The Bar Room » When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Get Going » Mosquito season
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Mosquito season
Post by connell on May 24, 2004, 11:38pm

Skeeter time. Folks here have suggested I buy some mosquito netting for my bed- none of the windows in the building, including my room's, have screens. for repellent they've suggested I smear toothpaste on myself. [image]
Anyone got a better idea?
Re: Mosquito season
Post by burlives on May 24, 2004, 11:55pm

An electric fan. You'll wake up drier than paper but mosquitos don't like moving air, something about it dries them out or it just blows them away.

For walking around and for failsafe-ing the fan, there's a handy dandy green, I dunno, aftershave called liu4shen2. It seems to be mostly alcohol but it also seems to work. It's also useful after you've been bitten and want to get rid of the sting. It comes in a tall thin bottle with mostly green labelling and characters that look like cursive versions of 六神 .

I am not completely sure it is "shen" but that's what it sounds like and you can get it in supermarkets everywhere.

With all of that you'll still get bitten but not so much that you can't sleep. Hello malaria.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by admin on May 25, 2004, 12:05am

Kick and scream until screens get installed, or find some way to get them installed yourself. This country has a million ideas for trying to repel them, all of which suck and most of which smell terrible.

Do buy one of those electric tennis racket things- best idea this country has had in 500 years. Press the button, swat the skeeter, and enjoy the little bastard vaporizing (literally) in a blue flash with a gratifyingly loud pop. It puts the fun back in insect infestations! (Or as Robert Palmer sang, "Might as well face it, you're infested with bugs...")

Shanghai has mosquitoes big enough to stand flat-footed and m'kay a chicken. Never seen the like.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by minhangoz on May 25, 2004, 4:28am

Keep yer windys shut until you get screens. Do a bedtime search and destroy with the tennis racquet. On your supermarket shelves, you'll find a little electronic device that takes a little bottle of odorless insecticide. "RAID" I think its called. The red light attracts the bugs which then suffer insecticide. When all else fails, try the fan or AC: they hate the cold.
We manage mosquito free nights using the above.
The green bottle is called Baba Jing Shui. Smells like cheap aftershave.
Robert Palmer died a few months back, not of malaria though.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on May 25, 2004, 8:25am

I'm afraid to post this, because I'll be sorry tomorrow, just like on the no-water-to-shower-in thread. Here goes...

We haven't seen any mosquitoes and we live near (sort of, same province) Con. Maybe the wind factor keeps the little buggers away. It's very windy here. I'm guessing we do get some sort of insect pests at some point during the year since the previous foreigners left a bottle of the green stuff in the bathroom. They also left a big aerosol can of insecticide. The picture on the front leads me to believe we are going to get some giant sized pests eventually. I hope not. Florida was bad for that. I don't like bugs in my living space.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by steiner on May 25, 2004, 10:59am

Well, if you like spiders (I do) you can go around and collect them and put them in your apartment. I like my ceilings pretty full of spiders. That, coupled with the electric mosquito racquet and the fans and the A/C and the window screens, does the trick.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by burlives on May 25, 2004, 7:06pm


Quote:

The green bottle is called Baba Jing Shui. Smells like cheap aftershave.

Oh. I see. So Daddy's, shall we say, "happy" water keeps the mosquitos away? Maybe we go to different supermarkets.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by admin on May 26, 2004, 12:06am

Haven't seen the Raid odorless devices. Until she became pregnant and we went pesticide-free, my wife liked those 'Baygon' (obviously of Irish make) plug-in jobbies. They take a little blue pad suffused with insecticide. When you plug it in, the warmth releases the insecticide and soon your home smells like northern New Jersey. This seems to have no effect on the mosquitoes whatsoever, except perhaps for a few who laugh themselves to death.

I take this as a sign of my wife's mental illness.


Quote:
We haven't seen any mosquitoes and we live near (sort of, same province) Con.

Maybe they just don't like your husband. [image]
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on May 26, 2004, 12:46pm

So, are you saying that Crippler is my mosquito repellant? If so, I'd better keep him around, because I just can't do the spider thing. Any spider in my living space has to be shown the door (or, since I now live on the 4th floor, the window). If one gets on my body and actually TOUCHES [image] me, I'm screaming. The PSB guys can come and assist, 'cause Crippler's no knight in shining armour when he's laughing.

If we ever decide to move elsewhere in China, I'll have to take the bug factor into consideration when choosing a new locale. Maybe Nate could add a point or two about that on his website about schools.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by xiaoyu on May 26, 2004, 12:52pm

don't know if you would be willing to try this but it does work! 100%! i discovered it while painting houses in the summer. try paint thinner (or gasoline). mix with a bit of water if you feel it is needed. but it will keep all insects (outside of horseflies) away. though it is not a good attractor for a good time and you have to be careful with the cigs! the best thing i have ever used though.

xiaoyu
Re: Mosquito season
Post by wolf on May 26, 2004, 1:32pm

I'll second Raoul's advice. Get screens. My place has screens, and I manage to be pretty much insect free inside.

Re: Mosquito season
Post by sandgropers on May 26, 2004, 2:07pm

Yeh we have screens on all our windows and the doors. We insisted on having them installed as part of our contract before arriving here ;)

However, the odd little b....y mozzie still manages to sneak in unobserved and lies in wait until we go to bed.

Another strange phenonoma...............we have travelled extensively throughout the world, including the dark jungles of Africa, and live in Oz where we have these little blighters BUT the missus has NEVER been bitten by a mozzie ( strange blood??) UNTIL coming to China where I am happy to say, she gets bitten like the rest of us poor sufferers [image] At least the mosquitoes in China are true communists; they treat us all equally ;D ;D

Cheers
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on May 27, 2004, 5:26pm

Con, I have the solution to your mosquito problem! :D Don't know why I didn't think of it.

First a little background. I've been teaching on John Lennon's song, "Imagine". The question I gave for written homework was, "If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?" I got lots of answers about the environment and peace, which was what I expected. One kid wants to be more clever so he can do well in his studies. Then there was this answer which takes care of the skeeters for us.

Unedited: "I want to change the mosquito because it can bite the people and inhale people's blood. It can also propagate disease. For example, AIDS and the other infectious. It is bad for people's health. So I want to change it. I let it become beneficial insect and it is good for person."

So there I was, sitting at my desk correcting homework assignments, and a perfect post for this thread presented itself. Out of the mouths of babes. Had to share it with the rest of you.

Now I'm going to slather myself with all of the stuff suggested above, 'cause I really don't want to get AIDS.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by burlives on May 29, 2004, 12:52am

Update: "BaBa Jing Shui" is real. I saw it on tv. My apologies to Gonzo for thinking that he, of all personnages, might be making dick jokes.

However, BBJS is different from LiuShen. BBJS comes, so to speak, in a short, stubby green bottle. LiuShen is slender and gracefully green. The big bottles look like green Coronas.

Speaking of which, I like a Corona now and again. Australian beer is much sharper, more acidic than Chinese and these days when I go home it's either Corona or Mum's Crown Lager. My sister has developed some strange attachment to Coopers' Pale Ale, which I find to be a dusty urine kind of a bevvy.

Beer, it may not keep away the mosquitos but it will wile away the hours.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by minhangoz on May 29, 2004, 3:48am

Burl, I'd be the last person to make dick jokes. Babajingshui has moved from being one particular brand of repellent, to generic term, in much the same way as Brits. use "hoover" as a verb, meaning "to vaccum", and "Biro" has come to mean ballpoint. Also "Durex" means condom [blush] in the UK, and sticky tape in OZ. Generification.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by burlives on May 29, 2004, 1:57pm

Which reminds me, I learned "Trojan" as a word for condom somehow from, I think, reading American novels. And I knew about Troy and Hercules and horses, but it wasn't until recently that I put the two understandings together and, frankly, that was an "eww" moment.

A rubber is a tool for erasing a misplaced cedilla on a French letter.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on May 30, 2004, 8:15am

Trojan is a brand name in the States, and you got the context right.

That would be 'eraser' in the States or Canada. Can't use the word 'rubber' or all the preadolescent boys will end up in fits of hysteria.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on Jun 22, 2004, 6:31am

I'm resurrecting this thread because the little buggers have arrived in full force. We have an arsenal now and have declared war. I'm not sure who's winning, but I just had my first pest-free night in a week.

We have screens, but the 1/4 inch gap between the screens and the windows pretty much nullifies their effectiveness against the wenzi's (I learned a new Chinese word). We have an air conditioner, but it's in the living room and doesn't cool the bedroom. I bought a fan - 65Y. It kept us cool but the little wenzi's still buzz bombed and bit us in the night. We found the tennis racket thing at the street market (10Y) and it is somehow gratifying to use the thing, but I need to work on my backhand and I can't use it in my sleep when the little buggers plan their attacks. We also found an electronic zapper at the street market (8Y). This actually works, but the ZAP wakes me up and the skeeters still come to my side of the bedroom rather than being attracted to the lovely purple death-glow [image] . Crippler used half a can of insecticide (10Y) one day before we went out [image] . We came home to over 20 little wenzi bodies lying mostly by the windows. (One battle for our side!) Slathered ourselves with repellant before bed two nights ago along with the other methods mentioned above. We kept the windows closed and sweated a lot. Still woke up with more bites. So, yesterday we purchased a mosquito net. I think we've finally found the solution. [image]
Re: Mosquito season
Post by connell on Jun 23, 2004, 9:05pm

After a solid week of choosing between waking up with half a dozen fresh bumps, and sleeping under the covers and waking up totally dehydrated, I finally located a skeeter net.
I'm a new man, and the vermin must search elsewhere. [image]
Re: Mosquito season
Post by monking on Jun 23, 2004, 11:53pm

I used those coils that you prop up in the little tin and set alight, and using those I was never bitten at night...I may have doomed myself to some chronic disease in later life from the fumes, but they worked!
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ilunga on Jun 24, 2004, 2:28am

I brought some coils over with me but I can't for the life of me find them. Maybe the mozzies have run off with them.
I got a few bites last month but I've been ok lately. I still see the buggers flying around but I think the air-con scares them away from the bedroom.
I've even stopped spraying myself before I go to sleep.

Actually, I've just realised what it is. It's all these sleepless footy nights.
Re: Mosquito season
Post by ruth on Jun 24, 2004, 6:03pm

A friend of mine living in Nova Scotia just reminded me of black flies and no-see-ums. How quickly I forget. Having lived in northern Ontario and Minnesota, I can quite honestly say that the skeeter problem I am experiencing here in China is nothing to what they are experiencing in Canada and the woods of northern USA at this time of year. That's one more piece of info for the "teaching on Canada theme."
Re: Mosquito season
Post by connell on Jun 25, 2004, 12:04am

Wow, that puts it into perspective! A mosquito merely steals your blood and leaves you with a minor welt, while a black fly TEARS A CHUNK OF YOUR FLESH RIGHT OFF OF YOU.
No contest. m'kaying balck flies. [image]