Question: I live in a basement flat where the front door is actually beneath the steps which lead to the flat above me on the ground floor. The front door faces North whereas I am a North-East person. By my assessment, the death line runs through the front door. The house faces a road straight ahead of it and it also has a huge tree right outside in front of the house.
I realise that there is very strong shar chi >from the straight road and that a tree in front of the house blocks the flow of chi >flowing into the house. Question is whether the tree blocks the shar chi from the >straight road or whether it is double >whammy having the shar chi from the road and the big tree as well?

If you are standing on the steps of your main entrance door and look out and notice that the tree is in direct line `slicing' part of your main door, then this is considered sha chi.

Currently there are four methods of dealing with this (not in any order of importance):-

1. Change the angle of the door to face one of your best directions i.e. tilt the door to one that faces one of your good directions. This is said to `kill' two birds with one stone.

2. If your main entrance door is elevated, you can have semi-circular steps leading to the house. This is one technique of `radiating' sha ch' away from your main entrance.

3. Alternatively, if your main entrance is level to your external of the house, you could consider a specially made semi-circular carpet e.g. of half of a sun with it's fiery sunlight (spikes) radiating away from the main entrance door.

4. Hang a pakua above the main entrance door. To find out more, please go to this URL: The Pakua

Question: Another question is that as it is a basement flat, the living room window looks out unto a half wall which is where the front garden is. The back of the flat also looks onto a half wall. I appreciate that it is good for the house to back unto a wall but what is the remedy for the front window looking unto the half wall?

Sorry, I hope you can further clarify regarding what you have said " the front window looking unto the half wall ".

My question is what is the half wall attached to? Is it because that your house is a basement flat that it overlooks the half wall?

My next question is that above the half wall can you have a clear view outside or must you say climb up a ladder to see it.

Frankly, a half wall is not so bad as it provides a certain level of privacy to the residents. In addition, if is better to use curtains for the window (if u not done so already.

Question: I lived in a public apartment block. Recently, I noticed that my neighbour block has it corner pointing directly at my main entrance door.

I have thought about using the Pakua to counter this but I could not locate a place to hang the mirror. If I stand to left or right side of the door, the poison arrow will not be visible. To hang it on top of the door, the mirror will not be able to fully reflect the poison arrow. A full view of the poison arrow can be seen by stand at the center of the entrance.

Is it effective if I am to make a strong bracket mounted rigidly to the door-frame and has the Pakua hang on it?

Is there any other way of countering this poison arrow beside the Pakua or cannon? I could not plant any thing in front of the door as it is a common corridor.

In your situation, there are a THREE other alternatives other than using the pakua:-

1. If your main entrance is `ground level' with the exterior, you can use either

(a). A semi-circle carpet i.e. have it `radiate' outwards or

(b). Permanently tile it on the ground. In addition to this, it should have `spokes' radiating out of the carpet e.g. like the rays of the sun. This is symbolic of a Chinese curved knife (without the handle).

2. If there are a few steps that you need to climb in order to get to the main entrance. Here, you can also use semi-circular steps which act as shown in para 1 above.

3. Tilt the main door to a position that is favourable to your 8 house template. This kills `two birds with one stone' but if you do so, please seek the assistance from a Feng Shui Master to do so.

Regarding your question on the Pakua:-

You should hang it in the middle above the main entrance door. Yes, you can mount a bracket to the top door-frame. Try to get it blessed (where possible) by a Priest or For Chinese or those who know when the 7th month is, don't remove or add one during this period.

Cecil Lee
Center for Feng Shui Research
January 1999