Frequently Asked Questions

You should select a pest control company the way you do any other service - Look for Quality and Value.  Costs and competency are important. When selecting a pest control service, cost should not be the only factor that determines the company you pick.  It is important to make sure the pest control company you choose is competent. If pesticides are misused, both health and property can be damaged.

Before contracting with a pest control company in Singapore, consider the following:

• Reputation & Company’s Success Stories
• License & Accreditation
• Experience
• Customer service
• Treatment methods
• Price

Read more: What is Pest Control and How to Prevent Pest

The cost of pest control services in Singapore depends on several factors, such as the type of pest, the severity of the infestation, and the size of the property. On average, a basic pest control treatment for a standard-sized apartment may cost between SGD 80 to SGD 200. A more comprehensive treatment for a large commercial property can cost several thousand dollars.

It's important to note that the cost of pest control services can vary greatly among different pest control companies in Singapore, so it's advisable to get quotes from several companies before choosing one. Additionally, some companies may offer discounts or packages for regular pest control services, which can help to lower your overall cost.

Professional pest control companies provide faster and more effective results than do-it-yourself methods, in most cases. They can also save you money in the future by identifying pest problems early and eliminating them fast, preventing a costly infestation and/or damage in the future.

Alates, also known as flying termites, have broad waists and two pair of wings that are equal in size and shape. They continue shed their wings after a short flight. Winged ants have slender waists and two pair of wings that differ in size and shape (front pair is much larger). Flying ants shed their wings like alates. Collect a few sample and contact us to get them identified if you want to be sure.

Mud trails/tubes/tunnels are one of the top criterions of subterranean termite activity. 

Yes, termite love to digest wood (cellulose). Termites has a role to break down the wood into humus. Using symbiotic microbes that live inside their stomachs, termites are able to digest cellulose. They are extremely well organized and persistent in their search for new food sources. On the other hand, they will also eat anything containing cellulose – wallpaper, books, boxes, carpet backing, drywall and even furniture.

Termites cannot bypass solid concrete, but they can enter through a crack only 1/32 of an inch wide. Crevices of this size or bigger often occur where two pieces of concrete adjoin, like when poured separately and around plumbing penetrations through the concrete or where the concrete has openings.

A worker termite lifespan is about one to two years. A queen may live for more than decades.

Alates utilized their wings to fly a short distance from their nest. They then discard their wings, burrow themselves in the soil to spend the rest of their lives building a new colony.

Alates attempt to pair with a swarmer of the opposite sex within their colony. They must seek for a suitable habitat before establishing a new colony. They require moist soil preferably in direct contact with wood, in order to survive. The termites that swarm inside a building and cannot get out will quickly die from desiccation.

Termites don’t need much room to enter your home or business. In fact, they can enter a building structure through a space as small as 1/32 of an inch, from the soil along the foundation or through cracks in the slab, expansion joints, electrical cables, around plumbing and voids in brick.

While most subterranean termite infestations come from a colony living in soil outside the building, some infestations started above the ground. This occurs when a termite king and queen startup a nest within a structure or when foraging termite workers become isolated and failed to return to the parent colony. Such conditions are most common in high-moisture areas. Structures with flat roofs or severe leaks also be at risk because the structure can retain enough moisture for a termite colony to establish itself. Constant moisture level allows a termite colony to survive even without a connection to the soil.

Alates are looking for soil with high moisture and close to wood in order to form a new colony. The chance of these conditions exist inside your home is very low, but there is still a chance whereby your house have such humid and moist area for them to develop. 

Termites forage for 365 days and they spread mostly underground. If your home is currently free of termite, there is a chance that it could be infested by termites that are active foraging nearby. A preventative termite control program will help avoid termite infestation. 

Read further: 5 Ways to Keep Your Home Free from Termites

A home infested by drywood termite will require termite foaming treatment. This allows the insecticide to travel in form of foam along the tunnel/galleries in order to hit the drywood termite. It is the most effective method of controlling drywood termite infestations.

Yes. Without an effective termite prevention program, like our Baiting System, your home is welcoming termite for creating damage, which may remain unseen until it raised a serious problem. Baiting System is designed to monitor and eliminate individual termites as well as their colonies. Bear in mind that just because you don’t spot individual termites does not mean your property is free from infestation. Subterranean termites live in colonies that consists of hundreds of thousands of termites. They work 24/7 and are arduous to detect since 80 percent of the wood they feed on is hidden within the building structure.

Individual termites can be affected within few days after consumed the bait, but it may take several weeks or months for an entire colony to be eliminated. Some of the factors are taken into consideration on the bait effectiveness such as geography, the number of termites in the colony, the number of colonies infesting the structure and the termite species.

There are a couple of solutions based on the type of termites found at your premise. System Pest recommends a Termite Inspection in order to determine the best method and treatment plan. Dusting can only be carried out if active termite found in the premise. Termiticide powder will be puffed into mud tubes. The principle is to treat foraging termites with a small amount of dust, allowing them to return to their nest and pass on the toxicant to other colony members through allogrooming.

Baiting can be categorized into In-ground monitoring station and Above-ground baiting station. This baiting solution would require termites to feed on baits containing an insect growth regulator. After worker termites feed on the bait, they will share the food with other colony members via trophallaxis. Then, the colony will be suppressed or eliminated. Before baiting, monitoring stations containing cellulose are planted on the ground along the building perimeter. Once termites are found, the bait containing a toxicant is introduced. Bait stations are inspected at selected intervals, about 7-10 days and replenished when half of the baits are consumed. Upon elimination/suppression, the stations are inspected again at regular intervals. For above-ground baiting, the baiting box is placed firmly onto an active mud tube or a piece of infested wood. It is sealed tightly with masking tape so that there is no air movement that could disturb the termite feeding on the bait.

Corrective soil treatments utilize the application of termiticide to the soil at all potential entry points into the building. As the termites forage, they will come into contact with the treated soil if they try to enter the building. Soil treatments are intended to control termites for extended periods of time, usually 5 years, prior to the construction of the new building. However, physical disturbance to the treatment zone such as landscaping activities, soil erosion, and natural degradation of the termiticide may shorten the efficacy of the termiticide applied.

All the termite treatments that System Pest offered are renewable.

Read further: The Ultimate Guide to Termite Control in Singapore

No. As the spray will only kill the termites where the spray hits. The rest of the termites will flee and warn the rest of the colony causing them to move and spread to other areas of your home. These colonies are huge, ranging from thousand to hundred of thousand of termite individuals. The colony then finds safer areas to attack and do even more damage. The best and the only way to get rid of a termite infestation is by eliminating the colony and most importantly the only breeder of the problem, which is the termite queen.