I’ve just woken up to find I have been bitten several times by a mosquito or mosquitoes. Bites on my arm and one or more around my right eye which is now swollen half-shut.
Two questions:
What precautions do you take to stop mosquitoes getting in your house?
What is the best treatment for mosquitoes bites?
Any other thoughts or suggestions?
I’ve just sprayed my bedroom with an anti-moustique spray (which I hate both from a personal health and environmental standpoint) and I have retreated to the kitchen. I’ll go back to bed in an hours or so, when the spray is no longer hanging in the air.
I’ve also taken some paracetamol to lessen the itch so as to avoid scratching the bites and making them worse.
I sprayed myself this morning with some Avon So Soft on a recommendation I saw online as a deterrent to mozzies but I guess it’s effectiveness has worn off 15 hours later.
I have the same thing, just a different brand… Can’t fault it.
Also, moustiquaires on windows and doors, to keep them out. Plus I’m ruthless about not having any standing water in the garden where they can lay their eggs.
No recommendations from me as to treatment after bites and can’t agree with the no standing water advice, I have loads in 3 ponds (one within 3 metres of my bedroom window) but no mozzies. No idea why.
But, as to the quesion above, I protect my bedroom from flies of all kinds by having a very fine mesh pinned to the outside frame of the window (OK , can’t shut the shutters but don’t need to).
I leave the windows shut all day long to stop warm/hot air getting in and the door firmly shut.
I make sure there is no light on in the bedroom whenever the door is open.
I go in and out during the day very swiftly always shutting the door asap even if only for a moment.
I keep the door shut all night but windows wide open.
Cool and flyless.
But, there was a fly in there last night. My fault, I forgot my specs, left in the kitchen and as I read before sleep had to collect them. Foolishly I left the bedside light on while I was gone so it got in either on my very brief exit or re-entry. Lesson learned and a fly hunt down for one of today’s jobs.
BTW, recently I noticed a large gathering of flies inside the kitchen window and hit on the idea of the vacuum cleaner. Worked a treat must have sucked up 50 or so in 5 minutes then released outside later. But it is a bit cumbersome, light as it is, so I have ordered a hand held one designed for hoovering in cars from the big A, should be here tomorrow, half an hour of charge should be enough each day, we’ll see.
It may be to do with the nature of your pond as to whether it makes a suitable breeding ground or not - I am no biologist!
But I can tell you when I lived in Turks & Caicos you could set your watch by the mozzies - two weeks after any period of heavy rain they would appear in droves!
Not only do I very rarely see a mozzie but my ponds are all very different. The big, deep one at the top in the trees hardly loses anything to evaporation. Likewise the middle one, almost lost in vegetation and full of dead leaves but the bottom one, just outside my bedroom window is just mud now. Obviously lots of insects there, evidenced by the loads of birds flying in out and walking in it. But no mozzies, so either my birds and dragonflies are super efficient or there is some deeper explanation. I am not going to do anything about it, suits me just fine.
We have a couple of hand held chargable zappers that we keep nearby to zap any that dare come near us. Any bites that do occur we spray immediately with Biseptine antiseptic spray - works a treat.
In the bedroom/living room combo, we use a liquid plugin to kill anything that may get in to that area. We also have two static electric zappers (one in the hallway and one in between the kitchen and covered patio) that do the job as well. Cheers - Steve
As others have written mesh on the windows, mesh door screen has had the biggest effect. Bug zappers are not created equal, we picked up a 3rd one from Action it was totally useless so it went back. It looked similar to the good ones but never zapped anything, all the work was done by the other two, one in the lounge, one in the bedroom.
Yep, when we did a visit to le Marais Poitevin they told us we didn’t need to use the Cinq Sur Cinq we’d brought with us, as the fish did such a good job at eating the mozzies.
Mosquito ‘bites’ are most annoying because the stinger saliva contains >30 potentially allergenic proteins. Degrees of a person’s allergic reaction to these proteins can range from unpleasant to severe and may increase with frequency of bites.
Many topical and aerosol solutions exist to help protect humans from mosquitoes. Many of these, particularly the mist effective, are insecticides and repellants. All must be carefully used as directed. The best solution for many is to avoid being bitten in the first place.
Someone on SF gave a tip a while back on squeezing a drop of washing up liquid onto the surface of any water barrel too. It seems to work with some standing water around that I couldn’t empty. It seems to ruin the water as a home for hatching new ones.
