A friend claims that the people in England don't have screens on their windows because they have very few, if any, flies and mosquitoes. Is there any truth to that?

Strange but if true, very lucky people.
Mosquitos 'love' me and to top it all off we have deer flys up here. Darned things can really bite!

I believe so. My relatives in England have screen doors and I am pretty sure I've seen flies and been bitten by mosquitoes there. Try these sites:

Mosquitoes #1

Mosquitoes #2

[URL=www.adas.co.uk/env/environment/ PestMgt/Inverts_p124&5.pdf]Mosquitoes #3[/URL]


I had trouble finding any information on flies. I hope these sites help!

No screens are ever seen ( at least around here in the South East;though I can't think of anywhere where there are such things. Perhaps the relatives referred to in the above post 'think American). The nearest we got to screens against flying insects was when we had meat-safes and larders. A meat-safe was a large box or cupboard with mesh sides to keep flies from the meat inside. Larders always had windows covered in mesh too for this reason.
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We get mosquitoes though. Oliver Cromwell died of malaria here back in the C17 ( that is no longer found ). They are not often inside.

The big problem is to the far North where midges are the trouble. In Scotland, in particular, these small biting insects occur in large numbers over quite a short season. As they have such a short Summer in the North the insects all have to cram a whole lot of life cycle into a small period; so when they appear it is in massive numbers.The only consolation , if any, for tourists in the Highlands at the critical times is that tourists in Iceland get it even worse!

A PS on flies: the horse-fly here bites humans sometimes. You are quite unlucky to get bitten by one unless you are close to grazing horses. The bite is painful because the fly's mouth parts are shaped like a V- section chisel. It gouges a groove into you. At least the female mosquito only uses a 'hypodermic'!

[This message was edited by FredPuli on 07-07-03 at 03:17 AM.]

[This message was edited by FredPuli on 07-07-03 at 03:19 AM.]

In the many years that I've lived in my home, I have NEVER had a screen on any window!!

England is surrounded by salt water, so that may be the reason. I live very close to salt water, as well, so that could be why I'm not too effected by these pests.

BUT, I could be wrong.. it's just my suspicion!

I have been bitten by horse-flies.. when we lived in Maine there were terrible numbers of horse-flies and black-flies. Both of them could put a base-ball sized red welt where you were bitten. They hurt like the very devil for sure!

Flies are becoming more numerous in England so perhaps we will start having screens on our windows. Does anyone fancy setting up a business.

Welcome to AnswerPool , jaqueline

Don't fancy a fly-screen business in the UK just yet In fact, looking down from the terrace here in Antibes, I can't see any screens for windows on other properties and don't recall any in the past. Perhaps there is some truth in the speculation (above) that being near salt water means few flies .

Years -no, decades - ago, when my grandparents lived in Wallasey in the UK, they too had a meat safe with a screen door over the front to keep off the flies - and I think I recall a screen door to protect the door that led out onto their garden as well, or am I imagining that? I was only about nine years old at the time.
I didn't actually learn the actual term for the thing until Joni Mitchell released the song "Big Yellow Taxi" around the end of the Sixties ("Late that night, I heard the screen-door slam..."), which shows that the device wasn't very familiar to me up in northern Britain. Then a few years ago I went to stay with friends in Gloucester, Ontario, just outside Ottawa, and there on the door of the room that lead out onto the garden (and which doubled as our bedroom for a few days as there were quite a few of us staying in their house on this particular occasion, was a genuine screen door. It didn't slam, but I lay awake for hours as the words of "Big Yellow Taxi" ran through my mind. Thanks for the memories, friends!