SHE leaves her four-room HDB flat in Clementi early in the morning and takes a bus to Chinatown, where she will spend the day.
It is a ritual she faithfully carries out four times a week. Her mission: To seek out "odd" couples, or rather, mainland Chinese women with middle- aged Singaporean men.
"It's war," she declared to The New Paper at her flat, "against these women who break up other people's families.""I lost my husband after 25 years of marriage and I lost my son. What else do I have to live for?"
She was spurred into playing vigilante by her husband's previous affairs - three, she claimed - with Chinese nationals in 10 years.
Madam Tay said: "By the third affair, I gave up all hope and realised that no matter what happened, there'd always be another woman."
The couple, who have an 18-year-old son, filed for divorce in 2009.
That marked the start of her mission: To wipe out all the "wu ya" (crows) and "xiao long nu" (little dragon women). These are derogatory terms used to describe women from China.
Said Madam Tay: "I felt something had to be done. I didn't have anyone to help me when my husband was cheating on me and I had to depend on private investigators, which cost me money.
"Here, I don't charge anyone for my services."
Hers is a dangerous obsession. She has been beaten before, by both the mistresses and the cheating men. Once, a man even called the police to complain of being harassed.
Despite that, she is determined to continue with her mission because "for every one woman I can help, it's a point in heaven for me", she said.
With her approval, we spoke to one such grateful woman. Shop assistant Emily Yeo, 42, had suspected that her husband of five years was having an affair.
She told The New Paper: "But given my $1,000 a month salary, I couldn't afford a PI."
Madam Yeo, who has a five-year-old daughter, said she was shocked when Madam Tay knocked on her door on National Day last year.
She said: "At first I thought she was the mistress. Then, she showed me photos and a blurry video recording of my husband being intimate with a Chinese beer promoter."
Both women "hugged each other and cried for an hour".
Said Madam Tay: "I still have my savings, but if that is depleted one day, I'm prepared to sell the flat."
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