Open windows for air, but have a finely masked net covering the opening so insects don’t get in.
But ever since I moved to the EU, there have been no nets, then again there are noticeably fewer flies here too.
A screen door can be a secondary exterior rigid door with metal mesh panels[1], or a hanging fabric mesh door[2]. A window screen can be a metal mesh, in a rigid metal frame, tightly integrated with a window[3], or a flexible add-on[4].
The polyester/fiberglass/etc fabric meshes can be more opaque than the metal ones.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Screen_d... https://www.lowes.com/search?searchTerm=screen+door [2] https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEdK5h6smTU [4] https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product...
In South Asia, I could imagine that mosquitos are more dangerous because of diseases they transmit.
There may not be that many flies in the EU as there are in South Asia, but there's enough of them to be annoying. Then there are mosquitoes, moths, wasps, bees - and the very bugs I've been installing these nets against - hornets. Before the net, we'd get 3-5 hornet visits per season. Running around the house late at night with an improvised flamethrower got tiring very quickly.
Also, when you say "nets", do you mean "screens", ie on the windows?
Just a lighter, a spray can, and steady hands. I know you're probably disappointed, but simplest solutions do work best :).
(To be absolutely clear: I only use this against wasps and hornets, and only in situations where there's no safe way of shooing them back out through a window.)
Operation: hold the lighter in front of you, light the flame, spray above it. Aim for sub-second bursts of flame - you don't want anything in the room to heat up. Never let the flame come close to any highly flammable surface (like drapes, or aforementioned mosquito net).
Tactics: against hornets and wasps, I shoot either below it, or at it directly. Shooting below, the rising hot air will confuse the bug, possibly stun it for a moment. Shooting at it, a sub-second burst is enough to burn off is wings, at which point you can finish it off using your favorite percussive maintenance tool.
Equipment considerations:
- I tend to use cheap, widely available flint lighters. I have experimented with gasoline and butane (high-pressure) lighters before, but IIRC, they didn't work well.
- For fuel, I use a deodorant. In the past, I've also used a hair spray - it's a good choice, because it enables a third mode of operation: cold mode. Because hair spray is viscous, hitting a bug with it is likely to clog its breathing apparatus and glue its wings, allowing you to safely apply the killing blow. I found it useful in a tent[0], where you absolutely do not want to play with an open flame of any kind. Anyway, any kind of spray with a flammable mixture will work, but pay attention to the possible combustion products. I do not recommend going for pressurized butane gas directly - it won't combust fully, and you'll be cleaning soot from every solid surface near you (ask me how I know).
I've been thinking about building/3D-printing a mount to operate the flamethrower single-handed, but to be honest, using two hands gives greater control, and the optimal distance between the lighter and the spray can varies with the type of spray can and environmental conditions.
> Also, when you say "nets", do you mean "screens", ie on the windows?
Yes. I buy a box with a fine mesh net, which I cut down to size and attach to the inside of the window using provided mounting strips (adhesive on the window frame size, velcro on the net side). We call this "moskitiera" (mosquito net). For balcony doors, there are variants with the net split in half and held together with magnets - so you can walk through it, and it'll close behind you.
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[0] - I was once on a two-week camping trip where we were constantly assaulted by swarms of wasps. We didn't know until later that it was because there was a hive under the building near our site. The organizers of that camp actually funded me a supply of hair spray, and designated me as the camp's exterminator. The "cold mode" was useful for cleaning out tents every couple hours. After we left, the owners of the building decided it's too much hassle to clear out the hive, and burned the building down.
Another factor is the light level. If you have a lot of days with rain or low light, like UK or many other places have, nets reduce even more the level of light entering in the house. Lacking of a lot of the dangerous mosquito borne diseases than tropical places have, the cons weight more than the pros. Would be seen as a better deal in California for example, where the extra shadow is welcomed.
And finally there is some inertia provided by cultural factors. For Dutch allowing everybody to see your room by default (don't have anything to hide here) is a cultural post-war thing also.
Maybe I'm just used to it.
Also it's not only like a cultural thing, I legally had to put screens in every window of my house before it was able to be occupied. Just an anecdote...
It's weird how we never question things like that.
Regarding light - leaving aside however much it blocks light for illumination purposes, what about seeing out? I want to look out of the window, not look at a mesh all but completely obscuring the view.
Because I want to let more light in?
Because things flying in is approximately not a problem anyway?
Seems perfectly fathomable to me.
(I live in London, occasionally a fly will come in and chill out for a bit before sodding off again.. fine? I've never had a wasp inside even. Our mosquitoes will extremely rarely give you anything nasty. Moths that would fly in aren't the fabric-eating kind. Even leaving aside the other issues, there's no reason to, it wouldn't be worth my time or money to buy them/fit them/have them fitted. I've spent longer writing this comment than being irritated by anything flying in through my windows.)
Our current windows pivot in the middle which makes a fixed screen impossible.
(They do have a "pane inside" mode which would let you put a screen on the outside but we're 3 floors up and it would be a bit tricky, not to mention inconvenient when the temperature drops.)
https://medium.com/@sophanemwise/the-wasp-killing-myth-in-ge...
Wasps are the usual example because it's legal to kill flies/mosquitoes and no one wants to kill the other protected insects like bumblebees. The wasps in Berlin are common and pretty aggressive, and have free rein in an awful lot of the chain backeries.
If it works or not I don't really know but at least I had a bowl of ice cream and wasn't especially bothered..
What I mean is, if this is a commonly believed exaggeration then it could just be that in this case the person believing it wasn't the wasp-killer (or would-be-killer) but the cafe owner. Has your friend ever actually been fined for doing it, or did the cafe owner/manager mention having had to deal with it in the past?
Certainly does seem odd that this law would (a) exist; and (b) be intended to stop this sort of behaviour; and (c) actually be enforced!
I would say mainly it's not enforced because b) has been effective - Germans (or Berliners at least) don't kill wasps! If doing so became common, it would probably be enforced more consistently.
However, there were also pretty much no bugs; we kept the windows and doors open regularly without an issue - if you tried that were I live now in the US you'd have flies inside making a racket and be eaten alive by mosquitoes.
window and door screens do absolutely exist in europe, but they’re definitely uncommon.