We all dislike insects getting into the house, do we not? But I do not like squashing the ones that get in either. However, I reside in northern Thailand, 100 yards from thousands of acres of wet rice fields. The farmers spray their fields to reduce the number of insects, but inevitably there are still quite a lot here, especially in the two monsoon periods.
Therefore, we have had to secure our house and ourselves against pests, mostly of the flying variety, but not all of which bite by any means. In the monsoon periods of the year, which are approximately May to June and August to September, the main culprit is the mosquito. There is no malaria where I am, but they are still not nice. Simultaneous with the mosquitoes are the midges, but they are not nearly so many.
When it is not raining, the common house fly is a pest. You just cannot teach a housefly not to sit on you or your food, I have tried it many times. The lessons almost invariably result in the death of the pupil by corporal punishment.
On arbitrary rainy days hordes of other kinds of flies will hatch out within hours - you can see masses of them coming out of the ground like bees, but they more resemble lace wings. They are completely innocuous, but they get in your hair and everywhere else. Then there are a few types of fly that eat rice or humans if they get in the way, but they seem to prefer rice.
The first thing we did was have fly screens fitted into our windows. That helped a lot, but everybody kept leaving the doors ajar. Then we had screens fitted into the door frames. That really was good for everything apart from midges and baby mosquitoes that seem to be squirming through the mesh.
We resolved that problem by spraying the mesh with permethrin once every couple of months. I am fairly certain that no insects get into our house via that route any more. However, a number of insects were crawling in under the doors, because there were no thresholds or draft-excluders - a draft in Thailand usually being more than welcome. So, I fitted draft-excluders to the doors.
That blocked the scorpions, spiders, millipedes, centipedes and beetles, although some spiders appear to abseil down from the attic into our living quarters. I do not mind spiders too much as long as I cannot see them, because I know that we have a mutual enemy, to wit flies.
House flies still get in sometimes, especially when visitors and their kids are about. However, the type of spiders we have most of, do not appear to make webs. They stalk their victims and then jump on them; and they are very quick.
In spite of that, we spray the floors and the tops of the walls with permethrin every month or two as well. This stops the ants from entering the house via the attic and mops up any crawling insects that have gotten in via an open door.
Another significant entry point into your home for insects is your pets. You have to take care of your cats and dogs. Brush them frequently, fit a collar which has been impregnated with insecticide, bathe them in insecticidal shampoo and dust them with flea powder.
More Information:
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved with
indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at
Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.
Categories
