Sunday, November 8, 2009

Mosquito-Repelling Paper Lanterns

By Cody Scholberg

When you are outdoors, like in your backyard or garden, you can enhance your experience with the use of paper lanterns. Unfortunately, if you live in a humid area, there will likely be a mosquito problem which detracts from your enjoyment of the outdoors. You can use bug spray, but it stinks and burns the skin and eyes.

Instead of bug spray, you can use your paper lanterns to protect yourself against mosquitoes. Just buy a mosquito repellent candle to put inside of your flame-lit paper lantern. These candles are available in many different sizes and shapes in many stores, and they each have different ranges of effectiveness. The usual ranges are anywhere from five to ten feet.

When you use paper lanterns with mosquito repelling candles to protect yourself against bugs, you must arrange them in the proper fashion. To do this, figure out the range of the candles. If you are unsure, you can check on the label or box of the candle. If you cannot find it there, contact the store you bought it at or the manufacturer of the candle. After figuring out the effective range, arrange the candles so that there are no gaps between ranges. To ensure this, make a one foot overlap of the last foot of the ranges. These last feet are the weakest, so you will need to double the protection.

When you set up the lanterns, arrange it in a border around the area you are going to be. It is fairly simple to figure out, but there are some special situations when dealing with water. If there is chlorinated water where you are, you can take advantage of the natural mosquito repelling properties of chlorine. Therefore, you can double the distance between the candles, so you use half the number of candles.

Unfortunately, regular, non-chlorinated water is the opposite case. You need to halve the distance between the lanterns if there is non-chlorinated water in the area you want to protect; use double the number of lanterns. This is true because mosquitoes are very attracted to water. In fact, it is their breeding ground; mosquitoes are born in water, so they very much like it. Because of this super attraction to water, you need to double the number of lanterns.

Paper lanterns are a great way to light an area. They are perfect for an outdoor, family dinner, as they give off a peaceful, dim light, while at the same time working hard to protect you and your family from mosquitoes.

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