A decade-old skeleton was found on the 5th floor of this busy tenement block just metres from Prince Edward MTR station yesterday (photo: Google 2019)

The tragic discovery of a decade-old skeleton in an apartment in Portland Street yesterday revealed Buildings Department had targeted the building for inspection in 2019, visiting that specific apartment at least once but never following up on a mandatory window inspection orders following reports of building and window danger.

The clothed skeleton of the victim, a man who is estimated by building management to have died some time in 2014, was found in the Portland Street apartment yesterday less than 20 metres from Prince Edward MTR station and across the road from Mong Kok Police Station.

His remains were spotted by a bamboo scaffolding worker working on the building exterior yesterday afternoon.

According to documents found at the scene, Buildings Department had targeted the apartment for inspection and window safety upgrades, visiting some time in 2019 but then never following up.

BD served notices on all five fifth floor apartments in 2019: only two responded, with no follow-up from the government

In fact, records show BD served 36 mandatory inspection notices on most of the individual apartments in the building on 17 October 2019, together with four common-area notices affecting the whole building.

18 apartment owners served with mandatory notices complied, but eight, including the apartment where the victim was today discovered, had not. Owners have not complied with any of the four building-wide notices.

However, BD had not followed up any of these cases and had not reported finding a corpse at any of its visits to the building or the specific apartment of the deceased in 2019.

BD has not responded to questions on whether its inspection or follow-up procedures were properly followed.

Police say they have taken the victim’s remains for testing and autopsy to determine the cause of death. They can only confirm the victim was male.