Mrs. Kao recalls, "The apartment we got was little more than a shell. It was dark and worse than a pigsty. I spent tens of thousands on getting it painted and having a rain canopy put up over the roof to make the place feel halfway livable." The dilapidated state of the apartment was the least of Mrs. Kao's problems.
「十四坪大的房子，只是一個屋殼而已，整間黑漆漆的，比豬寮還糟糕，我花了好幾萬元油漆、做遮雨棚，感覺才稍微能住，」高媽媽回憶道，房子破舊還是其次，最擔心的是孩子在龍蛇雜處的複雜環境和自己忙於工作疏於管教下，走入歧途。