Kerio

Mine also so far so good recently, but will occasionally see one or two in the toilets. Could be the new apartments are built so the booklice migrating haha..

Hi Dean, My neighbour and I have been fighting the booklice problem with varying success. The two most effective (and relatively safer) methods are these insecticides we've bought separately: 1) Bio-X Lullaby (or Bio-X d'bug) - blue spray bottle costing about $23 in Home DIY, Self Fixit, or some Pet shops. (http://www.petloverscentre.com/products.php?DepartmentID=1&DeptCategoryID=9&ID=11501&action=detail) 2) A cheaper alternative is a big white bottle with a green label titled "Potion Three Bed Bug Pesticide", which you can find at $56 or so at the Home DIY Store (That's where I bought mine). Use these sprays to coat the areas where the booklice are frequently found and you should see the problem decline significantly. If you find these two alternatives too expensive, just look for any insecticide with a pyrethroid or cypermethrin based chemical, which are deadly to booklice. Cheers!

A health advisory on Borax from Wikipedia, for safety's sake: Toxicity Borax, sodium tetraborate decahydrate, is not acutely toxic.[18] Its LD50 (median lethal dose) score is tested at 2.66 g/kg in rats: a significant dose of the chemical is needed to cause severe symptoms or death. The lethal dose is not necessarily the same for humans. Sufficient exposure to borax dust can cause respiratory and skin irritation. Ingestion may cause gastrointestinal distress including nausea, persistent vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Effects on the vascular system and brain include headaches and lethargy, but are less frequent. "In severe poisonings, a beefy red skin rash affecting palms, soles, buttocks and scrotum has been described. With severe poisoning, erythematous and exfoliative rash, unconsciousness, respiratory depression, and renal failure." A reassessment of boric acid/borax by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticide Programs found potential developmental toxicity (especially effects on the testes). Boric acid solutions used as an eye wash or on abraded skin are known to be particularly toxic to infants, especially after repeated use, because of the slow elimination rate. Borax was added to the Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) candidate list on 16 December 2010. The SVHC candidlate list is part of the EU Regulations on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals 2006 (REACH), and the addition was based on the revised classification of Borax as toxic for reproduction category 1B under the CLP Regulations. Substances and mixtures imported into the EU which contain Borax are now required to be labelled with the warnings "May damage fertility" and "May damage the unborn child".

Cannot.. I know because I've tried:( My wife and I are very dependant on air-con, so all our windows are usually closed and the air con is on in whichever room we're in. Despite this, the booklice have consistently appeared. One of the bigger problems we had with booklice was in the MBR, and our MBR aircon is on for very long periods usually (more than 12 hours) particularly during weekends. I literally found the booklice crawling all over the floor about 1-2 months ago, and before that, they were hiding along the plaster in the MBR. I think the dehumidifying effect of air cons is just not powerful enough. Plus, booklice will only Hibernate at 21 degrees and lower, not die. And not to mention, once you switch off the air con, the heat will build up again, and worse, cause condensation which causes mold. Check your books, clothes and foodstuff as well as any boxes you might have where these critters could originate. I can't find a nest in my house, so I can't exterminate them once and for all, but if you can, it could give you a good headstart.

If they're booklice, you might have a long battle ahead of you. Booklice are all female, and are born fertilised, which means if one escapes, it will reproduce. I've had this problem for an entire year since moving into my new BTO in Punggol Vista and I've only managed to control the population to a certain extent. To get rid of them temporarily, you need to : 1) Purchase a pyrethroid-based insectide - you can find these in the horticulture section of the supermarkets. I've found a possibly safer and more powerful alternative (i.e. fewer appearances since I've started using it), but it's substantially more costly at $23 - $24. It's called "Bio-X Lullaby", comes in a blue spray bottle and smells of dettol. You can get this at either Home DIY or Self-Fixit. I've researched the active ingredient in this (Etofenprox) and it's a derivative of pyrethroid, but at a higher concentration (2.5%), so it's likely more powerful and has a stronger residual effect. The other one I found is cheap, but it's a powder (found in NTUC, white bottle, called "Anti-Ant", costs $5 or so) and loses its effect in 3 or 4 days. Plus makes the house very dusty. If you are desperate (like me), you could use this in a pinch. There're other alternatives, just do a bit of research before buying. I just saw some alternatives in Giant as well. Pyrethrin/Pyrethroid/Cypermethrin etc should be found in the ingredients list. 2) Spray all the rooms with the booklice problem, making sure the walls, floors, skirting and so on are all covered in a wet mist. If you're spraying the ceiling, protect your eyes with goggles or something. 3) purchase a dehumidifier (when purchasing, pay attention to the surface area the dehumidifier covers). Switch it on in the affected room and close the doors and windows to get the maximum effect. 4) Wait for them to die. 5) Monitor and re-apply the Bio-x spray to the affected areas about once a week or twice a month, depending on how often you see the critters. Based on the info I found online, booklice have soft bodies, so they're SUPPOSED to dry up and die when the humidity is below 40 (in SG, it's typically above 70, not to mention our weather is also perfect for booklice), but I've found that they're not that stupid - I purchased a Novita 82sqm dehumidifier ($899) and switched it on full blast in our kitchen with the doors closed, and they MIGRATED. I chanced by them when I was looking at the floor directly outside the kitchen and freaked out when I realised they were all over the floor, crawling out of the kitchen. So far their population is mostly controlled for me, but I'm still having some problems in the main bedroom toilet.

They can be found in the horticulture section of supermarkets (think NTUC still selling, a small white bottle labelled "Ant Killer") and DIY shops. I saw a big red bottle of it recently in NTUC, not sure if you can still find it. If you're aiming to stop booklice, do read the labels to confirm it contains pyrethrin or pyrethroid-based chemicals. Cheers, K.

Have you tried pouring bleach into the toilet bowl? Or is your toilet bowl colored (i.e. not white)? Haha, wow, that sounds racist.

On hindsight, never mind.

Do you have any pics of his work? I may also require cutting out a hole in the false ceiling and doing proper trunking to the light area, not sure if he can do that if he's purely an electrician. Thanks!

Hi all, I'm looking to add about 2 lighting points in my false ceiling and install 2 LED downlights lights as well. Does anyone have any good electricians to recommend please? TIA!

My wife and I are both planning to retire as soon as possible (even before 50 if possible), but at this point in time it's still a bit tough. Even with just servicing our Reno loan and other monthly miscellaneous expenses (we try not to spend too much, but we usually don't have much savings left after paying all the instalment plans and bills), we find it hard to stay afloat for now. So as a matter of practicality, we both don't intend to have children - we both find it highly unlikely for us to be able to afford the costs of raising a child. Notwithstanding hospitalisation fees, there's still food, diapers, medical fees, clothes etc. Although we're both still young (I'm early 30s, wife is late 20s), we're seriously looking into how to retire - we don't look forward to scurrying in the rat race till the best years of our lives are gone! I am a strong believer that given our short lives, we work to live, and not live to work. So Living life should be more important. We do have a lot we Want to do - creating little handicrafts (to sell if we ever become good enough at it), taking up music lessons, language lessons, completing a loooong list of books we want to read, travelling, volunteering at pet shelters, etc. I think it'd be tragic if we were to find ourselves earning massive amounts of money one day but without the energy or idealism to pursue the things we'd Love to do.

Oddly enough, that was my experience too - I found them in the kitchen and MBR, but none in the living room or guest room or study room. My advice is to close the windows in your bedroom and the other room and check the grouting and plastering - these insects feed on starchy stuff, and both grout and plaster use some kind of starch I think. Then use that anti-ant powder to dust the entire area. For prudences' sake, also clean the walls with a dettol solution if possible. You might want to check any place that's humid in the house, as it tends to attract mould more frequently (I understand this is Singapore, so Everywhere is humid) - helps if you have a dehumidifier and air-conditioning. I got rid of the ones in my kitchen by dusting the entire place with the powder and dehumidifying the area; so far my kitchen is safe, but I still detect them in my bathrooms and outside my main gate, crawling around the doorway. HDB and the Town Council are useless in this aspect, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think the electric plug thingy works, though I haven't tried it personally. I used to have the electronic one at my old house and we were swamped by all manner of insects... not that it's any different where I live now. You need to look for where they're originating; if they're on the walls, they're on the floors or ceiling. Take a closer look because they need to travel. They don't travel in groups or lines, so you'll need to find out where there's a greater frequency of them. If it's the kitchen, check the shelves and food. If they're all clumping on the walls, your walls may have microscopic mould, and you'll need to clean with a very diluted solution of bleach (or dettol) every two weeks or so. If they're coming from outside (i.e. via the windows), you'll just have to dust the area with the anti-ant powder I recommended above (contains pyrethrin) and keep checking every now and then. Do you stay in the Punggol area? I notice we appear to have some kind of infestation around the Punggol area.

Those insects are called Booklice. If they jump, they could be Springtails. I also moved into my apartment about 6 months ago and have been seeing them ever since I moved in. They're impossible to get rid of, though ant-poison (the white powdery types) that contain pyrethrin work quite well. Just dust your shelves with them and check all your starch-based products like cereals, rice, flour; even sugar and tins with labels glued on them (since glue is made of starch). I guess it's really pest "control" at this point, rather than "extermination".

I've been using a pyrethroid-based powder insecticide in my house, it seems to have been effective at keeping the booklice out and dead. You can get it at Home DIYs. To get rid of them, however, I had to dust all the cupboards, inside cabinets, on surfaces with the powder and either not cook for 2 weeks or wash everything thoroughly and re-dust the areas thereafter. Essentially dust every single area in the kitchen with it, because it's likely they're coming from the plaster or from outside.