Just the opposite for me: I used to be a skeeter magnet. In a room with three or four people they'd just get me. In a suburb of London I had to sleep with a mosquito net in the summer when the windows are open - that's how bad it was.
When I was in South Africa, at first I ignored the skeeters as it didn't bother me getting bit a lot, and it was a non-malaria area (Durban). Then they told me the malaria wasn't that far away up the coast, so maybe I should use a net at night. When it got to the stage that I had thousands of bites, mainly all round my middle like a belt, looking like shingles or something (sleeping exposed as it was so hot and humid), I figured maybe I'd do something. Other people around had no bites, or maybe a couple.
So first I tried that citronella juice stuff, it was the hot new idea then (around 2000). I slept under a sheet, with just my face exposed, and it was dripping with the lemony juice. Sopping wet and soaked in it. Smelled nice so I just poured it on. The skeeters ignored it and bit the hell out of my face. Maybe citronella is actually skeeter food...
Then I got a net and that fixed it. You could hear them in their masses, buzzing around the net. Hehe.
From experience with millions of them, in several countries, as a human skeeter magnet, I can now tell you these facts (and I don't care a toss what the scientists say, these are the facts):
- They can find you by CO2 from at least 100 metres away (I have a sailboat and know what distance you need to be anchored off in order that they can't locate you).
- Once they get within 4 metres they find you by scent, light, and heat - in that order.
- The main locator is scent, they can find you in a room just using that. It's not CO2, it's something else.
- When they get within range, if it's dark, they use infra-red heat detection, then zero in on anything light.
OK so now what is the best defence? A net, I guess. But the next best thing is a laptop and a hoover.
- Skeeters love a laptop more than anything. They zero in on your scent and then get distracted by the heat and light. It's like a fighter jet using its anti-missile chaff and flares.
- They see the light and feel the heat from the bottom of the screen.
- As they buzz around the screen, hypnotised, you hoover them up, using the tube end you keep draped over your lap. You kick the machine on with your foot.
- Don't worry about them coming back out. Any bugs you hoover up are minced on the way down the tube, by striking the corrugated tube walls at 100mph. Nothing recognisable left except wings and bits.
Yep, I sure hoovered up a ton of those pesky skeeters. But now I'm equal to anyone else. Maybe vaping fixed it, who knows. Don't bother with that lemony skeeter juice, they eat it for breakfast - get a laptop and a vacuum cleaner.
