Differences in regional naming and screen types are causing confusion in nearby comments.
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.
In Kazakhstan we're using nets because of mosquitos. Flies are not a real issue, they're a nuisance, but not a big deal. Mosquitos on the other hand are real night-killers. Few of them might keep me awake until sunset with their buzzing. Of course preventing flies is a good side effect.
In South Asia, I could imagine that mosquitos are more dangerous because of diseases they transmit.
Grew up near a forested area by the Danube river.. everyone and their dog had nets on their windows else the mosquitoes would turn your life into a nightmare.
It's becoming increasingly common where I live (Poland). We've installed nets in our last apartment, and the current one came with them already in place.
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.
> Okay, first of all, tell me more about this flamethrower.
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.
Dont the windows have screens? In the US pretty much every window has a permanent screen outside the panel for this purpose...just assumed it was the same in europe
Not in south of Europe unless is a mosquito disco location. One of the main purposes of windows is to see out. The more transparent, the better.
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.
Idk I've just never even considered losing light because of the screens, it's so little.
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.
FWIW that applies to a lot of your 'codes'. Obviously we have regulations too, but it's bizarre (from an outsider perspective) how much it comes up in US television, or online, and (and in part it seems due to) the extent of it.
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.
I have a mesh missing on one of my windows. For over a year after moving into this house I literally couldn't remember which one without looking up close. It's just that unobtrusive.
The mesh material is extremely thin. As long as you're focusing past it, you don't see the mesh itself. Just maybe the color of it, which is why black mesh is a popular color.
They do not, and it's unfathomable why. One of the first things I did after moving to Berlin was put screens on our major windows. My European friends constantly complain about insects coming in (wasps are a big offender in Berlin - and technically you can't kill them) but for some reason never just put up a screen.
Because I don't want some ugly thing strapped to my window?
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.)
The number of presumably Europeans in here citing screens blocking light as a reason for not installing screens makes me think maybe those screens are pretty low quality?
They are low-quality in that they tear pretty easily, you need to replace them every 3-4 years or if a bird/cat goes nuts on them (5 eur or so per sqm, probably there are cheaper brands if you are price-sensitive), but they don't block any more light than screens in the US. Less than some I've had.
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.)
This calls it a 'myth', but really concludes that it's hyperbole arbitrarily calling out wasps; they're technically a protected species and you could be fined but.. almost certainly not going to happen for one or two wasps bothering you at a cafe or whatever?
I had a friend kicked out of a cafe once for killing a wasp because they didn't want to deal with the situation if the Ordnungsamt was walking by or something.
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.
I was at a country cafe in the UK where there were plenty of wasps nearby. They had some 'fake nests' hanging up, as apparently wasps will swarm and kill intruders, so they also don't go near nests that they know are not their own.
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..
Interesting, but are they justified in that fear do you know?
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 doubt anyone has been fined the full value just from killing one wasp from some random fine. It is regularly enforced against people who try to burn down or otherwise remove nests on their property (without engaging a professional to try to remove it safely for both parties).
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.
When I lived in Europe there were no screens on the windows.
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.
In California there’s a decent amount of homes without screens. I’ve lived in two apartments that had no screens (one was a fire escape, the other opened outwards and had a latching mechanism that made it impossible to add a screen).
Also less mosquitoes, and the drier air makes airflow somewhat less of a living requirement: iirc screen doors are also ubiquitous in the (humid and hot) US south, much less so in the north.
window and door screens do absolutely exist in europe, but they’re definitely uncommon.
