Thursday, July 18, 2013

Window screens, or the lack thereof

As I sit here covered in mosquito bites, I wonder, once again, WHY German homes do not have screens in their windows.  I have never yet seen one that does.

On the one hand, it is nice because all of the windows open very wide, like doors (on  hinges--no sliding tracks as is common in the US), and you can easily pass things through them, etc.  It might be safer as well--a small child would never assume they could lean against a nonexistent screen and have their weight supported, as happens once in a while in the US with tragic results.

But on the other hand--wow we get a lot of bugs this time of year, and there is really no good way to avoid them.  Almost no one has air conditioning, so you have to open the house up to keep the temperature tolerable and when you do, you open up a nice little mosquito cafe as well.

I've now realized that those screens were keep out much more dust than I ever knew.  I dust daily here, and  in summer 3 hours later, you'd think it had been a week!

Come to think of it, I do not think we had screens on our rentals in Spain  or Denmark either.  So maybe the US is the odd one out?!  I really do wonder why the custom of window screens developed in some places and not others.

Here's wishing you a bug bite free Friday!

--Hadley

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