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Thread: Get Rid of Bugs....

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Default Get Rid of Bugs....

    Avalon wrote (in another thread)

    the search for Fly Screens today - everyone we talked was in the "cant" category
    As I was babysitting a sick doggy today (she's perked up now) I was searching around for Fly/Bug screens too. I was intrigued as to what was out there as we have been told our new house has been "spider proofed" - I did a search on the ol' faithful Google but not a lot comes up for spider proofing in NZ!! How on EARTH does one spider proof a house??!!!!! Anti-web paint?!! It's not spiders I'm worried about - it's flying bugs!

    Avalon - what were their reasons for "can't" do bug screens for you??

    And, still on the topic of bugs - what do people use when outside in the evening to stop being bombarded with zillions of bugs and moths??!!

    Oh, and one more bug story. In the library yesterday I helped a guy photocopy a load of medical bills for an insurance claim. He'd been bitten by a beetle which has arrived in NZ from Oz, and he was paralysed down the bitten side for a few days and his jaw clenched shut and he had to be fed by a tube!! Anyone heard any news stories about these critters - I hadn't!!

    Yours itchingly,

    Moorf

  2. #2
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    Oh eyuk!!! That's obviously not an urban myth then ( or a moth )


    I want fly screens fitted everywhere but I'm thinking now that won't stop the spiders Helen did you ask the owners what they meant by 'spider proof'

    Whatever I've used outside in the Uk has never stopped any bugs so I'm hoping someone has a miracle cure here. Please?

    I heard secada's in the tree outside today, more yuk!

    My hair is itching now

    Deborah

    Thanks Voice. 'cicadas' I seemed to have named them after an 80's rock star
    Last edited by Smiler; 17th November 2005 at 08:46 PM. Reason: spilling

  3. #3
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    We have cicadas all round the garden, but they don't really bother me. It's the Gisborne cockroach I can't stand!

  4. #4
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    By spider proofing they probably mean that they've sprayed the house with some vile and long acting poison.

    We have had this done a couple of times and although I don't know what the effect has been on us it has certainly been devistating for the insects and spiders. Well after a year the flies still drop like, well, flies if they venture into our house. A good thing too as in the summer we get zillions of them - one Sunday last summer I was doing a big clean up in the house and hoovered the window ledges where there were a good number of dead flies. An hour and a half later there were over 60 large fly corpses on these same ledges. Scary! Fortunately it doesn't happen that prolifically that often.

    Spraying is frequently done for insects (most of our neighbours have it done) and less often with a bit of added woomph for spiders. That your house has been done possibily suggests that they had or thought they had white tails and got a bit uneasy.

  5. #5
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    Apr 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by Voice
    We have cicadas all round the garden, but they don't really bother me. It's the Gisborne cockroach I can't stand!
    I like the sound of the cicadas on a hot summer's day - reminds me that I'm in a warmer place now!

    But with the colder temperatures down here in winter we don't suffer with cockroaches (leans over and touches the window frame.... )

  6. #6
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    Moorf,

    Well, with screens it seems to come down to how our doors are hung. Persoanlly I cant see why it matters, but it does. From what one guy was saying, because our doors open Outwards and not inwards - we CANNOT have flyscreens. Now the thing is - this particular gentlman spent most of the time telling us what windows we had, and what doors we had, and even that the only place we would have got those doors is from Upper Hutt. Not once did he actually ask us for any pertinant info, so he really has no idea what we have.

    In the second shop, whose details I got from a company called Phantom (0800 169 000), I didnt get much more help. Phanton do retractable flyscreens (kind of like a vertical rollerblind/door), and can cope with doors and windows no matter how they open. Unfortunately - the lady in the shop did not seem interested in selling us anything. The first thing she did was demand to know if we wanted it for christmas, then proceeded to tell us (kinda helpfully) that an average window cost about $70 and a door $200, but they do have a different type (phantom) but its really really expensive. How Expensive? Really REALLY expensive.

    I gave up at that point (Id also had a nightmare in a pharmacy trying to get some Sudafed for this killer cold that has had ime in bed for the past 2 days - I just was not in the mood today!)

    If you are still with me (Ive lost the will to live today) Citronella really is the best thing to try and keep bugs at bay. I personally use true Essential Oils for this and not ready made citronella Lamp oil. If you have oils - mixing Citronella with lavender and / or peppermint oils is best as it works better than citronella alone. Ive made up a mix of these in a small pump bottle (8 drops of Cit, 4 each of Pep and Lav in about 30ml of water) which you shake and then spray on skin as an alternative to insect repellant. So far it seem to stop me getting eaten alive. We are having some sucess at keeping flys out of the house - but not so much im afraid. However we have only been using it in a bowl of hot water in the kitchen - we proably need t fill the sinks in the house and add oils to that to get the stuff throughout the house.

    I really want an good alternative to the chemical spray. It should be pyrethrum, but I understand its a chemical form rather than a natural form, and im a little loathe to use it.

    Our house does seem to have been sprayed - at least for flys - given the speed at which they drop dead ( and the gazillions of dead flys in the attic that im still in the process of hoovering up ). BUT this doesnt stop them coming in and flying around making a helluva racket before they die.

    Hope that helps - the flys really are driving me mad!

  7. #7
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    I'm glad to hear that the fly sprays work, and can't offer any advice, but was wondering if anyone knows how / why the house spraying works? If the chemical can hang around long enough to kill flies that for that long, how come it doesn't affect the human inhabitants?

    Thanks,

    Emily

  8. #8
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    Not sure of the reasoning behind the bug spray. My friend is paying $120 today to have her house done. She has to leave the house for a couple of hours or so . I will ask her to find out why for me.

    I was advised to use citronella, at the weekend too. The burning candles when your sat outside apparently ward all the midges away!

    I was also advised to take vitamin B1. Again this will ward off any midges that wish to bite. The herbalist suggested that it was readily available.

    I bought one of those timer sprays from the warehouse at the weekend. It was $39 for the unit and a spray can. You can time it to spray out every 25 mins to 45 mins if you like.

    Why do the flys seem to sit on the blinds or walls for an age?

    Oh !!! and aren't the ants fast little beggers????? I was advised to use Janola to rid any ants. It absolutely works too. I have diluted some into a spray bottle, and thats all I use on my surfaces now. I had a major outbreak about 3 weeks ago. Got up one morning to zillions of them all over my daughters remains of her late night feast of strawberries. There was a line of them and an army all over the stalks. I Janola'd the surfaces. NO MORE ants

  9. #9
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    I thought it was funny that the houses here weren't screened too. NZ has such close links with Australia and every house we ever lived in there was screened. What's happened to stop the technology jumping the water!!

    What we are using at the Backpackers is the good old fashioned sticky fly papers, they seem to be working.

  10. #10
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    I used fly-paper last year but there were soooo many flies that it just looked gross after a couple of days and replacing it that often was expensive!! I also tried home-made fly traps and I'm sure many members will remember my "indoor fly bomb" episode

    Here's what the owners for our new house had to say about the spider-proofing:

    OK - so we paid some geezer to come out with his chemicals and spray the house with some (probably completely unPC stuff) which is apparently guaranteed for 2 years. As a registered arachniphobe, I must say that IT WORKS!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! You can;t imagine some of the horrors we witnessed when we first moved here, and they have now been banished for all time.
    I want that "geezers" telephone number

    Moorf (thankfully NOT an arachniphobe!)

    Last edited by Moorf; 18th November 2005 at 02:05 PM. Reason: Typo

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