This Singapore ex-soldier now wages war on pests – Asia News Network

We search for harbourage areas – where the cockroaches live and breed. Cockroaches can hide very well, and they lay their eggs out of sight, like in cracks in the wall or cupboard.

We treat the areas where cockroach activity is observed and their common travel routes. But insecticides generally do not penetrate the eggs. We know the cockroach life cycle, so if we can’t find and remove the eggs, we do follow-ups to monitor the effectiveness of the initial treatment and target any newly hatched nymphs. We must do this before they grow into adults and are able to lay eggs.

A renowned professor whom our company worked closely with – he helped train our entomologists and technicians – says hot, humid weather can accelerate insect activity, including reproduction. The NEA website shows a spike in mosquito activity in March and April.

Meeting a ‘Spider-Rat’

Rodents are highly intelligent. They can learn and adapt. I still recall my first project at an office during the Covid-19 period. The office had been vacant for some time and a rodent had found its way inside. The employees found chewed-up particles on their desks; rodents need to grind their teeth.

It took me a few months to solve the problem. The office had no food, so this was not the rat’s motivation. It was getting its food outside and taking refuge in the office. This made it tougher to bait the rat. We also had difficulty identifying its entry point, as it was crawling in the false ceiling.

I decided to map out the whole area and deploy traps, cameras and bait. That was the first time I applied a military strategy on rodents.

It was a large, seasoned rat with a lot of life experience.

Chan Kwang Wei
Pest buster

It was difficult to catch, but we finally got it after about eight weeks. Another case I worked on involved rodents in a condominium apartment. We managed to catch about six rats and were quite certain there were none left. But the tenant still complained about the noise. We were slightly puzzled and set up a motion-sensor camera.

I was so shocked to see this rodent totally deviate from textbook behaviour. This particular rat had seen its peers get caught on the floor and was so determined not to end up like them that it avoided the floor. Instead, it climbed the wall like Spider-Man. So, we inverted our trap and caught it on the wall.

What’s most challenging are bedbugs. If we miss a single bedbug, such as on a piece of clothing, it could reproduce. We flip the bed first and try to lure the bedbugs out of the mattress. The easiest way is to apply heat to drive them out or kill them. We use a special steamer, but a do-it-yourself way is to use a hairdryer.

Chan using a fogging machine to combat mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever.

They are called bedbugs, but these stubborn pests infest not just beds but cupboards and wall cracks as well. You may even find them hiding in electrical wire trunking. We need to screen through the entire house thoroughly, but this is more tedious if there are lots of items in the house.

Adult bedbugs have an oval-shaped body between 0.4cm and 0.5cm long after they have fed. The females lay eggs after a blood meal. Telltale signs of an infestation include blood stains on the bed and bites on your body in a straight line. The chemicals we use have a residual effect that can eradicate them.

Drones for detection

I fought for the use of drones in our work, as we found it difficult to locate and detect pest harbourage in hard-to-reach areas. Our employees often have to put their lives on the line while locating rodents and clearing mosquito breeding areas in tricky spots.

Drones help us locate potential mosquito breeding spots by detecting stagnant water, especially in large open fields or construction sites. In an open field, workers are more exposed to heat injury.

We also sometimes work at height and face the risk of stings or bites, so we have to be very careful.

This is where my building construction safety supervisor course by NTUC Learning Hub comes in. I learnt how to use a safety harness and learnt about past accidents to avoid mistakes. This helps me ensure that my technicians are safe, too.

I’ve observed that the more dangerous species (of insects) tend to build their nests higher, such as hornets.

Chan Kwang Wei
Pest buster

Hornets are one of the more dangerous pests we deal with. In 2019, a retiree was stung to death by hornets in Hillview. The toxins caused his vital organs to stop functioning. We remove the hives where possible, as we have to prioritise public safety. Some people are allergic to hornet stings and some have life-threatening allergic reactions.

We once removed a hornet nest from a tree near Chinatown Complex. The tree was about six stories tall. Typically, we would call in a boom lift, but this area had no road access. We had to climb the adjacent building, wearing a safety harness and our hornet suit. We waited until night-time to remove the nest because the area has many elderly people and we didn’t want them to get stung.

We adhere to safety standards, such as wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE) and thick gloves when operating equipment like a fogging machine. Sometimes, hornets can penetrate our PPE, resulting in a light sting. The most common bites we get on the job, however, are from mosquitoes.

Chan in a hornet suit to protect himself from stings.

Termites can be challenging to eradicate. When their population grows, they become alates, or flying termites, which swarm, mate and establish new nests to expand the colony. Just like ants, when termites are born, some will become workers, while others become soldiers.

I can do up to 10 jobs a day at smaller sites like an F&B outlet or when they are follow-ups. Larger sites, like a factory, require more time and I can do about three such jobs a day.

The job can be laborious, and sometimes, we have to deal with fatigue while driving from job to job. If we are activated during odd hours, such as going down to a country club at 3.30am, we make sure we get rest during the day.

We can learn and memorise theories so we know how to strike, but sometimes, they don’t apply. We need to think on our feet because it’s a problem-solving job. I still get surprises on the job and I am still learning every day. This gives me great job satisfaction.

The biggest lesson for me was learning to let go. In the early days, I wanted to be on every job myself and check every detail. I thought that was the only way to guarantee quality. But that doesn’t scale and is not fair to the people you hire.

A turning point was learning to trust my first few technicians to represent the company as I would. That propels the business to grow beyond me.

I went into the trade assuming that customers mainly cared about how fast and thoroughly we cleared their pest issue. But I’ve learnt that they’re just as likely to remember how we made them feel, especially if we explained the situation clearly, were upfront about what to expect and followed up.

The technical fix matters, but it’s also about trust.