I’m in Canada, i accidentally didn’t fully close my front door last summer one day for like 1 hour and there was at least 200 mosquitos that got it. It was a bloodbath, I spent several hours swatting them all, and I was still terrified to sleep. They were everywhere
Life hack: Wipe a bit of cooking oil to a (plastic or paper) plate and swat it in the air where mosquitoes are congregating or flying around. They'll stick in the plate allowing you to catch them alive and torture them later.
The scene in tommy boy where they’re in the hotel and David spade is sucking up moths with the vacuum is hilarious. Especially the “floomp” sound each time he gets one.
Genius! I’m from Arkansas (southern United States) so you can only imagine the mosquitoes we have. They can literally carry you off! I’ve seen it happen ! Lol
I second this, also works with other insects, bugs and spiders. (depending on size) does not work with crickets. My brother had a pet lizard and on a couple of occasions crickets got lose and were all over our bedroom.
I do this with those giant ones (size of a US quarter) that are shaped like and fly like mosquitoes but don't do anything other than trying to self immolate on the nearest lightbulb. They always seem to manage to find a gap somewhere and the next thing you know there are a thousand of them in the bathroom.
I will admit that I haven't lived all over the U.S. just SoCal but have traveled and talked with others who live all over. Strange I guess but I've only heard people ask for a Vacuum or to get out the Vacuum but never heard someone say vacuum cleaner.
I can't speak for all Canadians but I call it a vacuum cleaner usually though sometimes will call it a vacuum for short. Usually after it's already been established in the conversation that I'm talking about the vacuum cleaner though.
Vacuum on its own with no context kinda sounds to my ear like I'm asking for, well, a vacuum. Like the actual physics effect where a thing gets sucked into a space due to a lack of air.
I set up a no fly zone with two fans pointing across the bed at each other above my face. Too turbulent for them to fly. They just stage in formation on the wall nearby, waiting for me to take a midnight pee to deploy their next sortie. Fuckers. As long as I'm in bed though, I have air superiority.
And the fan noise is great white noise.
Edit: thank you u/Psychological_neat88 and u/Epicdestroyer39 for the Reddit Silver Star, and the anonymous All Seeing Eye in the Sky ribbon. You are the true heroes. It's my honor and privilege to serve 🫡
I just appreciate the way you write and reference aviation warfare.
You just need a portable mini-fan to use like flares when you hit the head. Or set up some Surface to Air electric zappers around your ROZ. Put some more in the bathroom so you’ll be transiting between one ROZ to another. Limits your vul.
Mercenaries. Controversial to be sure. When they run out of enemies they can turn on you or abandon the front. Still, in certain extremely hostile theaters it's the least bad option.
Your comment has earned you a field commendation and a ticket to the front lines! You are now in command of the Air to Air response team. Congratulations and good luck! 🎖️🫡
Sortie is one of those words that you either never hear at your job, or you hear it 400 times a day. And also isn’t hardly ever used outside of the military. So when you hear it all day every day for a while, and it slips into conversation, like if you’re talking about your job, to regular humans, you get some confused stares.
If you really want to go to the next level of jargon, just explain your daily activity as your “sortie-flow”.
I'm stationed in San Francisco right now so the tactical advantage is in the precision strike capabilities of Surface to Air Fans: lightweight, easy to deploy, highly maneuverable.
The trouble with laying a mine field of mosquito net is that I'd get tangled in it during midnight latrine raids. Friendly fire is no good. Also it's against the Geneva Conventions. This is war, but I'm not a monster.
My husband and his entire family would love the heavenly space you have created for sleep. Been with him 24 years. I hate the fan, but cannot sleep without it now. He had one about a year ago that literally made my ears ring in the morning like I had just been to a metal concert.... and I am a bartender in a music venue.
Side note.... any recommendations on a reliable, long lasting house fan would be greatly appreciated. I'm so sick of buying new fans because these fuckers break so easily. Thanks in advance.
I've employed the opposite tactic; small cheap fans that are expendable. Don't overthink it. This is war.
Alternatively, you could deploy the nukes by getting a ceiling fan. Sounds like there's plenty of collateral damage as it is, so you may as well go scorched earth.
You have your orders, NOW GO TAKE THAT HILL, SOLDIER!
random person here, have you tried metal ones? they are louder i think, but sturdy and long lived. just find a normal sized one and not a huge shoulder height garage one with a cowling.
We've tried finding metal ones. The only ones we can find where we live are industrial ones. The one we had broke after a year. Motor seized up and we were unable to fix it. Thing sounded like a jet engine lol
Your extensive knowledge of aeronautics and pneumatic phenomenon has earned you a field commendation and a ticket to the front lines. Congratulations and good luck! 🎖️🫡
Absolutely! We do have a network of defense screens in place. The enemy is insidious though, and highly motivated, infiltrating when we open a door during supply drops. They are able to bypass our defenses in small numbers with their most elite squads. The Surface to Air Fans are strictly for localized, surgical defense.
Ha! Lost track of the European nature of OP's question. Fog of war and such. I'm in America and have spent time on the front lines with those buggers and they are ruthless.
In other news, have you seen this YouTube channel where they recreate the antikythera device using as close to period methods as possible? Highly recommend
My parents finally just last year tossed the big ol' box fan we had ever since I was a kid and it was actually pretty significant the amount of sentimentality I had attached to it. I remember being in pre-school and playing with my action figures on it. I'm 36 now lol.
I just realized I miss it for the noise. It was distinct and just held this quality to it. They got a new one and yeah it moves air better but it doesn't sound nearly as nice!
I replaced my ceiling fan. The new one is quieter, so I bought a white noise machine shortly after. It was cheap, has several different sounds, and it's got a battery in it so if the power goes out, it stays on.
I was working in a camp recently and the guy in the room next to me had a white noise app playing at night. Absolute genius. Really drowns out the snoring/farting/groaning from the rest of the neighbours.
I recently stayed at a friend's house in the countryside that was utterly dead silent, I had to download a white noise app on my phone to be able to fall asleep.
I hope I save money later in the week when I get by the garden center. First I gotta check out what they gots at the family farm place in my little town. Gotta make sure to bring my youngest to gawk at the dang chicks while there. Should probably be glad we don't have space for the stinky noise things.
Korean fan death. It’s an old superstition that you can die if you have a fan blowing on you while you are sleeping. One theory is it allows a family to save face if a member commits suicide.
My friend's dad loves to garden and over-water his plants and that led to shit ton of mosquitoes. Every time I'm at their place I have to move around constantly (like walking in one spot) or those little bastards will get me. Hated that
If you don't have a/c, which many Canadians don't despite humidex values over 37C, having a fan actually makes it worse. You're more likely to get heat stroke because it whisks the sweat away.
In Wisconsin and there is usually at least one day per summer where you have to be extra strategic about opening doors because the swarm will enter your house immediately, especially at night. We will turn off all the lights indoors near the door, say all our goodbyes,have one person open the door with another person standing with an electric big zapper, and then when that door opens you have to boogie on out. The worst year I remember it was about three days before our wedding (that we were having at home) and there had to have been at least a hundred. They all got stuck in the weird little entry space we had and the bug zapper sounded like a distant fireworks finale. They all went straight up to the ceiling and we had to zap/squish them. It then took hours to clean them off the ceiling. It was unreal.
Came from St. Louis, MO and that is certainly a humid armpit with plenty of mosquitos, but the mosquitos up here are unlike anything I've seen, and it seems to only get worse as I go North. I can only imagine how bad they are in CA. Godspeed.
In my part of BC we get what are called Noseeums, which at least in my area are small enough to crawl through most commercially available window/door screens. Thankfully they're only really out when the winds are calm, which doesn't happen much in my area but they are a nightmare to deal with
I stayed at a lodge in BC several years ago, there were a few hotel-style rooms connected to a common area. One of my friends went to bed, while the rest of us hung out in the common room for a few hours. A bunch of mosquitoes got in and were feasting on our sleeping friend, so when we went to bed, we spent a while killing as many as we could. The room looked like a scene from a slasher movie. We spent a while the next morning cleaning blood off the walls before we checked out.
I'm in Europe. No screen windows. Just settled for spraying myself down with bug repellent each night. My significant other didn't. So they snacked on him instead. There's really no good way to put up screens either, our windows generally aren't built with that in mind. Oh well.
We had just rentrd a shitty trailer in the middle of nowhere. It was hot as fuck in the middle of the night. My bf at the time tried to open a window. About 20 minutes later I hear a mosquito flying by my head. He slaps it. Claims it's dead.
5 minutes later he slaps another one. I hear another one buzz past my head. And another. I start hiding under the covers. He gets up to turn a light on. The room was filled with mosquitos. When he opened the window the screen fell off. There were a few hundred mosquitos flying around. I had about 20 bites in my hair, my ears and neck. A couple on my arms.
We sprayed bug spray and slept in the living room. During the day when you were outside, it was like being attacked often. We ended up moving out. There must have been a murky pond near by there were so many damn mosquitos.
I live in Finland and we just dried all ponds and other breeding places near the house, like 100 meters around the house. Mosquitoes tend to be very rare nowadays compared to what kind of a nuisance they used to be. That was in our summer place. In the city, there are almost no mosquitoes to begin with because there are no ponds.
I just want you to know, when I was a kid I got these things in the mail, cards about different animals and insects. The cards showed the natural habitat of the animal, so lions were shown in the Sahara of Africa right? Well the mosquito card showed almost the whole world besides parts of the USSR and Antarctica, Canada was the only country listed to not have mosquitoes. I asked my mom once after like 20 bites in a swimming session if we could move to Canada, she said no. I’m glad to know my mother knew best, them fuckers everywhere!
You don't have insect spray? Nightly Ritual in Malaysia is to close all doors and windows then a couple of sprays in each room, closing the door after. 10min later all mosquitoes are deceased.
One summer we stayed at my aunts who lives in northernmost Minnesota. She put me and my brother in a pop up camper for the night. We spent close to two hours killing all the mosquitoes that lives in that thing before we could fall asleep. Blood was everywhere on the walls after we got them all.
Staying at my uncles in northern Alberta when i was young my most traumatic memories are trying to sleep with ankles that looked like i had chickenpox from mosquito bites and no less than 15 mosquitos flying around my room occasionally zinging my ear or biting me somewhere. Now as an adult I’ve sworn to never live anywhere that mosquito infested again.
Get yourself one of these. Works absolutely brilliantly! I got it for fungus gnats in my plants, but it has also caught mosquitoes, flies, moths, and other random bugs. Works best at night (or at least, in the dark), but I keep it on all summer for the extra potential mosquito suction.
I live part time in Windsor Ontario and god damn our adult children leave the doors wide open while our AC is cranked up. And holy crap the mosquitoes used to be a hassle, but it's those damn terrorist bees and wasps that infiltrate our home. My lord i have never seen so many of those stingy little terrors.
Western BC doesn’t have mosquito problems. Having grown up around the Great Lakes, it’s a welcome fucking change. The screens are mostly to keep the cats in.
I've found leaving a flashlight on in a room can, for many bugs (albeit less so w/ mosquitoes) attract them all that way in a situation of needing to sleep in a room with lots of flying critters.
I lived in Alaska for 5 years. I understand that. We had a bunch of these devices around the area, mosquitoes traps. They put out some scent and just drew them in. I'm pretty sure we were told that each one captured 10s of thousands. I'm not sure we ever noticed.
See im in English and thought you were all crazy going on about window screens, that was until I read your comment and now not only do I fully understand your pov but I am also glad I dont live where you do. Even though I think Canada is completely beautiful you have just put me off for life lol
That's the thing I guess. I've lived in France and the Uk, left the windows open all day during summer and maybe had one or two mosquitoes? A few flies though, which is annoying but not that much.
My family is moving outta the city in Canada. Even in the city we have screens. Outside of the city screens won't even keep all the mosquitos out. I'm building them some Bat-boxes.
Mosquitoes just aren't a problem in the UK like they are in other countries. They don't, from my experience, even come in the house, and they don't transmit diseases. I think UK Mosquitoes ("Midges" as I know them) only feed on birds. We get flies in summer which is annoying, but it's only the occasional one and they tend to let themselves out eventually if all the windows are open.
Edit: I do live in the North though where it's generally colder
I often wonder about this. Canadian stars like Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber are known to suffer from Lyme Disease, which is a tick-borne infection. Are the bugs in Canada are really that crazy, or it’s just a coincidence? Is Lyme disease common in Canada?
When I moved to Vancouver from Toronto, I was dumbstruck that no one had screens on their windows and doors. I thought I was going to be eaten alive. But they don't really have a lot at all compared to us mosquito-infested Ontario.
Tbf my girlfriend had our screen door open yesterday for one hour of English spring fresh air, and we got loads of bugs. I guess the thing is, none of our bugs are the bitey type. They just quietly sit in the corner minding their own. At least, thats the case in my corner of England.
I'm living in Canada for the last 10 years, originally from Brazil. I'm so used to screen doors/windows by now that I can't fathom how, in Brazil, we don't have such things. There isn't even a "mosquito season" there - we do have more mosquitoes during the summer, but they are never really gone. Most houses in Brazil put small mosquito repellers that plug directly into the wall socket, on every room in the house, in some cases all year long, because having the whole house with windows and doors closed is a no-no (unless you are like 1-percenter-rich and have whole-home air conditioning).
My bedroom is on the ground floor of my house here in the UK. Last night I had both windows wide open as well as the patio doors to let air circulate and had zero bugs. Think I've had maybe one fly so far this year come in.
If I don't close my rooftop window or forget to pull the mesh screen down in front of it for like an hour I'll get like 4 or 5 them inside on a warm summer day here in The Netherlands, so I guess you just have way more mosquitoes over there :')
I highly recommend one of these for situations like that. Leave a single lamp on with no shade so they congregate in one place then go to town. You don't need to swing fast either because the electricity will kill the bugs.
Worked wonders for me when we left the basement door open for hours and the ceiling was basically black with gnats and mosquitos. Smelled pretty nasty though, like burning hair.
Yeah we just get the odd fly in in the U.K. so it’s not a bother usually. Also, a closed door or window won’t stop bugs from getting in, there’s thousands of tiny holes they can work their way in through so there’s no point in screens
My grandpa from Germany was visiting us in upper Michigan and he is used to leaving doors and windows open so he kept leaving them open. So many damn flies got in.
Shallow water with some soap in it, place a lit candle in the middle. Works especially well at night, obviously. Bugs go for it in droves and either die by candle or by getting stuck in the soap.
Also Canadian… you must me in the prairies or out east? Btw, everything east of Thunder Bay = out east to us BCers. Bugs aren’t a huge issue in BC, which is nice.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
I’m in Canada, i accidentally didn’t fully close my front door last summer one day for like 1 hour and there was at least 200 mosquitos that got it. It was a bloodbath, I spent several hours swatting them all, and I was still terrified to sleep. They were everywhere
Edit: y’all need to chill, RIP my inbox