August 11, 2026<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE <\/strong>\u2013 I am 39 and I have been a pest buster since 2020. My father had more than 40 years of experience in the pest control industry before he retired.<\/p>\n My ambition, since I was young, had been to become a soldier and I fulfilled that dream in the Singapore Army for 13 years. I didn\u2019t see myself as an entrepreneur and had more of a taste for adventure.<\/p>\n As I grew older, my perspective shifted and I found the trade interesting. Being a soldier and a bug buster are similar: Both involve fighting an enemy.<\/p>\n Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I had a chat with my brother, who had started his own pest control business after working closely with my father for years. I decided to resign from the army to join him and help build the business.<\/p>\n In Singapore, we deal with common pests and vectors. Vectors are organisms \u2013 mosquitoes and rodents, for instance \u2013 that transmit disease-carrying pathogens. Cockroaches, too, can spread diseases through their droppings, as they lurk in dirty environments such as rubbish bins and drains.<\/p>\n All vector control workers and technicians in Singapore must be certified by the National Environment Agency (NEA). I signed up for the joint industry certification for pest management by the Institute of Technical Education and NEA. It is a three-month part-time course that entails 66 hours of theory and practical lessons on managing pests and their breeding areas.<\/p>\n Starting from ground zero<\/strong><\/p>\n The first year on the job was tough but exciting. I had to start from scratch. In the beginning, I shadowed our pest control technicians to gain exposure to various types of jobs, from the most basic to the most complicated.<\/p>\n We have in-house entomologists who study insects and their behaviours, such as their life cycles and how they interact with the environment and other creatures, including humans.<\/p>\n Chan using a ladder to inspect and check for rodent activity in hard-to-reach areas. He had placed traps there the day before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When I started out, I asked them many questions. They recommended pest control methods based on their understanding of insect behaviour. When we dealt with difficult cases, I would take a step back and ask them: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t this theory and recommended method work? Why is the pest behaving unusually?\u201d<\/p>\n I still remember helping my very first customer solve his pest issue. A subterranean termite issue was stressing him out. Seeing the relief on his face later was the moment that clicked for me \u2013 this business could work.<\/p>\n More than half the jobs are routine ones, such as going to food and beverage premises to ensure that they are protected from possible infestations. We locate and treat potential breeding areas before pests like mosquitoes and cockroaches can breed. We identify issues, like waste that is not cleared properly or potential entry points for cockroaches, rodents and flies, so that owners can rectify them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more complex when there is an infestation \u2013 for instance, finding dozens of cockroaches when you open up a cupboard or discovering multiple rodents \u2013 which affects people\u2019s everyday lives.<\/p>\n Food is often used as a lure for rodents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Before diagnosing the issue in a home or food establishment, I ask what the pest sighting frequency is: For cockroaches, are there daily sightings? How many each time? If you see more than two during the day, I would say that\u2019s very serious.<\/p>\n We search for harbourage areas \u2013 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n A renowned professor whom our company worked closely with \u2013 he helped train our entomologists and technicians \u2013 says hot, humid weather can accelerate insect activity, including reproduction. The NEA website shows a spike in mosquito activity in March and April.<\/p>\n Meeting a \u2018Spider-Rat\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It took me a few months to solve the problem. The office had no food, so this was not the rat\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It was a large, seasoned rat with a lot of life experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n Chan Kwang Wei 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n What\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Chan using a fogging machine to combat mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Drones for detection<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n We also sometimes work at height and face the risk of stings or bites, so we have to be very careful.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve observed that the more dangerous species (of insects) tend to build their nests higher, such as hornets.<\/strong><\/p>\n Chan Kwang Wei 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want them to get stung.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Chan in a hornet suit to protect himself from stings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n We can learn and memorise theories so we know how to strike, but sometimes, they don\u2019t apply. We need to think on our feet because it\u2019s a problem-solving job. I still get surprises on the job and I am still learning every day. This gives me great job satisfaction.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t scale and is not fair to the people you hire.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I went into the trade assuming that customers mainly cared about how fast and thoroughly we cleared their pest issue. But I\u2019ve learnt that they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n The technical fix matters, but it\u2019s also about trust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n August 11, 2026 SINGAPORE \u2013 I am 39 and I have been a pest buster since 2020. My father had more than 40 years of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/asianews.network\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ladder.B0X3XsbS.avif\")
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Pest buster<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/asianews.network\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fogging.C5vH_uOx.avif\")
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Pest buster<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/asianews.network\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hornet-suit.Cp1PPh1H.avif\")
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