monday ruminations

just when you thought that things are normalising in my house (contractor woes, furniture issues, the bird mites, broken door key... oh that is another story) something new must happen.

this time it is something that is more than what meet the eyes.
the old HDB houses have sewage pipes coming from your neighbours upstairs exposed on your apartment.


when your neighbour upstairs try to unchoke the drains by plunging it with something hard, it sounded like construction work downstairs. and in the process loosen the joints that were held together by aged cement. the joints were loosen in the process and with the backflow of dirtied water, there will be leakage that is more like spilling of water.

well that was what happened.
it seems to be raining smelly liquid from the pipes.

i called the west coast town council urgent maintence and lift rescue line, and they sent a sub contractor here within 2 hours. and it was vertified that it was just the loosening of the joints and not fracture of the pipes. thank God!!!

now i will be upgrade my skills to amature plummber to do some patching up work on the joints. and hopefully with the neighbours no DIY brute force plummbing work, it should be the end of it.

until the next saga...

why all these trouble with my new place?

possible lessons;
pests, they can be destroyed, iraticated by chemicals, and pest busters but not neighbours.
you will have to move away or pray that they do.

something that seems so innocent and in some culture good fortune can bring so much incovenience, trouble and pain. some people tell me that my house must be so hospitable to attract even the animals. there are people who attract birds to build their nest on purpose!
what happened can be very much like how we look at some habits or issues in our life. it may start out innocent like social drinking and sign of having fun may evolve to something additive and destructive in our lives.

These tiny black spots that appear around my window sills and on my curtain are bird mites!
They are hardly visible to the naked eye.
But they really create hell lots of problem.
Not enough to kill you but enough to be at the back of your mind all the time.
Keep you up at night, make you jumpy at almost anything that crawl or move.

The hate relationship with them started last Friday when I got up with funny bits all over my body. They come in twos or threes and it get itchier and swelled up after a day. I got bitten on my arms, tummy, groin area and underarms.
I did not know what on earth did that. I suspected that it is bed bugs or fleas but there were no evidence of it. But there were little specks moving on my body at times.

Till I looked out of the window...
Where the bird nest is and...
There were hordes of little black specks moving towards my room!

This time round, I called in the pest buster.
Jean brought in her men and they sprayed the whole house with industrial strength aerosol and fumigate the place.
And with the treatment to my new pad, I am locked out of my own house for 2 days.
Seeking treatment and solace from my doctor as she dishes out some TLC over my situation and antihistamine, topical steroid cream...

I bravely venture into the house again the next day but slept on the sofa bed instead, not wanting to test the potency of the treatment. Well not just yet.

You can read more about bird mites at http://www.dh.sa.gov.au/pehs/PDF-files/bird-mites-web-06.pdf

Hopefully the nest will be cleared by my air con contractor this Saturday and I will meet up with jean for dinner instead of the 2nd visit of pest control.