Snap, crackle, fizz!
That’s such a satisfying sound – part of the war on mozzies. We’ve had them in every home apart from the cold yellow house & the one in the Algarve – places we’ve stayed over winter.
I love animals & respect life, rescuing spiders & catching wasps to put them outside, but mozzies are different. Biting mozzies & annoying, determined flies meet a quick end. When we can catch them. Existing bites itching is usually an indication of a mosquito somewhere close-by.
I once had a thick paperback book with mozzies squashed to the pages inside. Well, it was an ideal way to catch them as the pages were slammed shut. A book, slipper, shoe, newspaper, my hands, dedicated long-handled fly-swat & electronic ultra-violet zapper have all been tried to varying degrees of success.
Any kind of chemical, essential oil or candles are poisonous to birds, so we’re unable to use a repellent, either on ourselves, or in a plug-in diffuser. We tried spraying with baby-safe Agua de Colonia & sleeping with a fan blowing, but that didn’t work & we’d wake with irritating red bites. So the nightly mozzie watch walk is done with hand tools.
You can get a good swing with the fly-swat, but catching a mozzie mid-flight with a back hander from the electic tennis racquet & you know it’s fried. Snap, crackle, fizz & a blue spark – aaaaah.
I’m sure itchy, scratchy, bity, tacky, sticky, sweaty & stinky are the seven dwarves of a Spanish summer 🙂
“But”, you may say, “You live in Spain & mozzies are a part of it so get used to it”
Yeah, an unwelcome part, certainly.
Rob reacts bad to bites & I did ask before we committed to leaving England, whether he could cope with the irritation, blisters & pain. His answer, simple, due to the fact that we’re here. So, where possible, we avoid being out when the mozzies are & hunt them down inside. The rest of the time, we itch & scratch, popping antihistiminico when things are really bad. Like the time Rob’s hand swelled-up when we were in Sanlucar.
We nearly went to the hospital, but decided to show a local pharmacist first. She was very matter-of-fact when seeing his hand & didn’t seem unduely concerned as she issued some topical cream & a dedicated antihisto. So we decided to give them a try & Rob saw & felt a big improvement very quickly. We’ve found Fenistil to be a good gel to apply to a bite as it relieves the itch very quickly.
Other times, Rob’s bites blister & if there’s a few close together, they merge – nasty. The rest of the time, the rash extends in a wide area.
So we do spend time trying to erradicate any flying critter that might be a mozzie. Moths are safe & so are the long legged spriders lurking in their lose webs in each corner of each room. Hopefully they catch & eat mozzies.
This house doesn’t have insect screens, so although we do close the windows in the day to keep out the heat, the cooler night air is welcome. We bought some do-it-yourself kits of sticky-back velcro & fine net & attempted to fix this on the outside of the window so we could close the windows from inside. It was a fiddly job, reaching through the security bars & past the wooden roller-blinds, so resorted to sticking it to the inside & going out to close/open the windows. Not a problem when we live half our lives out under the shady terrace.
There’s a multi-coloured tape fly curtain up at the front door, bought before we set-off to keep Woody from flying out, so where do the mozzies get in? & how do they get in your undies to bite under a tight waistband?
The kitchen was particularly bad with Rob resorting to dressing before cooking, covering-up bare skin, wearing long sleeves & pulling socks over the tops of his jeans! We eventually bought a heavier fly curtain for the kitchen door, but have to watch it doesn’t drag food off our plates as we carry meals out & across the yard to the main house. Eating outside is impossible due to the sheer numbers of wasps who seem to be as interested in savoury food as sweet…