War with the Mossies

I’ve been an easy target of mosquitoes since small. Every time I got bitten, it’s just me who got it even though there were other people with me. Is my blood sweeter than the rest? Some said it could be due to what I eat – if I eat more meat, then that could attract mosquitoes. But how true is that, I didn’t know. I personally eat more vegetables than meat since small – well, except for now when I’m breastfeeding. I need to have a bigger portion of meat to satisfy my hunger pangs.

Then, when Sze Yi came along, the mosquitoes changed their target. Yes, she would get all the bites, even though we’re sleeping on the same bed. In school, her teacher also told me – “well, only she alone got it”. Sigh…. I wonder what grudge do these little mossie have on us?

So during this dengue outbreak, I finally declare war on them. I used to have the electrical mosquito coils in both my bedroom and the kids’. But that is not effective enough. I need to use this together with the mosquito repellent patch which I stick to my daughters’ pajamas before they sleep. So, when a colleague introduced this photo catalyst based mosquito trap to me, I quickly jumped at it. Furthermore, his friend was selling at a lower price than what was published on the website. How does it work? Well, it’s based on 2 principles:

i. Mosquitoes can easily locate a person by sensing the carbon dioxide & temperature that he/she sheds.
ii. They are very sensitive to near ultraviolet rays.

The heat & near ultraviolet rays produced by the fluorescent lamps installed inside, as well as carbon dioxide produced when the near ultraviolet rays are radiated onto the Titanium Dioxide coating help to attrack the mosquitos. The mosquitoes would be captured in the cone-like shape, and prevented from flying out by the strong current of the ventilator.


So, is it effective? Well, I only managed to catch 2-3 mosquitoes during the first 3 days, but after that, I caught 20 the next day, and 7 the day after. I still need to use this mosquitoes patch on my kids, but over time, I find that there were less bites.

My colleagues claimed that they could catch about 10 mosquitoes per day, and it's very effective. Well, either my little abode is not that infested with these mossies, or my technique is not that good enough, I still need more days to figure out. In the meantime, I also tried other tricks to get rid of these little mossies - like applying lotion on my daughters skins, which was claimed effective by one of my breastfeeding gang.

Hopefully, I can finally say goodbye to these little mossies.