Sitting in my upstairs bedroom late this afternoon, I heard a sound that had made me run in the past. Made the gardener, was outside in the parking area, with one of those ‘fogging machines‘, designed to kill insects. My neighbor 2 doors down, an Aussie guy who surfs, recently got dengue fever, so fogging the area seemed a good idea. Ika came up and told me she wanted him to do the garden too, which I agreed to. We don’t get charged for this, which is nice, as the owner pays for it. As I watched Made, working unprotected in the garden, the cloud of noxious fumes climbed to my window. The fumes smell like petrol and kill adult mosquitoes. They do not kill the larvae, unfortunately, so this is a short term solution.
Checking out the fogging machines online, I see there is a variety of chemical they can use, which demand ‘caution’ on the part of the user, but are not considered dangerous.
Most hotels fog the grounds regularly to keep the mozzies down. Its difficult to sit by the pool and enjoy a cocktail, if you are being attacked by the local dengue fever mosquito family. I recall one time up in Pemuteran, on the NW coast, where I had no chance of getting in the pool, due to the cloud of mosquitoes that were present.
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I’ve slept under a mosquito net for the past twenty-two years - eighteen of which I’ve spent in Condet, Jakarta Timur. Can’t get any of the local boys to do this, in spite of annoying swarms of skeeters: ‘panas!’ is the usual complaint.
Nets are the only solution. I travel with one. Even when they promise to burn a sweet-smelling coil of ‘obat nyamok’ my usual retort is ‘nyamok nggak sakit’ - they’re useless, not to mention the un-aesthetic aspect of sleeping in a smoke-filled room.
On the net. Under, rather. Forever.
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