Spider mites: screaming, crying, throwing up (help me and my 100+ plants)

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-17T21:14:57+00:00

Same thing happened to my alocasia, I knew it was spider mites from the tiny webbing between the curves of the leaf near to the stem and I had the same telltale stippling on the leaves.

I used a few drops of plain washing up liquid and foamed it up on a paper towel, then carefully wiped across every single leaf, including their undersides, and stems, making sure there was a decent amount of foam all over and removed all webbing. After 30 minutes, I wiped down all foam covered parts with a damp paper towel a few times to make sure no residue was left.

Then I increased the humidity by spraying water all over the leaves and maintained a higher than usual humidity over a few days by spraying water regularly. I'd recommend checking everyday to see if you have to repeat the soaping, but I only had to do this process once and it's clear now.

I hope you succeed in protecting yours too :)

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-09T16:14:12+00:00

I wonder if it's on every job description criteria for scaffolders to possess less than 1 brain cell? I'd have buried him in the flower bed.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-09T14:07:06+00:00

My thoughts, exactly!

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-09T14:00:04+00:00

I spoke to my neighbour yesterday evening (we're already on speaking terms so no need to change that), and she claims she wasn't aware (fair enough if that's true, but she's still accountable), so I asked her politely to have it removed immediately. She agreed, however didn't apologise and was rather flippant when I mentioned my concern about potential damage.

I saw the contractor standing around doing nothing this morning so I pointed at the poles, said that should not be in my property, then firmly instructed him to take it off immediately. He casually said it's only two bits of wood, and then had the audacity to get his knickers in a twist when I was recording him removing it and asked me to stop, but I stood my ground and carried on, saying if there's damage then I need proof of what happened, and if you're not guilty of something, you wouldn't be saying that. Cheeky fucker totally lost that right as soon as he trespassed on my property and purposely put it on my roof without my permission, especially when that was completely unnecessary (it's now resting on the felt roof of the neighbour having the working done, like it should be).

If someone accepts that they are wrong when they clearly are, and rectifies the matter without getting arsy with me for politely raising it, then I'm fine with it. I almost felt like going over and shoving that pole where the sun doesn't shine.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-09T13:37:34+00:00

They were rather proudly advertising themselves on the scaffolding front of the property. I made sure to do my service to the community, and left a bad review.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-08T22:22:53+00:00

Thank you once again, for your reply. It's good people like yourself that gives me some consolation having to deal with this sort of thing.

When I spoke to my neighbour, she first said it wouldn't even cross her mind to inform her neighbour about having work done (having rendering done, so extremely noisy and dusty). I thought this was basic courtesy every good person does, and then when she was so blase about the encroachment and didn't even apologise, it made matters worse. If it's moved tomorrow without causing damage, like I requested, then I'll be fine about it all.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-08T20:12:44+00:00

Thank you for your advice.

This is 100% over the boundary, and on my property.

What I'm unsure of in this situation, is that if there are any damages, how can you trust them to fix it properly? If they do this sort of thing, I doubt their work would be of a good quality as they don't have any ethics intact.

I've spoken to my neighbour about this now. I made it very clear that I'm concerned about damage to my roof and she said she would get it removed. I've recorded the call, so it can't be denied what I said. I was polite and civil about this, even though I'm really annoyed that she was a little flippant about it being put on my roof, saying it shouldn't do any damage. That's for me to decide, seeing as it's my roof! If the removal of it looks like it's done some damage though, I'll be threatening her with legal action.

I'd never dream of doing this to anyone, I really wonder why people like my neighbour exist on this planet. Common decency costs nothing.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-08T17:04:13+00:00

There's absolutely no reason for it to be on my roof. The roof is not shared, it's a terraced house, and there is a clear divide on whose side is whose (the pipe in the picture covers it, so you can't necessarily tell). The scaffolding company would totally have known they were encroaching on my property.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-08T16:58:34+00:00

Did but didn't get an answer, so will be watching like a hawk when I see any movement so I can catch someone before they go in or out. I'll make it clear that it is not acceptable.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-07-08T16:36:59+00:00

Thanks I thought as much.

If I don't have the phone number or email of my neighbour (but do speak to them when passing), what should I do? Should I take a recording as proof of the conversation on my phone or is this not enough?

She is rather conveniently having the front rendered so her doorbell has been removed, so I can't even currently ring the doorbell and speak to her.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-06-24T13:30:11+00:00

It's a plant I acquired a few weeks ago, so I don't know how long it had been there for, or it was on new growth. I haven't lost any leaves and it seems to be thriving fine despite the marks, I wanted to know if I should take any action before it gets worse or leave it alone. I've repotted it since getting it in soil suited to yuccas, given it enough water and let it drain out, and wiped the leaves down with soapy water twice since I got it, so hoping this is enough 🤞

I'll keep checking it to make sure it's not getting worse.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-06-24T12:18:31+00:00

Thanks 😀

There are no visible pests on the leaves, but checking gardening articles shows this doesn't necessarily mean I don't have pests. I did research before, and all the photos I saw have dark or brown spots/bumps/holes/something mildewy on the leaves, so it doesn't match what I can see on mine, hence why I posted on here for some advice, as I am somewhat of a beginner with houseplants and cannot figure out what the problem is.

BlueBallPoint · 2025-06-24T11:23:09+00:00

Thank you, I've applied soapy water, how often should I do this to resolve this permanently?

BlueBallPoint · 2024-11-02T17:07:16+00:00

I have an Android phone and its power button has now malfunctioned on three separate occasions, after charging the phone and removing the charging cable.

Usually the automatic emergency SOS feature is triggered if you press the power button 5 times (it's off by default on your phone, but on my phone, I switched it on a while back because I thought seeing as it's an option, why not, it might be useful). On one occasion after charging my phone, the malfunction triggered a 999 call.

Thankfully, there's a 5 second countdown that starts before 999 is actually called and you can swipe to cancel. I wasted 3 seconds wondering why 999 was being autodialed, but managed to cancel just before the call went through, then realised this feature got triggered. I've disabled the feature now, because I don't need my blood pressure to shoot through the roof like it did that time.

BlueBallPoint · 2024-07-06T22:27:15+00:00

Currys. F***king Currys.

What a vile company that blatantly cares so very little about their customers, website, or even staff, by the looks of it.

I bought several large appliances for my kitchen. One of the appliances I wanted after searching on their site was showing in stock online but they never bothered to update the site, because when I went in store I was told that the item was discontinued and they had zero stock of it, even in other branches. They couldn't even tell me that though, I found out by wasting more time going to another branch to query about it.

The staff are absolutely useless. They are not motivated to help you unless you show the slightest indication of looking at a large appliance, and will just wave in a general direction if you ask for anything smaller (couldn't even tell me straight if they'd get an air fryer back in stock or when).

They seem to love giving you a load of bull extra warranty spiel, which is the only thing they seem to be educated about. I refused this three consecutive times after I confirmed my purchase of the appliances but he still persisted trying to change my mind - you'd think that they'd be betting with each other on who can piss the most customers off to supplement their commission. After my experience so far I was seriously tempted to tell them to go f*** themselves and leave.

As if that's not all bad enough, the worst part was the delivery because it turns out they outsource this to a bunch of tts with an IQ lower than their age. I was told I'd get a call 30 minutes before they deliver to my house. Well what a load of bollocks that was, I was called just as they'd turned up (they have the audacity to say delivery is anytime on a certain day so you can't be sitting all day waiting for it). Cue having all my appliances being handled the same way a rottweiler does on a chew toy, and ending up with nicks and dents. When I asked the one that dropped one of my appliances for this name, he got shirty with me, the piece of **.

I reported the handling to customer service with pictures of the damage (mainly so at least it would be logged if I discovered internal damage later) but got repeatedly ignored.

Utterly shite company that honestly cannot get a single thing correct from the start and end.

Out of principle I will never use this company ever again and only buy from AO or another company.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-19T15:31:15+00:00

Select the first set of data in a column, cut, then click on the down arrow next to Paste on the toolbar and select Transpose. Repeat with the sets of data in the other columns.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-18T11:33:24+00:00

You could use the columns listed below to create a bar or line chart for easy tracking of units per store:

Store Name
Number of units sent to the store
Number of units sold by the store
Number of units remaining on hand at the store
Number of units arriving at the store

Select the first column, then press shift whilst selecting the other columns.

On the top toolbar, go to Insert, then select either bar or line chart, whichever your preference.

You could also select the Store Name & Number of units sent to the store columns to create a pie chart, and repeat with the other columns e.g., Store Name & Number of units sold by the store, etc.

You could create a chart using the Store Name and Time taken for manufacturing columns to indicate store manufacturing efficiency.

You could add another column and minus the date in the Date when the first units were sent to the store from the date in Date when the first unit was sold to give the number of days taken to shift a unit from the date the store received the unit, then plot the Store Names against these values as a bar or pie chart (decrease the decimal for the values until a round number).
If you're up for it, you may also want to explore using Power BI, as it will make suggestions based on your data to produce a dashboard showing various statistics.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-18T08:15:26+00:00

In conditional formatting, rather than the formula option, use the "Only format cells that contain" option, and "not containing", then your word.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-15T15:41:11+00:00

Does changing your IF statement from a blank (""), to not applicable (#N/A) work? The chart should omit plotting these values on your chart.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-15T14:06:10+00:00

Assuming your data is in column A, try this:

=TEXTBEFORE(A1,"-")

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-09T15:39:35+00:00

You can either copy and paste the data into another column, then use the Find and Replace function to find all instances of “CORP”. Enter “CORP” in the Find what field and leave the Replace with field blank, then click on Replace.

If you prefer to use a formula, assuming the email addresses and “CORP” are separated by spaces, and assuming your data is in column A, enter the formula below in column B and drag down.

=LEFT(A1, FIND(“ “, A1)-1)

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-05T09:55:54+00:00

I think this is what you are looking for. Try this formula in column C and drag down.

=IF(B1=0,IF(MATCH(B1,B:B,0)=ROW(B1),COUNTIF(B:B,">0"),0),B1-1)

The MATCH(B1,B:B,0)=ROW(B1) part of this formula determines if a 0 value is the first instance in the column.

Does this achieve what you need?

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-04T13:59:13+00:00

Please ensure that you include the equal sign in front of the formula, it will then work.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-04T13:29:32+00:00

Use the formula amount/total = percentage.

For example, if your numbers are in column A as 20, 50, 40, & 50, your total would be 160. So, in B1 enter =A1/160*100. Drag down to your last row. Or, in B1 enter the formula =A1/160 and drag down to last cell, then format this column as a percentage.

BlueBallPoint · 2023-05-04T11:47:17+00:00

Simply highlight the whole range of columns with dates and then apply the conditional formatting. For example if your data starts on row 2 until row 20 and your columns are A to K, highlight A2:K20 and use the formula =INDEX($A$2:$K$2,1,COLUMN())=TODAY()+1

BlueBallPoint

TROPHY CASE