Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 19, 2015 10:25 pm Do insects like small roaches crawl in through ducted heating/air con vents in the ceiling? All our windows have fly screens installed and I can't figure out how these annoying insects enter our new home. Can I cut some squares of fly screens and fit them over the ceiling ducts? I thought of placing filters but they come in round shapes whereas my covers are squares. Can I take this issue up with the builder as it is within the 3 months maintenance period? Please throw me some suggestions on stopping birds constructing nest in the gutter box? I'm awaken very early in the morning from the flapping of wings and claws scratching on the metal gutter box. Thanks. Re: Insects in new home / birds building nest in gutter box 2Oct 20, 2015 6:37 am Unless you can actually find a "defective/faulty" area that is acting as a point of entry for these critters I'd strongly doubt the builder would be required to do anything about it. With the birds, That is something you need to take care of soon, by either clearing the nest/eggs out before they hatch yourself if you can or calling in a pest controller if it's beyond that, especially if the birds are the feral kind that carry bird lice, while there are chicks in the nest the bird lice infest and live off the baby birds but once the birds leave the nest the bird lice go looking for another host, while they can't live on humans and they will eventually die, they will bite you in the search for another bird. I know this from personal experience. Last December just before Christmas this happened to me, I woke up one morning and felt really itchy, I looked down and saw a tiny tiny bug run across my torso, I got my husband to check for me, he caught it and it turned out to be bird lice. This was a 3 storey townhouse we were renting and there was no access for my husband to get up and clear out the nest without it being very dangerous without the right gear. I was itchy for a couple of weeks, luckily we moved out right at the height of the infestation and the itching went away but it was a horrible and disturbing experience knowing that I was being bitten by the same bugs that we feeing off feral birds. These were the feral Indian mynah birds that all over Sydney. Re: Insects in new home / birds building nest in gutter box 3Oct 20, 2015 12:24 pm Thank you, Shanna. Your post is very informative; didn't realize bird lice exists. Will certainly get a professional pest controller to rid the nest and those small insects from God knows where they come from. Re: Insects in new home / birds building nest in gutter box 4Oct 20, 2015 3:50 pm A standard refrigerated ducted air-conditioning system generally doesn't have an external air intake, and only recirculates air that it picks up from the return air grille. In this configuration, there shouldn't be any way for insects to get from outside into the air ducts. Re: Insects in new home / birds building nest in gutter box 5Oct 20, 2015 4:25 pm I think it's pretty common for there to be an increase in bug/spider activity in new homes. All the soil on the site and the surrounding areas gets disturbed and the bugs need to find somewhere else to live. We live in a new-ish townhouse and there is a ridiculous number of spiders (especially in winter), and ants in the summer (even with a spotless house, the ants come in looking for water/somewhere cool). We've got fly screens/don't leave doors open/etc and stuff still gets in. We built the Rathdowne with Simonds Express in Western Melbourne Site start Oct. 2015 Keys Jan. 25th, 2015 My build thread -here- No, I even have sections of narrowness where the tiles won't slide up any further. When I manage some spare time, I might play around with the first DIY part of my… 7 4999 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair This is a very challenging situation, made much harder by not being on site. Firstly, I think that I originally… 10 9087 Thank you so much. We ended going with the terrain that’s part of our brick. 2 2610 |