The Singapore Forum

Went to see a flat in our condo, this one on the ground floor. We know the owner, who moved away over half a year ago after renovating it, and as she asked an overly-high price, the flat has been vacant ever since.

Nice flat but it was horror show scary with more cockroaches than I've ever seen in one place. Must have been 10 in the master bath, another 5 in the master shower, and another small collection in the guest bath. All dead.

They have the windows all nicely sealed with netting, so it's doubtful they got in that way. In fact one was dead, impaled on the netting.

The person who let us in, a mutual friend of Mrs. Sardy and the owner, and an owner of a few flats, including one in our condo, thought they got in through the drain pipes. Really!!???

Before seeing the place, the mutual friend suggested we make an offer to the owner for a much lower price since no one's taken it yet. After seeing all that we were right put off. But maybe any place would be like that after that much time?

Roaches definitely come in via the pipes, especially if they aren't flushed in a while

Yeah, they will come through the pipes. However, if that's over 6 mths and the apartment is not regularly cleaned then it's not that many.

Regular cleaning and use of baygon will cut that down considerably.

If it's nice flat look past it to what looks like after bit of a fumigation, but use as point of negotiation. Have to remember live in a tropical zone.

We live in a house, Sardy, so at least part of it is on the ground floor and when I saw 2 roaches in one week, I called pest control and the first thing he did was put some kind of thing in the floor drains in the bath and kitchen to block them from getting in. (Then he discovered their nest in the manhole in the front yard and sprayed the beejeezus out of them). Honestly, I've only ever seen one other one in the house besides the 2 that prompted me to call someone and it's been over 6 years. Keeping things wiped up and taking the garbage out daily seems to do the trick........or maybe the cat is a good roach hunter

When we lived in a condo (10th fl) the roaches would come in via the rubbish chute on fumigation days and they were usually half dead and would die shortly if we didn't get to them first and beat the &^%$ out of them.

We get them on the 4th and 5th floors (Sydney has a huge summer roach problem) so they come in somewhere other than the front door

I remember opening the rubbish chute when we lived on the ground floor at Holland Road and a couple of them walking out of it. If you're on the ground floor, you're closer to the rubbish of course - not the only reason I wouldn't recommend a ground floor apartment BTW.

They definitely come in through the pipes, especially when taps have not been used for a while and the water in the u-bends has dried up. Probably smells funky in there as well with sewerage air flowing in through the pipes. Running all taps for a while after spraying will fill the pipes and close it off again.

Good points all, thanks.

Never lived on the ground floor, and to be honest, was never a fan despite the larger grounds. In our condo and surely others the rent prices for these are higher than the low-mid floors (which we actually prefer over ground and higher floors).

But seems the problem that flat has is pretty normal given no occupancy for so long.

Tas - good suggestion, if we decide to consider it this should help with getting the right price.

Any other reasons not to live on the ground floor, besides the risk of theft?

M - I hope you're referring to only drain pipes, the idea they're in the drinking pipes makes me shudder.

I stayed in a ground floor maisonette for a number of years. I had a few odd neighborhood cats wander in. Mosquitoes. Roaches. But I liked living there. Having a coffee on the back patio overlooking a garden was really nice. It felt like a house and not a cubby hole.

Depending on where it is in the complex - security, noise, people gawping in, people tap-dancing on your ceiling...

They live anywhere. Having lived on several ground floor places in both HK and Singapore seeing the odd cocky around the place is not unusual. We looked at a few houses that had been empty for a while and they had similar things. You should see how many you get in HK where fogging is unheard of (apart from the air of course). They do come up the pipes, even on higher floors if they aren't used for a while.

Other assorted visitors you could get on the ground floor apart from human ones, mozzies, lizards(you know those orange/green ones), squirrels, rats and cats, oh and snakes, we never had any but friends did, one even had one of those huge monitor lizards decided to camp out in the kids bedroom! We had a couple of bats who liked our carport roof as well. However, I loved having a garden area to sit outside in and wouldn't have swapped it for the world.