Several apartments in HCMC are renting rooms in the form of "sleep boxes." Those photographed above span around 2 m2. The sleep boxes are common services at airports, providing enough space for individuals to rest or work while waiting for flights.
However, Vietnam does not have specific regulations regarding the construction of sleep boxes. House owners often divide rooms into such boxes, renting them for VND1.8-2 million ($73.35-81.5) a month each, mainly to students, workers, and people with low incomes.
Inside a room spanning 20 m2 on Hoang Van Thu Street, Tan Binh District, there are 16 sleep boxes available for rent. Their VND1.8 million monthly rent includes electricity and water fees. In the middle of two rows of sleeping areas is a path spanning 50 cm in width, with ladders available for people to climb up and down the rooms.
Each sleep box spans a meter in width and 2 m in length, just enough to fit a mattress. There are curtains and lights available for the boxes. The rooms themselves have no fire safety equipment.
One box is enough for one person to fit in. There are cupboards to store clothes and other personal belongings.
This new sleep box house's manager Nguyen said he rented the house, which is located behind a cafe, for VND15 million a month. He then uses wooden planks to divide the rooms into 16 sleep boxes, available for women to rent. He also bought electric stoves, fridges and laundry machines for tenants to use.
At the end of the room is a common bathroom, as well as an area with washing machines, stoves and fridges. Over 10 people share the space.
At a three-story house in an alley off Nguyen Huu Canh Street, Binh Thanh District, there are over 40 sleep boxes on the first and second floor. Each is available for rent at VND2.2 million a month.
The first floor of the sleep box house has around 20 motorbikes parked there, but there is no fire alarm system or extinguishers in sight. Outside is a two-layer gate and a rolling door operable with fingerprints.
Sleep boxes in a house in an alley on Le Van Si Street, District 3, are separated by steel beams.
A proclaimed local inventor named Vu Quoc Tuan said he developed a "sleep box" model and registered it with the National Office of Intellectual Property in June 2021. He said his sleep boxes are separated with fire-resistant wooden planks with steel frames, and each box is equipped with electric sockets that cut off power when their capacity is exceeded.
"Nowadays, several places copy my sleep box model at low costs, using flammable materials and without devices that automatically cut off power, so they are not safe," he said.
On Oct. 13, this five-story house spanning 516 m2 in Binh Thanh District, divided into 125 rooms, was suspended for lacking emergency escapes, fire safety systems, and for having been constructed differently from its approved design.
The owner said they applied to build apartments for rent, but later divided the rooms into sleep boxes to cut down on rent and attract more tenants.
The paths between the boxes span only around 30 m2 within an enclosed space, harboring fire risks.
Huynh Ngoc Quan, deputy chief of the HCMC firefighting police department, said the sleep boxes are a new rental model for use as low-cost bedrooms, however, such houses have violated fire safety regulations.
Quan said stairs at the above location connect the basement to the other floors, so smoke from a fire at any level would spread very quickly. The narrow paths would also make it more difficult for people to escape, he added.
Following a fire that killed 56 people at a Hanoi mini apartment building in Thanh Xuan District last month, the police have been performing checks at houses and apartments for rent throughout the country.
HCMC does not currently have exact statistics regarding the number of sleep box homes due to it being a new model.
