 4 pieces of real estate I owned. Along the way I also delivered several knockout blows to my ex-FIL who lost the land the factory stood on for over 30 years. Yup it made an on-going war to be even worse but by then I didn't give a damn about him and to be honest I didn't give a damn about the then ex-wife or the children I have with her.... I told myself they will just be collateral damage as I became that person that if I had to punch I'll put every ounce of strength into that punch, if I wanted to fight then I'd fight all the way to the very end and seriously I became very trigger happy when it came to firing people, anyone messes with my work, straight away I'd mark them down on their KPI and would definitely make it more serious than it really was just to get them fired. At that time the company I was assigned to gave me a Toyota Hilux to drive for project site visits..... there was this incident where a Myvi driven by a late 20s man with his wife and 2 children tried to jump queue at the LDP highway at the Western Digital junction. He had an "ego tercabar" moment because I squeezed him instead of letting him jump the queue.... he overtook me and stopped in front of the Hilux.... he was around 5'7 or so... his wife got down and kept begging him to go back to the car. He tried to open my door, I pointed to him, to his car and showed him a sign for 3.... then did a countdown to 3 seconds... at the end of 3 seconds I reversed the Hilux around a foot opened the door with enough force to hit him with the door that he fell to the ground. I got down from the Hilux, picked him up and threw him into the drain. I got back into the Hilux, drove in front of the Myvi and reversed into it twice ensuring the radiator leaked, then drove off to the nearest police station where I gave my story. What happened to me?? Absolutely nothing at all. Why?? Well you know why...... While it wasn't necessarily a demon, I was being consumed by a certain money=power=freedom.... and whatever it was made me feel all the more into it.

My finances did improve. I had several projects that delivered on time and I did manage to let go more real estate... it made me even more emboldened. Ex-wife said she was short on money because her parents were drying her out every month... I told her I had plenty of money and nothing made me happier to see her being roasted alive from lack of money. In fact at that time she wanted to get back together instead I purposely hooked up with one Swedish lady she hated.

Then one Sunday afternoon I felt rather restless and drove to that house.

I felt very upset with myself that the first house I design had come to that state. It made me very angry that a house that cost nearly RM15,000,000 to build no one wanted to buy it for RM10,000,000 and it was in such a sad state.

There were 3 mongrels that came up the driveway. All 3 had collars and appeared to be well fed. 1 of it appeared to be a cross-bred Rottweiler. I walked around the perimeter of the house, it was overgrowing with weeds but otherwise much of the facade of the house was fine just in need of a clean.

I patted the mongrels on their heads then opened the door. The house had no electric as it had been cut long ago. The dogs started barking but I went ahead and walked into the house. It had a musky and damp smell, atypical of houses that's been empty for a while. Most of it was smell from the air conditioning ducts. The house was cleaned out of all the rubbish that littered the place previously. Now it was just dusty.

I decided to go to the kitchen. Realized I cleared the refrigerators but not the cabinets. I opened it to take a look. There were couple of bottles of bottled hotdogs, luncheon meat and rendang beef. I decided to open up those foods and feed it to the dogs. as they weren't out of date. Then I checked the cabinet under the sink, I found a very big axe, it was a big axe, handle was 6ft long and the head was 18" long on each side. I walked towards the office and tried opening the door, it was locked... I tried the axe and and kicked it open. Got in there and smashed 2 of the glass to open up the window. I then used the axe, smashed open all the glass and timber cabinets.... the last cabinet I smashed I found 2 Katanas, a short and long blade together with their casings and holsters. I decided to wear it around me and took the axe. I suddenly felt WHOA WTF I felt really daring and powerful.

I then took a look around the office, I went up straight the the home theatre room. Used the axe to to smash the door and kicked it down. The dogs started howling away. I used the axe and chopped up each of those opium den chairs, making sure I split the legs in half. I then broke the only window in that room. The dogs continued howling away and I kept smashing those chairs up till they weren't recognizable then left the room.

I then went to the master bedroom. Used the small blade katana to cut the curtains away and then broke the windows.

Then with the axe I destroyed that bed and desk. I then went into the bathroom and smashed around the stone carving. Thankfully because it was badly tiled up during the installation it was fairly easy to remove the tiles and it stone with several light blows it came off the wall without breaking. I then spoke to the stone and said protect me and I'll make sure you get home. I left it there and went back to the office, I used the axe to smash up the bed and desk in there too.

I then got back to my car, carefully placed the axe and katanas in my car and drove to the nearest police station where I surrendered the axe telling them that I found it in my rental house that I was clearing and didn't want it to fall in the wrong hands. I then contacted a minister I knew and asked if he could get me in touch with someone from the Japanese embassy right away. I asked that person to meet me right away as it was important and he agreed. I met him at a nearby carpark, I showed him what I had in the car and asked if he knew how to identify it. He said he had no idea but someone more senior might be able to identify it. He called that person to come out and that person was shocked to see it as he said it appeared to be a pre-1500 sword and very very few were known to exist even in Japan. I told them to cut the story short I wanted these 2 to go to a museum and I wanted them to organize a safe passage as I didn't want it to land in the wrong hands or for it to go to another collector. They told me they could store the katanas for me and they would contact a museum curator to come check on it as to whether it was suitable.

A month later I met with a curator from a museum in Kyoto who had come to study the sword, showed us the markings on it and said it once was part of a royal collection but after WW2 it had gone missing. They asked how I wanted to deal with it, I told them I wanted it to be quietly returned without any fanfare and definitely without any exchange of monies, I just wanted it to be either returned to its rightful original owner before it was stolen or looted or displayed in a museum. It was organized and now it is in a museum.

Interestingly I calmed down a lot after that Sunday.

I then had someone who collected wood to send to a paper mill to collect all the timber for the house.

I then contacted someone in the French Embassy, I knew that person fairly well and she had a husband who was into archaeology, I brought him to take a look at that stone, he knew exactly what it was and I asked him what's the best way for it to be returned. He said it was very difficult to move such a thing out of the country and best way was to find a government to government solution. It was quietly returned during one heads of government meeting by the PM. Thankfully it is now where it is supposed to be.

After that I had the house demolished, first by removing the roof, then the window panes and doors frames, also broke through where the underground garage used to be. Left it as is for 40 days and 40 nites.

Then came the demolishing work. Demolished everything including the foundations for it.

When it came to rebuilding I did not have the budget to do something lavish therefore I couldn't afford to replace the soil, there wasn't really a need for it anyway and the house that was built on it mostly mirrors the original houses that were on it, that classic 1970s semi-d design.... just modernized and with better features and fixtures as well as a much better layout.

Ironically after the houses were rebuilt within a month, an elderly Indian gentleman bought both units for his 2 daughters. I was upfront about the past and why there are 2 new houses on it, they were fine with it. Both houses still appear to be immaculately kept and just before I flew off I did stop by to ask how were things with the house, the old man said the houses were fine except they think they paid too much

I wish the first residential house I took on for a private client could live on but sometimes in life we don't always get what we want and it is unfortunate it had to come to this.

The client? I heard from church he relapsed and went back to drugs.... then they failed to track him.