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An Australian travel vlogger’s footage of a decrepit residential building in the heart of Kuala Lumpur has gone viral — for the second time in a year.
The building looks the same as it did when he first filmed it.
Marco Roams, a Sydney-based YouTuber whose real name is Marcus Romer, first uploaded the video in July 2025 after visiting Flat Hicks, a residential block in Jalan Changkat, Bukit Bintang.
In the footage, he walks through corridors littered with rubbish and food waste, describing the smell as putrid; he notes, pointedly, that the building is not abandoned — people live there.
I want to be clear. This is not a building that’s going to be demolished. This is a place where human beings are staying.
The video quickly drew thousands of reactions; most were not surprised, and many were embarrassed.
“This is next to Jalan Alor. Tourists go there all the time. How are we not ashamed?” one commenter wrote.
This Is Not The First Time
What the viral moment obscures is that authorities have been here before — more than once.
In 2024, DBKL and enforcement agencies conducted a raid on the building under Ops Mega Bersepadu KL Strike Force, detaining 71 undocumented migrants.
Reporters who entered the building at the time described the same conditions: the smell, the rubbish, the betel nut stains on the walls.
Blue metal fencing was erected around the perimeter. Red notices were pasted on the building.
Then the attention moved on.
When Marco returned to film the building a year after his first visit, he found it unchanged.
I thought maybe it had been fixed up. So I came back on purpose to see if there was a difference. There wasn’t.
DBKL Responds — Again
Following the latest wave of public attention, Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Fadlun Mak Ujud visited the site alongside DBKL officers.
The city hall subsequently posted a statement on Facebook acknowledging that while cleaning operations and enforcement had been carried out previously, the latest inspection found that several issues still required follow-up action.
Cleaning works are now underway, DBKL said.
The city hall’s Building Commissioner will also call a special meeting of the building’s Joint Management Body — the body legally responsible for maintaining the strata property — to identify the root causes and clarify responsibilities.
In addition to action by DBKL, the building management body, owners, residents and relevant agencies all play an important role in ensuring the building is well managed.
The Question Nobody Is Asking
Flat Hicks is a strata property — individual units are privately owned, and a Joint Management Body is legally required to collect maintenance fees and keep the building functional.
Someone has been collecting those fees.
The building sits metres from Jalan Alor, one of KL’s most visited streets, and is estimated to be over three decades old — the majority of its occupants are now believed to be foreign nationals, many of whom are undocumented.
A building does not become a de facto migrant squat in the middle of a tourism corridor by accident.
The right question isn’t whether the government allows this — it’s who profited from this building, and who walked away.
What DBKL can clean, it will, but will the underlying issue be resolved?
Only time, and perhaps more viral videos, can tell.
READ MORE: [Photos] Hidden Gem In Bukit Bintang: This 1930s Time Capsule Will Transport You Back To Old Malaya
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