Silverfish infestation!

Not in this country.

Mary

Simple find and fix the damp. Wood Lice require a damp enviroment to survive.

Yet... B-(

The WHO have been warning of a flu pandemic for a while now.

I would be surprised if the wood lice are actually living and breeding in your house as they require very damp conditions to survive. Generally in a house they will dry up and die in a few hours at most. What I think is more likely is they are finding tiny cracks and holes and coming in that way. Both my parents house and ours has been getting them coming in this year which is a bit strange because it didn't happen last year. I can only think that the weather or something has driven them in.

There is an pesticide that will kill wood lice. I can't remember it's name at the minute. It's not terribly effective IIRC and it kills a lot of other stuff as well. All in all wood lice aren't that bad so I would just live with them. Some people think they eat joists because of their name - they don't. They primarily eat rotting wood and leaves. Basically they can only eat wood if it's wet.

Yes. And it hasn't happened.

Mary

Yes, if you have wood lice you have worse problems. The creatues are just exploiting your other problems. They cause no damage in themselves.

Mary

ANIP>> Seems a bit drastic. What about all the chicken s*it/piss and pests from

Apart from chicken lice The good thing is humans arent warm enough to sustain them so you only itch for an hour or so

Apparently they're easily dealt with. Our hens have never had them, I think they're a function of larger flocks than the couple I suggested :-)

Mary

Yet. I think it's only a matter of time(*). The bird > human transfer is well established in the Far East now. The human > human transfer is just begining to appear.

(*)This week, next month, next year, ten years, who knows? If the authorities don't stamp on it hard early on it will spread very rapidly and not just within the area, these days global travel is routine. Remember what what happened with SARS.

Everything's bound to happen in time. In a few million years there won't be any humans on Earth (might be sooner) so why worry?

Quite,.

I remember. That hasn't happened here either.

But road deaths do happen, I assume you don't drive.

Mary

And how many died of SARS? Far less than die on the roads every year in the UK. Hardly a pandemic, but grossly overhyped by the media as usual.

MBQ

I did not say that SARS was a pandemic, it didn't even register on the epidemic scale. I was just usings SARS to illustrate that disease is spread quickly, easyly and globaly these days. Especially one that has early symptoms similar to the common cold.

More people die from hospital related infections then on our roads now-a-days.

Shame they don't use the same draconian measures and penalties for people messing up in hospitals.

I must admit that when that SARS thing was kicking off, I had this vision of me holed up in my house living off baked beans and soup for a few months until the coast was clear.

Hopefully it won't come to that...lol

Source? Sounds like bollocks to me.

Well, it's been rather well publicised over the last few years and even more so over the last few weeks. Road deaths per year are around the 3500 mark, and deaths per year from hospital aquired infections are around the 5000 mark. (I wonder if someone can get counted in both statistics?)

I know someone who went in with bowl cancer, got MRSA, and was in a coma for 6 months. Fortunately she made a full recovery from both conditions, but many people infected in that way come round to find multiple limbs had to be amputated to save their lives, or they have some other permanent disability. I've not seem figures for permanent disabilities due to hospital aquired infections, but I would not be surprised if it was higher than the deaths figure.

OK - I did some research. It seems that deaths from hospital related infections in the UK may indeed be at the 5000 per year mark BUT of those, only around 800 have been attributed to MSRA. Infection after an operation is, and always has been, one of the highest risks and this is not a new thing.

My 82 year old mother got MRSA after being in hospital for a subdural haematoma for which she reqired two operations. She recovered from both and is now almost 85. A friend of mine has a disabled son who has contracted MRSA several times at home.

Not from MRSA they don't. Are you thinking of necrotising fasciitis? There is no evidence for any link between MRSA and necrotising fasciitis in the UK although there is one place in Canada that has reported a possible link.

I prefer to concentrate on the number of people who leave hospital well and whole - I'd hazard that figure is a little higher.

Throwaway soundbites such as "More people die from hospital related infections then on our roads now-a-days" do more to scare people than they do to help any situation. While they are technically true, the whole picture is obscured in a politically motivated haze. When you dig a little deeper and blow away that Daily Mail type rhetoric, things become a little clearer.

Silverfish don't do any harm - just turn the lights on 10 seconds before you go into the kitchen and you'll never be bothered by them again.

Hmm. That might work if you have an external light switch for the kitchen. What if they're somewhere else in the house? The only ones I saw were in the living room of a C18th stone built cottage.

Even if your suggestion made the silverfish hide, can you guarantee that they'll never be seen again? It would be a very foolish person who'd make such a promise.

Silverfish are also not uncommon in libraries, paper collections and museums - they don't need the same kind of food as we eat so they don't just come into dwellings.

Keeping a place very dry will make them go away (to seek more hospitable surroundings) and prevent their return.

Mary

Yes, and the most dangerous place in the country is a long-stay geriatric ward - no-one comes out alive!

Hospital infections aren't a good thing. They're particularly a bad thing for people who are already weakened. But they're opportunistic and in most of these "MRSA Labour Superbug Deaths" it's just a question of what gets to you first, rather than the septicaemia, pneumonia, kidney failure or the rest of death's minor roadsweepers.