Johor Bahru City Council has detected nine shoplot office units that had been converted into cramped rental rooms, putting a hard enforcement number behind a housing problem tenants already know from the inside.
Utusan Malaysia reported on 4 October 2026 that the units were found in Kawasan Perindustrian Tampoi, Taman Kempas Utama, Kawasan Perindustrian Dewani, Larkin and Bandar Baru Uda. MBJB said its building department had issued notices under Act 133 for premises where office space had been partitioned into rental rooms against the original approved use.
The report described tenants paying about RM250 to RM400 a month for small rooms above shoplots, in some cases because a conventional house rental requires a higher monthly rent and two or three months of deposit. One tenant told Utusan he had lived in such a room for a year before moving elsewhere. Another said her family stayed there because steady income was not enough for a more comfortable home.
The safety issue is not new. Bernama reported on 30 July 2026 that the Johor Fire and Rescue Department had run an integrated operation against nine premises in Johor Bahru that had been converted into high-density accommodation, commonly called rumah sarang burung. Johor fire director Siti Rohani Nadir said then that the operation was aimed at premises modified without approval and at fire-safety risks to occupants.
Utusan's latest report quoted Siti Rohani as saying Johor had recorded at least nine fire cases involving such premises from January to July 2026. The concern is simple: rooms are often built with timber partitions, the units may have only one main entrance or stairway, and a blocked exit can turn a cheap room into a trap.
The rooms cited by Utusan were typically about three metres by three metres or four metres by three metres. That is roughly the footprint of a small bedroom, but the issue for regulators is not just comfort. Once an office unit is cut into many rooms and rented as accommodation, building use, escape routes, fire loading and approval conditions all matter.
Johor housing and local government committee chairman Mohd Jafni Md Shukor told Utusan that the state understood why some residents looked for cheaper accommodation, but action would be taken against parties that failed to comply with existing laws. He also pointed to Rumah Kasih Johor and the People's Housing Programme as affordable-housing options.
For tenants, the immediate lesson is practical. A low monthly rent can still carry a high safety cost if the unit has unclear approval, crowded partitions and only one way out. For owners and operators, MBJB's notices show that using upper-floor commercial space as makeshift housing is no longer just a quiet workaround once enforcement has a list of premises.
Sources: Utusan Malaysia, Bernama.
