being eaten alive

I'm hoping for some advice here from you fonts of knowledge.
For some unknown reason we're being plagued by thousands of mozzies in the evening and night,i'm covered in bites.It's too hot to have the windows closed.We've bought one of those lantern zappy things, but I'm sure that they're just using it as neon beacon to the cafe.
Does anyone know of somewhere you can buy that mesh stuff that goes over the windows like you see in the american films?
Or any other ideas to combat them.All I can hear at night is bbzzzzzzzzz..as they dive bomb me ,i have bites in places you wouldn't believe!!My daughter has taken to hiding under the duvet at night.Then moans that she's hot.
I've never know anything like it before,you normally get one or two, but these seem to be swarms.Please ,please ,any advice would be gratefully recieved,,before I'm nothing but a mound of festering lumps and sores.

Check for mosquito netting at camping supply stores or fine gauze which you temporarly can fix to the window opening.
I'm kinda alergic to the european mossies and get big swellings for a week from them. Not so much of a problem with the once here in Canada but there is the risk of West Nile virus infections from them right now.
Just can't win

thanks panamoncreel, at least ours here don't carry anything..yet.Just drives you mad with the itching though.

I think I saw frames and fly screens in the Two Wests and Elliot catalogue sueone
I haven't time to look through at the moment, but here's the link http://www.twowests.co.uk/

thanks philomel,going to check it out now.

Sue I went up to the allotment last night for a breath of fresh air. I had been asleep for most of the day and should have known better. Wasnt thinking straight because I had no insect repellent with me!! :S
Result - this morning my face, neck, arms and legs are covered in bumbs!! :(( and I am trying like crazy not to stratch!! LOL

Last weekend I was bitten by something a bit different while eating out in the garden latish at night :(
I've never had such a marked allergic reaction to a bite before. Had one on each leg just above the ankle and my feet swelled up so I couldn't get shoes on comfortably. The itching, but more than that the pain, was unbelievable

So I sympathize. Use some non drowsy making antihystamine if you can
...and DON't scratch! (much easier said than done LOL)

Philomel Im not sre if its the insect or the area it bites you but my worst reactions are always down the bottom of the leg! cant be coincidence surely!

a strange thing has happened this year. Usually I get bitten alot despite repellants and I am very allergic to them. This year the midges have barely touched me but when they do like yesterday they hardly itch at all. Today my face is covered but they do not bother me. I cant help wondering if it is down to the medication that I am taking??

LOL
I've never reacted badly before - we've just reversed ;)

Mine are from mosquitos :(
But they're just about gone now :)

Yes, certainly might be that what you are taking stops a reaction

For some unknown reason, by bum is the first thing that gets bitten in bed, hubby says that its the biggest thing in the room, and that I stop them from reaching him !!!...Bloomin cheek....We've got one of those fizzy lights in here now, trouble is, I hate the noise when it zaps them.ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz...

eeewwww! cant say I have ever been bitten in bed before! well... not by an insect anyway! ;)

Hi

Only just found this thread so its a bit late in the day to offer any advice. This summer I have sat on the patio every night weather permitting working on my laptop and the thing thats been the most annoying is those tiny little black midges that get in my hair and itch me like crazy. We have only had one or two mozzies thank goodness.

Sueone
Have you tried the electric plug in mozzie killers like we take abroad, the ones that you leave on in the room before you go to bed. Just a thought perhaps for next year. Also Aldi supermarket sold window and door fly nets earlier this year may be worth a look for next year if there is one by you.

Sue

Thanks Sue, this year hasn't been quite so bad.

I think that when I wrote that it was when we were having the heat wave, because I'd never known it so bad before.

We just bought some of those plug in things, and have all got one in each room, my daughters kept complaining about being bitten.My oldest one is being plagued by daddy long legs now, i keep hearing her up there squeeking when she finds one, then chases ir all around the room.

I've only just found this thread and it's probably a bit late, but the chemist told me to take vitamin B complex tablets starting two weeks before I went on holiday last year (not Devon - Borneo) and I only got bitten once in three weeks and that was when we returned to the hotel after a couple of weeks by rivers and in the jungle. I did take some Deet as well, but didn't use it much. Hope they have stopped bothering you now.

The vitamin B complex does seem to work though but it has to be the complex and not just B6 or B12.

That's really interesting Pat
I used Deet and towards the end of a fortnight realised I wasn't feeling well. Stopped using it and got better. I know it could have been unrelated, but it's good to know about the vitamin B!

Thats a new one on me , might give that a try next year.

The problem only seems to occur when we get hot spells,(apart from the odd one or two mozzies) but as soon as a hot spell occurs ,they seem to flock in from no where...maybe thats a mozzies version of a bar-b-q , perhaps they like to enjoy the hot weather too!!.....LOL

A bit more info on mosquitos - my partner is an entomologist and says that there is a particularly vicious kind of mosquito on Brownsea Island in Dorset do you think yours might be from there?

Who knows, there's also some kind of vicious fly in this area too, at a place called Blanford.....Must be something about the air down here.

Brownsea island is only about 20 mins drive (well to sail to it anyway) from here. so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Also here we have an estuary, the river Wey, another bird reserve with reed beds, Lodmoor.

I can remember as a teenager, playing tennis on the courts which are over the road from the Radipole lake, and seeing swarms of mozzies flying around in the evening, just like a black cloud.Mind you , there were also swarms of birds following them, made for good viewing.
We now live just up from that lake, and I'm sure that's where they come from.