There are actually surprisingly few mosquitoes on our land. With the large pond, this was a concern originally. But in the end, there seem to be fewer mosquitoes on our new land than there were around (and inside) our old house in a normal housing complex. I suspect this is for three different reasons.

First, the land is more open than a traditional housing complex allowing for more consistent breezes. I’ve read that mosquitoes are not good fliers and tend to look for shaded areas until even a slight wind dies down. Not only are the buildings that block the wind sparse on our little homestead with large open areas like the pond in the middle, but the buildings themselves are mostly off of the ground allowing for a consistent strong wind flow underneath them. (The wind under BaanMae is usually noticeably stronger than the ambient wind.) This mostly keeps the mosquitoes from venturing out much of the time.

Second, there are quite a few predatory animals around that eat mosquitoes. We have quite a variety of birds around the land, and I’ve read that certain birds eat mosquitoes. But even more interesting are the dragonflies which are even more numerous. Not only do dragonflies eat mosquitoes in large numbers, but dragonfly larvae eat mosquito larvae, making these guys super mosquito hunters.

Third, the mosquitoes do come out in large numbers right after dark. I don’t know if they are hiding on our land all day until then (maybe the wind tends to die down and the predators tend not to be out hunting at this time). Or maybe they are hiding on nearby land and come out to get blown onto our land at this time.

Whatever the reasons (or combinations thereof), most of the day is almost entirely mosquito free until after nightfall, at which time we tend to stay inside and get ready for bed (and make sure all of our mosquito screens are closed).

But nonetheless, one or two mosquitoes will get into the house, and occasionally I will be sleeping at night and hear that really annoying buzzing around my head. I don’t know about you, but this is probably one of the most annoying ways to mess up my night’s sleep.

It only happens about once every week or two, so I don’t think it is frequent enough to have a high risk of disease transmission. (I got bitten a lot more frequently than this sitting in our living room of our old house over the last 10 years and haven’t contracted anything.) But I figure it is annoying enough to warrant trying out a mosquito screen.

I swung by a local shop on the way back from lunch a few weeks back. I was pretty surprised that it cost only about 160 THB ($5). Putting it up was only a matter of 4 hooks screwed into the wooden walls. And voila! A mosquito net over our beds:

During the day, we throw the hanging part over the top and it looks almost like a sun shade:

I was curious whether we would find it annoying, particularly waking up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, etc. After a week or two of using it, I am pretty surprised that I really like it. It gives a certain piece of mind similar to when you lock your pets out of your bedroom so you don’t have to be woken up by them. Just knowing you might be bothered by the little buggers (pets or mosquitoes) can add a bit of stress to your sleep that you don’t even realize is there until you lock them out.

Sweet dreams!