How many Bangkok condo buildings now have water contaminated with Acanthamoeba? Our building's developer thinks it might be coming from the city water district. [serious]

tbh nobody has a full count and you wont get one. MWA doesnt publish a per-building acanthamoeba map, and juristic offices only test when a resident pushes or a case pops up, so the real number is way higher than the handful you see on reddit. most buildings that found it just quietly chlorinate and move on.

one thing people miss: your building's own plumbing matters as much as the district water. in Ari and Phaya Thai a lot of towers still have the original galvanized or mild steel risers from the 90s, and those corrode into exactly the kind of rough surface where biofilm and amoeba hang out. even if MWA water arrives clean at the meter, it picks stuff up on the way up to your 18th floor.

for the practical stuff, showering and dishes are fine, the bum gun is fine. the only real risk is eyes, so if u wear contacts just never rinse them or the case under the tap, use proper solution. if you want peace of mind, grab a cheap under-sink carbon filter for drinking and cooking, but know that it wont do anything for amoeba unless it's a proper 0.2 micron absolute filter, most of the 7-Eleven ones are just taste and sediment.

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The Phaya Thai district thing is worth watching but I wouldnt hold your breath on the MWA result telling you much. Their sampling point is usually the meter or the main, and by the time water sits in your rooftop tank and the risers for a few days it's a different story. So even a clean result from them doesnt clear your building.

What most juristic offices here wont tell you is when the tanks were last drained and manually scrubbed vs just chlorinated. A lot of Ari and Saphan Khwai buildings are 15 to 25 years old with the original concrete or steel tanks. Biofilm builds up on the walls and no amount of chlorine dosing kills it, the amoeba just feed on the bacteria living in that layer. Ask for the last tank cleaning report, the one with photos and a date, not a verbal "we clean every year."

On the actual risk, showering and dishes are fine. The bum gun thing people joke about but unless you have an open eye wound or you're immunocompromised it's not a real pathway. The Lat Phrao cluster was contact lens related, full stop. If you wear lenses just dont rinse them or your case under the tap, use saline or a proper solution.

If it were my building I'd chip in with neighbors for a private lab test of your own kitchen tap, runs maybe 2 to 4k baht and you get an answer in under a week instead of waiting on

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Acanthamoeba is genuinely common in tap water and soil everywhere, including Bangkok, so finding it in a building's tanks isn't automatically alarming. The real problem in the Lat Phrao case was that the amoeba got into people's eyes, likely through contaminated water used on contact lenses or a splash, and acanthamoeba keratitis is nasty but rare. For showering, washing dishes, or the bum gun, the risk is essentially nil unless you're squirting it directly into an open eye. Drinking it is a different concern but mostly for immunocompromised people, and you already aren't doing that.

On the water district angle, MWA (the Bangkok water authority) does test for microbial indicators at treatment plants, and their finished water is chlorinated, so if contamination is showing up at the building it's more often a tank or plumbing issue. Old steel tanks, low turnover in half-empty buildings, and biofilm in the risers are the usual culprits. Ask your juristic office when the tanks were last physically cleaned and scrubbed, not just chlorinated, because dosing chlorine into a dirty tank doesn't remove the biofilm where amoebae feed on bacteria. The 3 week wait for the Phaya Thai samples is normal for a lab culture, so nothing unusual there.

If you want a real answer for your building specifically, a private lab test of your own tap and tank water runs a few thousand baht and takes about a week, which

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Krua Dok Mai Kao is solid but I've always found their som tam a bit tame on the pla ra. If you want the real funky version, try the shophouse spots along Soi Udomsuk 26, near the night market end. They pound it fresh with fermented fish that'll clear your sinuses, and it's like 60 baht. Different style from the On Nut places, more Lao-leaning.

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for som tam specifically i'd say the Isaan spots in Chatuchak are underrated, weekdays only though since the weekend crowd ruins the vibe. there's a stall near gate 2 that does tam pa with fermented bamboo shoots, super sour and funky, not something you see much in On Nut. if you're already heading north for Or Tor Kor anyway its worth the detour.

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honestly the som tam at Krua Dok Mai Kao is good but what got me hooked is their nam prik pla raa dip with the raw veggies, that funk hits way harder than the papaya does. think most people sleep on it cuz they just order the som tam and gai yang. also pro tip, go before noon on weekdays, after that teh pla ra gets milder cuz they batch it for the lunch rush

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