I think that DB still has a genuine ‘out house’ … 
The worst thing is, if they take aim at your eyelid when you’re sleeping and you open your eye right before they land and they sting you right on they eyeball.
That is definitely the worst.
Seriously, though. Mosquitoes don’t bother me in the day. The pain only lasts 10-15 minutes. It’s not like a snakebite or something. It’s at night that they drive me crazy. Solved that with a net. Also solves my paranoid obsession with spiders on my face and cockroaches landing in my mouth.
They hate stout. I never have any problems.
Consider yourselves lucky; I just learned I may have been sharing my sleeping space with a vampire bat!
Have no dark colors in your apartment. Taiwanese mosquitoes are quite stealthy and it only takes a couple to make a meal of you. A fan at night and an electric racket are must haves.
I heard they smell carbon dioxide, so if you just stop breathing you should be OK.
There may be quite a bit to the advice about garlic. My ex used to eat it like it was going out of style and he almost never got bitten.
Before she died, mosquitos used to fall dead off my grandmother-in-law. They were always feeding her some kind of Chinese medicine, but I don’t know what it was. No–that medicine is not what killed her. But it shure did in the mosquitos.
Thanks guys for the tips. I’ll re-seal again, put netting over the drains, and get a fan. I bought one of those electric tennis rackets awhile ago, but don’t like the model i got. It has two sides with netting, but only one side works at a time depending on the way you insert the batteries…wtf??? sh*ttiest design ever. I’ve missed many a kill when i swung using the wrong side because i failed to look at the red light indicating the “hitting direction”. not to mention the batteries don’t stay in position.
Sadly i’m at the point now where I make paranoid habits scanning, thinking I “see” things out of the corner of my eye, and automatically slapping where ever i feel a tingle. Man, i’m following right in their mind game trap. Even while i type this, I’ve stopped 3 times to “hunt” one flying around my computer. Dang, I need an Alaskan vacation.
OKao, be happy and rest thinking that you have control over the situation, and even if they are persistent, you are even more. Go back into the frey and beat them to death!
The tennis racket thing is more for psychological purposes than real kills, so relax. You’ll get them somehow.
I understand the paranoia. I am the only one eaten alive at my office. I can show off the red mountains of fresh bites, but no, “it cannot be”, “it is just your imagination”, “you should become vegetarian”, “you foreigners…” Sigh
Don’t be upset. Mosquitoes carry a lot of diseases, for you and your pets, so avoiding being bitten is a matter of life or death. Think about the consequences of heartworm disease in dogs or cats. Think about malaria -they do not have it here, though-, Japanese encephalitis -they do- or even denge -here, too.
Best of luck.
You should try and bed down somewhere else, preferably not the cave you are sleeping in now. Try and find yourself a nice family in the country. True, there will still be mosquitoes, but I’m sure the conditions will be better.
Garlic and onion is the best solution, or at least, the most tasty. And if you worried about being smelly because of eating that, well Taiwanese people think foreigners are smelly anyways so its ok.
If such a thing exists anywhere in the world, you’re sure to find it here… :tic:
On the topic of those zappy tennis-raquet thingies, are they always “on” or is there a switch? I have a cat and am afraid he might step on it and make my house smell like burning fur, which smells even worse than the “raid” plug-in I’m using now. Are they more effective than a flyswatter or do they just make you feel better because you can hear the zap? In eight years here, I’ve never used one; it may be high time I started doing so!
The tennis racket thingy is true bliss. It doesn’t matter which mosquito I kill with it, I’m always convinced that it’s the one that just bit me. I often pick up the mosquito from the floor to zap it one more time for extra safety and satisfaction.
I can’t even remember how many nights I woke up chewed to death. I then turn on the light and scope the whole room out until I kill one. It’s the only way I can go back to bed feeling half-secure.
Mozzies are indeed attracted by CO2. That’s actually how they spot their prey. There are about 30 breathing animals in my house and it’s a nightmare. I get bit on average 5 times per day lately. The last two weeks have especially been horrible. I tried everything mentioned in this thread which pretty much covers every possible way I know of to protect myself.
A little while ago, I have actually been bitten on my penis while sleeping. No jokes. The thing swelled up to like twice its normal size! And I’m not talking length wise… And god was it ever itchy!
Not to mention that I can’t even recall how many times I have woken up with an eye nearly swollen shut because a little pirate bit me right on the eye lid in my sleep.
Cancer… er… I mean DEET is what works best. I spray the bed instead of spraying myself and that works about 85% of the time.
Time for bed now… Wish me luck… :s
marboulette
[quote=“nemesis”]
On the topic of those zappy tennis-raquet thingies, are they always “on” or is there a switch?[/quote]
There’s a switch. If your racket is powerful enough, you can hold the switch down to actually vaporize a captured mosquito! I don’t suggest this. Also keep the racquet away from drunken roommates, unless you like hearing them squeal in pain as they self-electrocute.
Does anyone know of a plant or something similiar that i can put in my outdoor laundry / near my front door to keep the mosquitos away? They seem to be getting in everywhere, and when I open the door to the laundry its like they have all taken tickets and are lining up to get in. I tried the mosquto spray but it gets messy pretty quick, a decent spray of it and the house stinks and there are 50 dead mosquitos on the laundry floor.
citronella, cedronella, lemon geranium, and various other plants that give off citronella oil are all reputed to work, but an Indian plant called neem is better (if you can find it) I don’t think any of those plants work so well in cooler weather, because it needs the heat to vaporise the oils that repel the mosquitoes out of the leaf surface and into the air.
mosquito coils definitely work better than the plants.
Thing is mosquito back home (Houston) they’re slow so easier to smash but the ones here they’re really agile like flies. It’s really hard to hit them unless they’re done feeding and therefore too heavy to fly. I wish I could invent a tiny SAM or something for killing mosquito. I hate ants too… if I cooked anything too much in the apartment the ants would come in from nowhere. I got one of those high powered green laser pointers that can burn holes in black plastic bag and I used to just hold the ant in my fingers and shining the laser on them until they die…
Buy a UV skeeter zapper (or two) for $600 at RTMart or similar stores (looks like a birdcage, with tall UV fluorescent tubes in the center, surrounded by wire rods).
Contrary to popular belief, mosquitos are not attracted to UV light - unfortunately.
Also, if you have a UV zapper for flies you should replace the UV tubes every 6 months of so, as they lose their UV emitting ability quite quickly.
Every murdered mozzie nets you 50 bad karma points. And that’s doubled if you use the tennis racquet.
Far easier to trap them with a plastic cup (just wait until they land on a wall), slide an envelope under them, and feel that inner joy and radiance bubble up inside as you release them alive and unharmed on your balcony.
nb If it’s a moz that’s just bitten me, I might leave him under the glass for an hour as a ‘stay behind after school’ punishment.