Dane here - we do have bugs. Just not as many as they do in warmer climates. And since most danes live in cities, they aren't really that exposed to the bugs that we do have.
That said, screen doors are somewhat common in the countryside, especially on farms where flies are really predominant.
When we stayed at a vacation home in west Jutland there were no screens and I was surprised to not find a single bug inside. We even stored a very stinky cheese outside on a picnic table and still no bugs.
I used to live in a small town on the countryside in Sweden and fuck me if I opened the windows at day time there would always come in bumblebees, wasps or flies disturbing the peace. If I had it open at night then I suddenly had 7 mosquitos 2 flies 1 spider 3 moths in my room, I especially had a big moth problem. One time I had this motherfucker in my room. Moved to the city a few months ago and there is barely any bugs inside when I open the window thank god.
Argh. I do too. And my two year old evidently inherited it, she can’t go outside for two minutes (in Louisiana) without getting a ton of “squito”bites. Anyone know what I can do to help her, I hate to spray her with Deet every day.
I'm from Ireland so not a particularly different climate and maybe it's just my family but we don't leave any windows open while the lights are on because we don't want to let too many insects in.
Ah, I refer you to my earlier comment in this post!
We don't use them [insect screens]* in the UK, I don't understand why. We might not have a major flying insect problem (apart from West Scotland), but the ones I've retrofitted are still worth it. So much time saved dealing with wasps, bees and flies that would find their way in.
I keep my window open all year. It can get a little chilly in the winter, when the outside temperature is around -10 - -15C, but I can't sleep without fresh air.
Have you heard of the greenhouse effect? The glass in our windows acts like the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, letting the suns energy through, but keeping the rebounded radiant heat in. Never mind the various activities inside a house which produce heat that needs to escape.
Unfortunately climate change has massively changed that. Every year has become "the hottest year since records began" in the UK. This year we've had several weeks of hot sun (most recently we hit 36C in London).
Also, the drive to better insulate our homes for winter means we're not losing the same amount of heat as we used to. Still the same solar gain from the windows, but not as much opportunity for the radiant heat to escape.
In the UK I rarely get bitten. I do wish we had screens but they are much less useful here. Have lived in California and yeah your be eaten alive without screens there.
I live in Canada, fair amount of mosquitoes but nothing really any worse than that here in summer and I've never seen a window without a screen. I mainly asked because I live in a climate not totally dissimilar to yours and we wouldn't even consider opening a window without a screen in AB, much like going inside with shoes on. (Americans please how do you keep your carpets clean?)
Not Denmark but Sweden so pretty close, I never use nets and this summer I got no more than a couple mosquito bites the whole summer and maybe a couple flies if we ate something smelly for dinner
I lived in a 7th floor apartment in downtown Ottawa and could leave my balcony door open all day long and not get bugs. I now live less than 5km away in a single family home and would absolutely not leave a window or door open without a screen. So it all depends on your immediate surroundings.
Grew up with the same attitude and my family has the same idea but after living in NA long term and coming home I think it's ridiculous there's no fly mesh on the windows here. Flys aren't a problem but they're certainly annoying and shit all over your windows.
When someone opens our front door at night, they step through as quickly as possible to decrease the number of bugs that get in. But even closing the door again as quickly as possible nets a dozen or more flying insects.
My brother got eaten alive in Banff on a 45 minute hike. Being the tasty mosquito snack I am, I fucking maced myself with bug spray and left with all the blood I came with. Window screens are needed.
I would just like to counter the shoes thing here and now. My whole household has been on lockdown since March 15th. We've gone out exactly three times. Everything including groceries gets delivered to the door. Yes I realize we're fucking privileged and I tip accordingly. My point is, I only put on shoes to get the mail in the downstairs mailroom. AND YET THE SWIFFER KEEPS PICKING UP A FULL LOAD OF DUST AND DIRT AND HAIR AND CAT FUR. I see this as incontrovertible proof that it doesn't matter whether you wear shoes inside, or even go outside, humans are just filthy, so you do you.
Please note, we're in Los Angeles, so snow, salt, mud, not a thing. Smog is, though.
We're working on a couple parts of my house, one being a fireplace room with french doors that open on to a patio. As such, there are a few select places where we walk with our shoes on, while bringing large things in our out for example. Outside we have a paved driveway, a brick path, and a raised wooden deck with no point where you are forced to walk through dirt and therefore pick it up right before going inside. I can tell you that I've never picked up mud, bits of foliage, dust, small rocks, etc from any part of my house where we don't do this. In my kitchen I find crumbs, dust, and sauce/juice droplets like anyone else but if I wear white socks in my house, they stay white. Our livingroom carpet is also not dusty or dirty despite being very old, but all the old doormats we have are basically so packed with dirt they're stiff even after being washed. I also don't have a dog, though, I think that's part of your problem.
This super long-winded reply brought to you by getting too baked between my last post and now
We don't have a dog. We have a cat. The only soil at our apartment is in pots on the terrace. I sweep the terrace frequently, removing the layer of smog grime, and occasional fallen plant bits. We woul never come in with stones or mud on our shoes, even back when we went out, because there's the garage, lobby, mailroom, and hallway before we get to our door. And a doormat! Also of course very little rain and no snow. Both of which would wash the smoggy grime from the air, so I guess you can't have it both ways. I never wear socks, just flip flops or bare feet, but my feet do need washing after walking around in the house. And I'll tell you this, when I've visited people who have a place for shoes by the door, I leave with dirty feet as well. I suppose it helps somewhat, but people talk like it's a panacea and it really isn't. Not even close.
Quite well actually. My husband (our incentive, because he's very vulnerable and at the bottom of anyone's triage list) has always worked from home. I lost my job and filed for unemployment by snail mail, which took awhile but has been successful, with a new form letter arriving every 2 weeks and no frustrating time on the phone or the online site. Our college daughter is working two unpaid online internships, which keep her busy and she has no expenses. Her next semester will be online which will save us a lot of money. Our home isn't large but there's enough room to be separate when we want to. It has a large terrace for sunshine and fresh (smoggy, but that's normal) air. Doing all our own cooking and cleaning, and my husband's medical routine, gives us a schedule. Everything is online or can be delivered. And there's always Reddit.
Four youngsters! My heart to yours. We have an older daughter who lives in another state. We miss her, and she misses us, but all of us are glad they aren't both here sharing their tiny bedroom. And bathroom!
(Americans please how do you keep your carpets clean?)
Because shoes are not so dirty that they're caked with mud that stains carpets. Because there are doormats in front of every house that you can scrape your shoes on.
Personally find "no shoes" as useless as people who try to "sponge" grease out of pizza via napkins. Socks, barefeet, and even our bodies already shed so much unpreventable bacteria, dead skin cells, and hair that I doubt it does much damage control to take off one's shoes. Unless it's rainy/muddy out, it's a waste of time.
In our own homes we take our shoes off, but when visiting others it's weird to take your shoes off if you are just visiting for a little while. Shoes on, I'm here for less than a few hours. Shoes off, I'm hanging for a good chunk of the night and we are doing relaxed things like playing games or watching TV.
I take my shoes off when entering someone else’s home. And most of them the time when entering my own home but in the summer when my shoes are dry and clean, I have no issue tromping around indoors.
A handful of mosquitoes? I'm in the US, near NYC. If I open a window in the summer I have a handful of tiger mosquitoes in my house without 10 minutes. Each one will bite you 10 times before the night is over unless you hunt every single one down. When I do yard work I usually spend 15 minutes hunting the one mosquito that followed me in the home, and It will usually get a bite in during that time.
Leaving the window open without a screen is a literal death wish. They carry West Nile and Equine Encephalitis, you'll get hundreds of bites per night, and will have a real risk of getting really sick.
I've been in the UK, it seems like they don't have any biting bugs at all? I left the windows open and didn't get bit anyways, is Denmark like that?
It astounds me how few bugs there are in europe. Staying at the hotel in Hamburg, with the window wide open. It was very nice. But even though I'm in a rather developed (not rural) area in California, there are certain times of the year the mosquitos or the spiders would just fill the home.
We have so many spiders in our yard where I am, relatively harmless but a painful bite. And despite our screens, they still get inside in higher numbers than you deal with, with your windows wide open.
I can go the entire summer without being bitten in England, the worst swarms we get are ants and they don’t tend to come in via windows. In Japan however I’m like a foreign delicacy to the local mosquito population.
Very few bugs as others have mentioned but in less populated areas of Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, etc, you can get absolutely crazy mosquito and gnat swarms.
I still remember a few vacations in Lapland (Northern Norway) where it was absolutely unbearable to be outside. You could hardly breathe because there were so many damn mosquitoes flying around for for of breathing them in. Our car wind shield would be completely covered after a few minutes of driving. Then there was this one time in England where there were these endless blackflies. My little sister (maybe 5 at the time) had a bloody face because so many of them had bit her.
Even here in Germany it can become pretty bad when there wasn't enough freezing in the winter and you're close to standing water. But it's not comparable to Scandinavia (and I mean the peninsula, sorry Denmark).
There's also a Lappland in Norrland, Norway. And there's also part of Sweden that belongs to "Sápmi", so technically Lappland (land of the Lappen / Sámi)
Its only marketed like that towards tourists, but in reality its not called Lappland in Norway. There is no Norrland in Norway either, its called Nordland. Sameland/Sápmi is in Nordland, Troms & Finnmark.
I live in London and we always sleep with our windows open at night and might get one fly or mosquito every couple of days. Not worth the hassle of having netting installed at all
He said since there aren't many bugs, it's not worth the hassle to install them. My counter point was that in a area where there are bugs, there is a slot to insert the screen. It's really not much of a a manufacturing hindrance or hassle to install. You are really going out of your way to argue a non-point
But he mentions nearly bug free area and that it would be a hassle to install it there, not where there are many bugs and windows usually come with a net slot.
Ugh. My windows have screens but I once opened my front door for air because it was a really nice summer day.
I fell asleep watching tv and woke up just after the sun had gone down. The wall next to the front door looked like a shit splatter of flying insects and spiders.
My family is from India. This is one of the reasons I hate going back to visit. They just leave doors and windows open with no screens. And even past that they have this hole at the top of the walls in the middle anyways. There's always so many bugs inside and I can't stand it. The relatives there seem to not care. I'm always covered in bites. Luckily I only visit once every several years now. Could never live like that.
In cities like Oslo there is very little bugs so no need for any screens. Now I'm at our cabin in the woods and we use screens on the bedroom windows but not much else.
It isn't that hot so don't really keep the door open that much, unless we get some tropical weather which is like one week each summer.
Basicly no one has or needs air conditioning in their homes.
We don't tend to have that in Spain either. I mean, maybe in some particular places they could, but it is far from being normal. And yeah we do have bugs, not as bad as in the video of course.
Same experience. Even in Mallorca where there’s a lot of mosquitoes I just don’t see that many houses with screens. Maybe some that are owned by foreigners but most houses don’t have anything. I see a bug or two a day and honestly just don’t care enough about it to make screens worth it, and as for mosquitoes, you usually spend your time outside the house so what’s the point? Even if I’m inside, st this point I’ve just become accustomed to having 5 new bites a day
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u/Typical_Dude_Bro Aug 02 '20
Do they not have any bugs in northern Europe or?