The Real Pests are the Mosquitoes

According to Wikipedia, we are in Jakarta's dry season.  That would explain the lack of rain; it hasn't rained since we returned in mid-August.

What is surprising to me is that the arrival of the dry season coincides with the arrival of a mosquito infestation bordering on plague-proportions.  The first thing we noticed upon our return from Arizona was the incredible increase in the volume of mosquitoes in our home.  Mosquito lights, citronella candles, spray, mosquito nets - nothing is working to fend off their pertinacious buzzing and blood thirst.  We sleep in a fine mesh cone, and inspect it nightly, yet I still manage to awaken with four to six new bites every night.  It's horrible.

Once a month, we have pest control - Terminix.  They usually come during the week when I'm at work and our daughter is at school.  We're required to vacate the house for four hours during and after the spraying, so a weekday visit works best for us.  When we returned from Phoenix, we scheduled a Saturday spraying.  It was a rather interesting morning.

The approach itself is rather interesting.  I'm accustomed to exterminators spraying a liquid along the baseboards in every room and along cabinets.  Here, it's a fog.  They fog the entire house and the entire yard - which is why we need to leave.  As they spray, enormous clouds of mosquitoes take to the air to avoid the noxious fumes.  These swarms attract swarms of birds, who come to feast on the fleeing insects.  They dive bomb seemingly out of nowhere and are fearless of the humans roaming around beneath them.  The lure of easy food is too strong.  It's an amazing sight to see.  If I think of it, I'll have to take some video of the event next time.

The spray lasts just under a week, and then we're infested with mosquitoes again, so I may have to increase the frequency of the exterminator's visits.  The big concern with mosquitoes, other than the annoying, itchy bumps, is Dengue Fever.  Jakarta does not have malarial mosquitoes, but Dengue Fever is quite prevalent.  It's rarely fatal, but it's not something you want to go through, either.  It's pretty painful, from what I've heard, and you wish you were dead, but you do survive.

I don't remember having this large an issue before, but this is our first September in this house and we are surrounded by streams and a few open fields.  Hopefully I'll find a solution soon....or it will rain again.

Rainy season means mosquitos

The rainy season is upon us. If you can't see the sky, it means it's raining. If you can see the sky, it means it is going to rain in an hour or so.

Local say Jakarta has two seasons - wet and wetter. I agree that it has two seasons, though we would differ on the classification. For me, the seasons are mosquitoes, and no mosquitoes.

I went ten months without a mosquito bite. I now get one or two a night. We've installed mosquito netting over all of the beds. This has limited the feasts to our living room. We're also trying to use the purple mosquito zapping lights, which makes for some interesting shadows and not much reduction in mosquito activity. I think the mosquitoes of Jakarta have evolved with "light avoidance" genes.

I've heard the rainy season can also bring flooding. My first day on the job ended in enough rain for my car to leave a wake. I've heard stories of the grocery store by my house having the first floor completely submerged with security transporting customers to dry land by having them stand in the shopping carts as they wade through chest-deep water in the parking lot. This year, we seem to be getting less rain than normal. Must be that global warming I keep hearing about.

Two more rounds of visitors on their way. My father-in-law arrives on Monday and stays with us for two weeks. My wife's aunt will arrive five days after he leaves and stay for a week. Can't miss home when home keeps coming here...