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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Hygiene woes: Rats and bird faeces
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Nicholas Yong
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The Geylang Serai Temporary Market has been closed for cleaning after mass food posioning that led to two deaths. -- ST PHOTO: MUGILAN RAJASEGERAN
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE Geylang Serai Temporary Market has a problem: Rats.
Cleaners and pest controllers have caught 41 rats there since last Friday, the second such intensive hunt this year.
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The market's management committee did a sweep then, with pest controllers laying out rat bait and glue boards.
But these initial measures failed to wipe out the rodent menace, and measures were stepped up.
However, it appears that the problem has not been licked, despite the two rat hunts.
Yesterday, as a spring cleaning took place, rats were spotted just outside the hawker centre.
There are 83 hawker stalls in the temporary food centre, which adjoins a wet market - where the rat infestation appears to be concentrated.
Most of the 41 rats trapped since last Friday were caught there.
Yesterday, the NEA said it has been monitoring the situation, and has advised the temporary market's managing committee to intensify its pest control measures.
The agency also conducts regular inspections of individual hawker stalls.
The rat problem is a bane for stallholders.
Said Mr Fadullah Sudi, 44, who runs a vegetable stall with his wife: 'You can always see them at night, they chase each other like Tom and Jerry.
'They are very big and not scared of people,' he added.
Mr Fadullah said the problem had been there since he first moved into the new premises in March 2006.
His eldest son Faizul, 20, who helps out at the stall during the school holidays, added: 'No matter how much we clean, there are always rats.'
The stallholders also said that because there are no table cleaners working after 7pm, plates with leftover food are left piled high at the food centre overnight, providing the rats with a ready supply of food.
There is another animal-related woe at the market: Bird faeces.
Birds are known to throng the market at lunchtime, leaving a trail of droppings on the floor, on stallholders' foodstuff and sometimes, even landing on customers' food.
The hygiene problems have become so bad that some stallholders cannot wait to move out.
Their permanent home, a new double-storey building along Changi Road, is set to open towards the end of the year. Ms Siti Hasnah Mohd Arshad, 52, who runs a stall selling traditional Malay cakes and desserts, said: 'I hope the newly renovated market will have better facilities and a better system of cleanliness established.'
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Nicholas Yong
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>

</TD><TD width=10>


The Geylang Serai Temporary Market has been closed for cleaning after mass food posioning that led to two deaths. -- ST PHOTO: MUGILAN RAJASEGERAN
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE Geylang Serai Temporary Market has a problem: Rats.
Cleaners and pest controllers have caught 41 rats there since last Friday, the second such intensive hunt this year.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>
VIDEO
</TD></TR><TR><TD>
<TABLE align=left><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>NEA working closely with hawker centres
(1:06)
</TD></TR><TR><TD>
(1:06)
<TABLE align=left><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Geylang Serai Market closed for spring cleaning
(3:41)
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- Background Story --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The first came in February, when the National Environment Agency (NEA) was told of the rat infestation problem. 
(3:41)
The market's management committee did a sweep then, with pest controllers laying out rat bait and glue boards.
But these initial measures failed to wipe out the rodent menace, and measures were stepped up.
However, it appears that the problem has not been licked, despite the two rat hunts.
Yesterday, as a spring cleaning took place, rats were spotted just outside the hawker centre.
There are 83 hawker stalls in the temporary food centre, which adjoins a wet market - where the rat infestation appears to be concentrated.
Most of the 41 rats trapped since last Friday were caught there.
Yesterday, the NEA said it has been monitoring the situation, and has advised the temporary market's managing committee to intensify its pest control measures.
The agency also conducts regular inspections of individual hawker stalls.
The rat problem is a bane for stallholders.
Said Mr Fadullah Sudi, 44, who runs a vegetable stall with his wife: 'You can always see them at night, they chase each other like Tom and Jerry.
'They are very big and not scared of people,' he added.
Mr Fadullah said the problem had been there since he first moved into the new premises in March 2006.
His eldest son Faizul, 20, who helps out at the stall during the school holidays, added: 'No matter how much we clean, there are always rats.'
The stallholders also said that because there are no table cleaners working after 7pm, plates with leftover food are left piled high at the food centre overnight, providing the rats with a ready supply of food.
There is another animal-related woe at the market: Bird faeces.
Birds are known to throng the market at lunchtime, leaving a trail of droppings on the floor, on stallholders' foodstuff and sometimes, even landing on customers' food.
The hygiene problems have become so bad that some stallholders cannot wait to move out.
Their permanent home, a new double-storey building along Changi Road, is set to open towards the end of the year. Ms Siti Hasnah Mohd Arshad, 52, who runs a stall selling traditional Malay cakes and desserts, said: 'I hope the newly renovated market will have better facilities and a better system of cleanliness established.'