Orang Gila di Melaka

I am a Chinese woman, an Indonesian citizen, and I have been married for three years to a Chinese man who is a Malaysian citizen. Since we got married, our lives have been very difficult and full of hardship. We live in my husband’s late parents’ house together with his elder brother, who behaves very strangely.

The house we have lived in since 2016 has no electricity or water supply because they were cut off due to unpaid bills. At that time, my husband was working in Singapore and regularly sent money to his brother, but my brother-in-law used the money to drink and enjoy himself at cafés.

When we returned to Malaysia in 2022, we discovered that the house still had no water or electricity, and the property tax and land tax had also not been paid for years. We also found an urn containing my late mother-in-law’s ashes, which had been kept by my brother-in-law in her bedroom since she passed away in 2019.

Every day, we rely only on rainwater for bathing, and as a result, our skin often becomes itchy. We constantly pray for rain from the heavens and for help. God has heard our prayers, and indeed, help has come — but it never reaches us, because my brother-in-law drives away anyone who tries to visit us, including immigration officers who came for inspection. Immigration officers have failed twice to conduct their visits, but eventually, I managed to obtain my spouse visa.

Is there anyone in this group who can help me? How should I deal with my brother-in-law’s strange behavior? If I step out of my room, he deliberately walks around naked and bathes completely unclothed in front of me. That is why I usually lock myself inside the room.

Every day, he collects his urine and places it on the dining table, then pours it outside the gate as if performing some ritual. He lets kittens die inside his room, keeps their corpses in a cabinet, and allows a big dog to sleep on the dining table.

Yes, we have done everything — we have made police reports and even obtained a medical letter confirming his mental disorder. Before this, my retired husband and I used to work in several places. We came back home because the neighbors complained to us about my brother-in-law’s filthy behavior and the disgusting state of the house, which could cause us to be fined. Since our return, the neighbors have stopped complaining because we always keep the house clean.

We no longer have any money. My husband is retired, and no company wants to hire him because of his age. Meanwhile, all the money he earned from years of hard work in Singapore has been spent by his brother. That’s why we have been asking for help, but my brother-in-law keeps chasing away anyone who tries to help us.

The police have come three times, but they only gave him a warning because at that time he was blocking the immigration officers from entering for inspection. My husband no longer wants to file police reports. So my brother-in-law continues to deliberately take off his pants in front of me and bathe naked in the rainwater while I am cooking. I always tell my husband whenever he does this, but I don’t know what else to do, and I have no one to turn to. I am all alone here — no friends, no family, no one.