141–150 of 195 posts
Years ago my buddy took a tour of the Amazon. His guide took them to a tree, ripped the bark off, exposing a den of termites. The guide instructed everyone to grab a handful of termites, smash them up, and wipe the resulting guts on their exposed arms and faces.
And despite the danger of fan death when it gets hot enough, I think fans are more certain not to have long-term toxic effects than mosquito spirals or DEET.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not living North enough ;) This is mostly a problem further South and West in Alaska. The higher up you go, the colder it is to the point you don't get that many insects at all.
The mosquitoes are pretty rough up on the north slope. They're even worse than the Anchorage area (and bigger, too). Anywhere there's lots of standing fresh water, you'll have mosquitoes in the summer in Alaska. The wind does make a huge difference though. If it's windy, there's more or less no problem. It's when the wind lies down that they come out in force. The mosquitoes are bad enough that blood loss due to inse…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sterilize & release programs for feral cats work; the sterilized cats compete for the same resources as unsterilized ones, but are more effective and longer-lived because they don't have to support reproduction. This not only means that the sterilized cats won't reproduce, but the unsterilized ones will have a harder time, and reproduce less. It works better than trapping & killing.
it has to be said - if non-sterile mosquitos are having a hard time surviving because sterile mosquitos drank up all the blood - we're probably going to suffer more than they will
Whatever this American science have proved, we Indians use it for ages. A slow `Fan` to get of mosquitoes. It's in public domain here :P
If you sleep in a non-aircon room with the windows open, your options are a fan, or a mosquito net. Both work really well.
For outdoors I have a big industrial 18" fan that works pretty well too. It all depends what time of the season it is and how many mosquitoes there are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the electric thing a gimmick, or is there science behind it? I sometimes dispose of annoying houseflies using a racquetball racket. No electricity, but fast moving nylon strings take care of the flies nicely.
They're great fun. I live in Austin, TX and we have several in the house. They obliterate mosquitoes with a satisfying "POP" noise. The mosquitoes literally explode into tiny pieces when you hit them with the bat. It's awesome (especially when you are like me--I can get 20+ bites on a single night while wearing insect repellent, where everyone else around me is fine, and I use the bats as revenge. :)
It's pretty high on the satisfaction scale though....