hello merry people, the topic of the day is mosquitoes. once they were just a nightly annoyance, then tiger mosquitoes came suddenly in uninvited (so climate ain't changing, huh) scourging us 24/7-12 (they're stakanovist). regular mosquitoes take care of the night shift, tigers plague you all day long. now they seem to mate and the shift went promiscuous with both kinds of them stinging us no stop. and even in winter we have some of them around. since i'm in long trousers and bare feet practically all year round, mosquitoes target my feet mercilessly, to the point that i can't stay still in my garden or in the back yard to fix stuff for long because after 2 minutes my feet itch like mad. yesterday i was rebuilding the air filter, fixing the exhaust gasket and some other minor stuff of my bike , but shortly i was forced to abandon the work because of that torment. no there are no puddles of water rotting around, rainfall is minimal and the earth is quite dry. friends living miles away in town are infested as well. a neighbour just gifted me a plant whose leaves rubbed on the skin should repel those shitty insects, i don't know what it is but those leaves give a strong scent of lemon. while i find if those leaves really work, how do you cope with this ?
I find that eating raw garlic stops all biting insects, though tiger mossies have yet to appear in the UK.
Citronella is likely the plant you're using. There are concentrated infusions available that are more effective than the raw leaves. Effectiveness, however depends on the individual, as some are more attractive to mosquitoes than others. As nasty as it is, DEET is still the most effective repellent. Other than that, you could try mosquito coils or wide-area spraying with pyrethrin (chrysanthemum extract) on a semi-regular basis. Keep in mind that given the disease vector issue, DEET might cause less long-term bodily harm than getting bit by the "wrong" mosquito just once.
well actually garlic breath may be cool to keep vampires and mosquitoes at large (watch the hilarious canadian flick jesus christ vampire hunter for reference ) but it stops a lot of pleasant things as well... however i am going to experiment on that. about the plant, i looked at it and it's actually citronella geranium and as long as the simple leaves work i'm not going to use concentrate products. not just i'm a tad hippie, i'm a penny-pinching one too iggy: . BTW this mosquito thing is starting to get scary. among the mosquitoes i kill daily (so much for karma), a new breed appears from time to time, it has a green back and i don't know WTF it is. someone else spotted it here, i found posts from italian people wondering what those green bastards are.
