China Focus: Basement raids highlight plight of Beijing's "rat-tribe"

At around 2 a.m. Saturday, tenants living in a basement in Beijing's West Wangjing residential district were jolted awake as a posse of men in black began pounding and kicking their doors and spraying chemicals in their hallway.

The men were security guards hired by Wangjing street officials in eastern Beijing to drive away the tenants, many of whom were low-paid workers, as part of a campaign launched in October last year.

"Some of them threw stones into our communal toilet and burned cockroach repellent incense in the basement, causing elderly residents to choke," a tenant told the Beijing News. "They even called us rats."

On Monday, roughly 40 basement tenants gathered at the door of the street office to ask for more time before they move out, the Beijing News said.

"We have been living here for years, please give us some more time to find a place to go," said a tenant. "Don't treat us violently, it's not easy to rent a place in Beijing."

Beijing's sky high rents are leaving poor migrant families with little choice other than to live in underground tunnels, basements and air-shelters across the Chinese capital.

Saturday's late-night raid in Wangjing highlights the plight of the "rat tribe," a popular Internet term to describe the basement dwellers.

It is estimated that there are about one million people living in basements in Beijing -- mostly in old apartment buildings and idle air-defense tunnels. The tunnels are much more difficult to live in as the rooms usually have no sunlight and are equipped only with communal toilets.

Beijing's air-defense tunnels are expanding by 1.5 million square meters in area every year, or 3.5 times the size of the Tian'anmen Square, a city official said.

This has become a space for lucrative business by illegal landlords, who secretly divide the basement into small compartments and rent them to low-income workers.

Rented basements are usually narrow with poor ventilation, illegally installed electric wires and many unsavory characters, posing potential hazards to the public, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said.

The "rat tribe" do not wish to remain in the dangerous setting, but often have no choice.

Foot masseuse Xu Xin has been living in a basement in Beijing's Fengtai District. The monthly rent of the cramped room where she lives, located 800 meters from her workplace, rose from 350 yuan (54 U.S. dollars) to 650 yuan over the past five years. The average rent of a proper apartment in the area ranges from 1,800 yuan to 5,000 yuan.

The long and narrow basement where she lives is seeped in the pungent odor of alcohol, dirty clothes, perfume, urine and smoke. Tenants hang their clothes and shoes at the entrance because ventilation is better and there is always sunlight.

When asked if she finds her residence shabby, Xu replied, "It's OK, at least the rent is cheap."

As Beijing's basement campaign gains steam, some people will have to move to Beijing's suburbs if they want to live in cheap housing. Some have decided to move out of Beijing forever.

Zhou Yuejin, a salesman who rented a basement in Fengtai District in 2009, recently returned to his hometown in east China's Jiangxi Province.

"Life in the basement is too humbling," he said. Endi