Posted on by Jina Bazzar

SOS please! (It’s a distress signal, not an abbreviation)

So summer is almost here and I’ve had mosquitoes for guests all year round. Used to be they’d go away in October, early November, come back late march or April. But not for the past year, no, they’ve taken up residence.
For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts on my pitiful plight against those bloodsuckers, we’ve had an ongoing war for the past year, with me trying every sort of repellent and net snap, and them wearing masks and armors and attending boot camp 101.
And they’re still coming in hoards!
I’d finally fall asleep, too exhausted to keep on fanning myself and waving the net around, and then I’d shift…. And startle awake when more than a dozen mosquitoes take flight at once, buzzing their annoying war song.
It’s like I’m an all you can eat open buffet and the more time passes the more mosquitoes immigrate to my room to partake in the free meal.
Maybe I should drag a mattress outside, seeing that they’re all here in my room. I bet by the time they realize I’m not coming to bed, it’ll be time to wake my kids to school.
Spiders haven’t been an issue lately, although my baby did ‘catch’ a big one a few weeks back and bring it inside for me to see – and I see with my fingers.
He’ll be the death of me now that he thinks it’d be cool to sit on a snake so he can ride it.
But back to my mosquito problem, this is a SOS call for help. Any ideas?
I’ve read the other day on Diana’s blog (from myths of the mirror – link below if this one doesn’t open), that Oregon bats eat around one thousand insects per hour? Maybe it was night, and no wonder my room is full of mosquitoes, my house is surrounded by bats at night… Little buggers are hiding from the bats in my room!
I’m considering bringing in a bat or four to my room, but I’m afraid they’ll have a sudden change of appetite and decide I taste better; after all, these bats aren’t from Oregon.
I could bring in the frogs, I bet my youngest won’t have any trouble catching them, but they’ll probably keep me awake jumping all over the place, so, moot point.
Any ideas? I’m desperate.
(Link to Diana’s post on bats: https://mythsofthemirror.com/2018/05/02/bats-in-the-writers-belfry/)
**Ps: SOS is a distress signal, and it doesn’t stand for Save Our Soul or any other abbreviation.

40 Replies to “SOS please! (It’s a distress signal, not an abbreviation)”

  1. Hi Jina,

    it seems that you have sweet blood 🙂
    The only way to protect yourself is to put nets on the windows to prevent them from physically entering the house. They can smell our carbon dioxide from a distance of over one kilometer.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Ah, Ben, i do have screens. I have no idea where they’re coming from. The front door is the only one without a screen, and there’re three bedrooms between which they can choose from, but they keep coming to mine.

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  2. Yeah I totally agree with Ben. Mosquito nets on the house, windows and on the bed are the best way to ward these off. If you can manage it, don’t open the windows just when evening sets in. We used all sorts of incense, indoor plants and mosquito repellents to ward of mosquitoes when in India, but even then, one or two buggers would creep in sometimes!

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    1. They’re present all day long too, Prachi. Bed nets are good, but i’d probably just trap them inside with me. My front door is the only one without a screen. Maybe that’s the gate they’re using, though there’re all sorts of plants there. I heard mint helps, but the little mint garden i had died a few years back.
      Sigh.
      Thanks for dropping by.

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  3. Citronella helps they say, also, make your own bug spray and put it on yourself. Take 1/2 cup of witch hazel, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 40 drops of these essential oils: eucalyptus, lemongrass, citronella, tea tree or rosemary (or a combo of all of them) and mix it all in an 8 oz glass spray bottle. You can also diffuse these oils into the room with an inexpensive diffuser to ward the pests off. Let me know if it helps. (Personally, I would add peppermint oil to the body spray-bugs hate it! And it smells great!) 😊

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  4. I, unfortunately, don’t have any suggestions. I’m just having a hard time with the fact that you’re feeling things with your hands after being brought a spider! *shudder* I’m not afraid of spiders, but I don’t actively try to touch them, so to not be able to avoid that would be awful! My cat had a mouse one night and I didn’t know what he had, so I almost tried to pull it out of his mouth in the dark… That would have been a fright, and possibly messy!

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  5. Oh, I don’t miss living with mosquitoes at all, Jina. Your bats aren’t eating enough! You need to get a net to put over your bed. Keep that army of stingers out. I saw the comment on citronella too. There are citronella plants so you don’t actually have to spray yourself, but they do have a strong scent. I wish you luck, my friend. There’s nothing worse than losing sleep because mosquitoes are buzzing in your ear! And thanks again for the link, my friend 🙂

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    1. I’ll probably just trap the insects within the net (i did that to my daughter’s crib. I remember my mom saying the mosquito was so full of her baby blood, it couldn’t fly).
      And thanks for the hint. I’ll look up the plant and see if i can have one in the room with me.
      Thanks for taking time away from your reunion to drop by.

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  6. Jina mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide and water vapor in the breath of mammals, not ultraviolet light. However, they do now make bug zappers that emit carbon dioxide or use an external bait, such as octenol, to better attract biting insects into the light. They are expensive probably over $100, but very convenient and you can rejoice every time you hear one of those blood suckers getting zapped.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I used to have one of those, the light is even a little violet, serves as a table lamp too. and nope, though their numbers decreased, they didn’t go away. it’s better to place near outside doors too. I’ll have to dig it up and try it. Decreasing their numbers is a good war strategy. and, if all fails, i could always hold my breath while i sleep!

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      1. Haha well they both go after blood so maybe the vampire part came from it being used with other blood suckers. I tend to get bit by mosquitoes more than most over the summer so maybe I’ll do some tests. I hate the smell of citronella. Aren’t there are sticky type strips that you hang up that don’t smell like that? Or do Venus flytraps work? Probably more if outside since they may attract them. I don’t know – I had one when I was younger and think I just threw other stuff in there ha so I probably killed it. But maybe they help

        Liked by 1 person

      1. You’re welcome. You should also be checking that there are no pools or jars of water left stagnant for a length of time in your vicinity since these are usually the breeding areas of mosquitoes. And hey, today is World Mosquito Day, so cheer up 🙂

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      2. Another thing: about those diseases that mosquitoes carry, dengue is quite common in many parts of the world. There is no specific medicine to treat dengue, but if left unattended, it can be fatal. Hospital supportive care may be necessary for severe cases. Immediate homecare remedies for mild ones are usually drinking plenty of fluids to wash the virus out of the system, and juicing with papaya leaves or the goldenseal herb. It is important that dengue be diagnosed early by a doctor so that these remedies can be resorted to early enough. And lastly, please be aware that vaccines against dengue that are being developed at this time are still not safe, especially the Dengvaxia vaccine from Sanofi. The Philippines has a very sad experience with Dengvaxia, and as I write, the number of children dying from the effect of this ill-conceived immunization program continues to rise 😦
        ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengvaxia_controversy ).

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      3. that’s funny. i haven’t heard about dengue anywhere but Brazil. I was there in the summer of 08 and dengue spread so much, they said it was an epidemic. Here in the middle east we don’t have dengue – which is caused by a type of mosquito that don’t live here. i think it’s the dry climate. As far as i heard, they don’t have any vaccines for dengue in Brazil. at least when i last visited in 2014, they didn’t have any. i know, because it as summer time when i went and dengue breaks out there at this time because of the excesssive rain and water puddles and i wanted to know if there was any way i could protect my daughter against it.

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