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Kerio

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Everything posted by Kerio

  1. 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..
  2. 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!
  3. 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".
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Have you tried pouring bleach into the toilet bowl? Or is your toilet bowl colored (i.e. not white)? Haha, wow, that sounds racist.
  8. 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!
  9. 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!
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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".
  14. 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.
  15. From the internets :3 They look creepy when blown up don't they? That's actually why I'm so bent on exterminating them from my house.. the thought of those critters crawling all over me gives me the shivers.
  16. For me, I'll open the doors and windows in the kitchen only when I'm cooking; after which I'll close them and dehumidify the place. It may not be a perfect solution, but given Singapore's high humidity and temperature, it's the cheapest solution (next to air-conditioning the kitchen). Based on the humidity readings on my dehumidifier, the humidity outside ranges from 55 to 60 everyday, and when my wife opens the door while the dehumidifier is working, I can see the humidity shoot from 30 to 50 in a matter of seconds. Good thing is, once the door is closed, the humidity goes back to 30 also within a matter of seconds. One bad thing is that the dehumidifiers expel warm air, so the kitchen will become very hot after a while, which may render some dehumidifiers inoperative temporarily (like mine, it stops dehumidifying once it hits 35 degrees celsius).
  17. Hi Yumiko, Sure, this is the one I bought: NOVITA Dehumidifier ND 690 Description: Powerful & Effectual NOVITA Dehumidifier ND 690 is the largest capacity unit in the range that efficiently removes up to 50 litres of water per day. Covering areas up to 900 sq ft or 83 m2, it is ideal for use in spacious areas of the home and also for industrial use. Equipped with an electronic LCD display, ND 690 is easy to operate with just a simple touch on the soft key. You will also be delighted with other features like the convenient easy-roll castors, in-built pre-filter screen and continuous drainage option. With the powerful & effectual ND 690, excessive moisture will never be a problem again! " This dehumidifier cost me $899, but I think if you're just aiming for the kitchen, a smaller one should be sufficient, though the prices will still range from $200+ upwards. It seems to be quite effective, though like I said, I never had a mould problem. One recommendation I saw is to wipe all infected cupboards with a strong mixture of dettol and water before dehumidifying. Alternatively, you can try getting rubbing alcohol (I found it in a chinese medicine shop) and after wiping the cupboards, spraying it with the rubbing alcohol.
  18. I heard Borax is effective, but it'd require importing it. I'm quite certain my house is mould free, because I bought a really powerful dehumidifier (the most powerful home-use one I could find) and switched it on for a long time in the kitchen; eventually I had to resort to a pyrethrin-based insecticide, which seems to work and is thankfully not as toxic as baygon or any of the other insecticides we use. If they persist in coming back though, I'll have to get a proper, expensive fumigation; and I'm already broke enough as it is with the renovation and all
  19. Some websites were suggesting springtails spring and booklice don't jump, but that's relative sometimes. I'm also not quite sure, now that you point out they could be springtails since I've seen some that look like bedbugs (but were confirmed to not be bedbugs). After checking out some of the pics, I think they resemble globular springtails, which is interesting. Also, I don't think booklice have that wide a variety, and I've tried to squash a few of them and found that some actually jump, so either I have springtails, or if I'm really suay, I have springtails AND booklice. But I think the extermination method is similar - keep the areas dry, eliminate mould etc. Do you have any type of soil, leaky pipes or environment where springtails can grow? Springtails have lairs where they grow, quite unlike booklice. And the thing about booklice is that all of them are female and are born with 50+ eggs, unlike springtails, which need to mate. lf you can find out where the springtails are hiding, you can exterminate them. For these creatures (either booklice or springtails), I found a pyrethrum-based powder which can be purchased in Home DIY to be quite effective, it's found in the horticulture section (not the insecticide section). The only catch is that I had to quite liberally dust my ENTIRE house with it, to the extent that my kitchen was unserviceable for a period of 2 weeks (I recommend 4 weeks if possible) as the powder was everywhere, on the plates, pots, pans, shelves, even some of the food packets. We extensively cleaned the kitchen up thereafter and we haven't seen one since. They have, however, shifted to the MBR so my MBR is now a toxic chamber.
  20. Your feature wall is NICE!! My bomb shelter covering has 3 display shelves also, but our brilliant ID completely didn't factor in the lighting, so the 3 display shelves are as good as non-existent, since whatever we put inside isn't prominent at all. We tried putting fresh, vibrant flowers in and they were camouflaged by the shadows. Ninja flowers =.= And now I realised whenever I walk out of my MBR at night, I need to fumble all the way to the living room area before I can switch on any lights at all. Brilliant planning *rolls eyes*. Hope you installed lights along the corridor?
  21. Blue skies, you have experience with these bugs? Did you have a problem with mould previously? I've aired my kitchen as much as possible, but I usually keep the windows closed at night because Punggol is teeming with insects. I've had miscellaneous bugs, 2 termite king/queens, 1 flying ant, 2 ants and several tiny flies come by my apartment so far; and I've only been staying here for a month. I've also bought a dehumidifier which sucks 8 litres of water a day and even tried rubbing alcohol (which kills the bugs but doesn't keep them away), and nothing works because I think they're feeding on the plastering now. Did you hire exterminators or did they just disappear eventually?
  22. I have the same problem with those bugs, and the worst part of it is that I don't even have a mould problem. Once they are introduced into the apartment, they start feeding on plastering and anything starchy (book bindings, flour and cereals for instance). They're driving me INSANE. Unintentionally found a bunch of them crawling out from the kitchen yesterday, and seriously freaked me out because one of them was in my study room (filled with books), which was untouched by them prior to yesterday. To remove the mould, I heard wiping the affected areas with a strong concentrate of dettol and water helps, too. Airing the area and switching on the air-con would help as well. Also, before you put the paint on, do get some advice from professionals; I hear you need to apply a sealant first, though I'm not sure what it means.
  23. Hmm, we actually made final payment just yesterday, and are awaiting minor touch ups at the moment. I think HDB suspensions have very little to do with actual renovation though; it usually indicates an infringement of some kind of HDB regulation. Here's the link: http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10324p.nsf/w/...ys?OpenDocument Not sure how that will affect the touching up though..
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