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My money is on a beetle infestation. It wouldn't cost too much to take down a small section of the ceiling and have a good look inside with a powerful torch. You'll soon see evidence if there is a beetle.

I've been travelling around Africa for 30 years now and the more I see of Africans the more I find myself almost becoming an apologist for colonialism. Of course it's morally wrong to enslave another human but slavery is a fact of life in Africa; it still happens widely there and elsewhere in...

Wow! She's got balls!

Why don't you guys take advantage of all that solar heat and fit an array of solar collector tubes in the space? Mine are in the open on the roof and on a sunny day the 160 litre preheat tank is hitting 60 c.

No, the roof gets no sun and stays damp for a long time as the westerlies don't dry it. On top of that a tank overflow dripped on to it for a few months until I realised what was happening and went up and bent the ballcock arm down. I'm worried that the accumulation of moss in the gaps between...

Good plan, Stan, thanks!

Howdy, first post on the roofing section of DIYnot. North-facing extension roof of cement tiles has masses of moss between the tiles and around the flashing. A few years I climbed up and scraped it all out, a messy, tedious and tiring job but I'm at ease on roofs thanks to being a climber - I...

It's vital that you increase the ventilation under the floor or the humidity level will be perfect for the growth of wet or dry rot in the timbers. Once you've done that, think about actually sealing the floor so that the earthy odour doesn't come through, bearing in mind that any warm air that...

When I was a student aged 21 I worked for five months as English assistant at a Poly in Spain. Half the students were Venezuelan, half of those were girls and half were drop-dead gorgeous. They knew it and they used to sit slouched in the front row, short skirts on and legs well apart, so that I...

Don't places like B&Q sell DIY split ACs? So how does that work with regard to filling the refrigerant?

In your first picture the darker pipe to the right of the compression joint looks badly corroded. Also, why is the body of the joint corroded and not the nuts? They should all be brass. The alkalinity of the concrete has attacked the metal in the presence of moisture, and since those pipes are...

You would be amazed at how much sound is soaked up by sound-absorbing felt. Try to work out a way of muffling the vents with felt without obstructing the airflow and with protection from rain; a cowl or hood like the one you have pictured, lined with felt, would probably do the job. Get the felt...

Don't turn the heating up too high or you'll wake up all the Chinese beetle larve inside the wood frame and they'll start scoffing the sofa. Guess how I know this?

"Yah, right, great buppies" ?

This, on the other hand, is excellent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI4yoXyb1_M (Turn up the sound)

Three nuns are killed in a horrible car crash. When they arrive at the pearly gates, St Peter looks in his big book, smiles apologetically and says: "I'm afraid Heaven is full at the moment and anyway you've all come far too soon as you're all too young to die. I'm going to give you a chance to...

Free money in Manchester but nobody touches it. Except.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32717101 (And a note to myself: remember to borrow Granny's crutches next time you go out begging.)

From Wikipedia on Britain's gold reserves: "Between 1999 and 2002 Brown sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves at $275 an ounce. It was later attacked as a "disastrous foray into international asset management" as he had sold at close to a 20-year low. The UK eventually sold about 395 tons of...

At least the extension roof is pitched, not flat. Who ever started the fashion for flat roofs in Britain?

One place I would never swim is Liverpool - you're likely to bump into a Mersey trout there!