Business is Personal (Finance)

About a month ago, I wrote about the 2nd worse thing about living in China -- the north/south wind combos that make floors and walls drip with moisture. Number 1 on that list is mosquitos. Living in San Francisco, mosquitoes were rare with the weather continually in the 50s to 70s -- especially in our living quarters in a skyrise condo building where we kept the windows regularly closed to block out the noise and dust from the Bay Bridge. In this part of China though, it's hot, muggy and the constant rains create pools everywhere for mosquitoes to breed. Many natives here seemingly have little response to mosquito bites but for myself and my daughter, we get serious welts everywhere. Hence, we've spared no expenses in trying to defeat these blood-sucking insects.

First on our list were mosquito screens for all doors and windows. The initial period after installation seemed very effective. For about 2 weeks, we were rather mosquito free. Then mosquitoes starting coming in again. We hunted around and found holes and slots that were not airtight -- for example, the glass cutout for the kitchen exhaust pipe was wider than the pipe. After patching, we'd get a respite for a day until these insects found new places to come in. It's possible the poor deck door design mentioned in the north/south wind posts is where mosquitoes are coming in still. If I had to do it again, I'd still get them installed as there is some reduction and the larger insects (wasps, bees, moths) are fully kept out.

Cost: 1250rmb total, Score: 3/5

Our next attempt was to use repellents. We tried sprays, clips, heated scent devices -- all totally useless.

Cost: 10-20rmb, Score: 0/5

These electric zappers use lights to attract insects near and then fans to suck them into an electrified grill to electrocute them. When lots of mosquitoes were coming in, these zappers routinely caught 1-3 mosquitoes per day. Unfortunately, the surviving insects still wreaked heavy damage on us. We even attempted placing a few zappers right next to our bed but that was rarely effective. And after a few months of usage, the fans and lights on these machines started to break down.

Cost: 50rmb per zapper, Score: 2/5

My next tactic was to close the bedroom doors every night and hunt down all bugs with an electrified racket before going to sleep. For 2 months, this tactic was very effective. With 30 minutes every night, I could pretty much eliminate every mosquito from the bedrooms. Perhaps natural selection works that fast as I soon began to miss bugs. Somehow those who survived evolved to prefer hiding places I was not accustomed to look for.

Cost: 30rmb, Score: 4/5

After the winter cold spell ended, the blood-suckers returned to torment us and we finally put mosquito nets around the beds. This turned out to be the most effective method of protection during sleep. Sometimes when the kids move around too much and open up gaps in the nets, mosquitoes can sneak in but they rarely can sneak out so they are easy to catch afterwards. The only other failure scenario is sleeping next to the net where the mosquito can bite you through the net.

Cost: 100rmb per bed, Score: 5/5

In conclusion, the most effective solution is bed mosquito tents. The price is not bad either -- we paid 85rmb for a queen-size net and 130rmb for a king-size net. Obviously, it does not handle non-sleeping activities so when I'm at my computer desk at night, mosquitoes will periodically come after me even though I'm still awake. For those bugs, I keep the electrified racket on my desk right next to my trackball and I've gotten pretty good at swatting any that dare come close.

(Filed in china, misc)