We love summer but something we really don’t love about summer is mosquitoes! The worst thing ever is waking up to find your legs or arms covered in itchy mosquito bites! When buying a ready-made camper van, the windows are already usually installed with insect nets. However, when making your own DIY camper van, this is not the case.
While travelling in our van during the month of March, we had no problem with mosquitoes, however they started appearing in May and that is when we made the decision to mosquito-proof our van!
Our van has 4 windows and we needed mosquito-proof all of them. This included the two windows in the cab beside the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat, the sliding door area and the back door area. We were not sure what to do at first and thought about making our own DIY mosquito net, however we were not sure how strong it would be and how long it would last.
We ended up installing ready-made mosquito nets and we are super happy with them! We always like to leave a window open during the night for ventilation purposes since we don’t have a fan installed in the roof.
During the colder months, we usually leave the 2 windows in the cab area open by around 5cm. In the hotter summer months, we usually open the windows in the cab fully in addition to sometimes also leaving the back door or sliding door slightly ajar for extra airflow.
In this blog post, I will explain about the mosquito nets we installed in our van and how we installed them.
Cab Area Mosquito Nets:
We found nets for the windows in our cab area on amazon Japan and decided to order them. They are made of stretchy material and can fit on many different sizes of window. We were worried that the nets might be too small for our windows since they are quite big, but we had no problem at all.
It’s not possible to drive with these nets in use, so make sure you remove them before you start driving! We store the nets in the pocket area of each door so they are easy to access.
One useful tip for when you are using the nets is to put the net over the window first before rolling the window down. This might seem obvious, but when we first started using the nets, we used to roll the window down first and then install the net, and during this time mosquitoes would sometimes enter the van!
Here is the link to the page on amazon where you can find these mosquito nets.
Sliding Door and Back Door Mosquito Nets:
We found a company on rakuten Japan who make mosquito nets for vehicles and they also make custom nets based on the vehicle you have. When we contacted the company they didn’t have nets for our type of Nissan Caravan but they were able to produce them for us. They made the mosquito nets for the sliding door area and also the back door area.
These nets are installed by using the black seal which is already part of the van. You need to remove the black seal and put the net under the seal before attaching the seal again to the vehicle. There is velcro on the fabric and this means the net can be attached easily. On days where you don’t want to use the net, you can remove it quickly and store it somewhere since it is only held in place by velcro.
The net used for the back door has a zip down the middle, so it is still possible to access the van from the back door even if you have the mosquito net installed.
The net used on the sliding door can be rolled up when not in use. We find that the piece of net near where the door closes can sometimes get trapped when closing the door so we usually detach it and position it behind the passenger’s seat so it doesn’t become damaged or torn.
If we decide to have the sliding door closed while driving or during the night, we usually roll the net up so we can have easy access to the door handle in case we need to use the toilet during the night.
Here is the link to the page on rakuten Japan where you can find these mosquito nets.
Other Mosquito Avoidance Tips:
We also use mosquito coils around dusk before closing all the mosquito nets. This is so all the mosquitos can exit the van due to the smell of the coils and it means there are no mosquitoes already inside the van when we close the nets.
We also have a fly swatter easily accessible so if we hear any mosquitoes buzzing around after closing the nets, we can easily swat them and kill them.
We also use mosquito spray on our legs if we decide to eat outside or have an outdoor BBQ!
What Is Our Overall Verdict?
We are so happy with the mosquito nets we decided to install in our van and they have saved us from getting bitten by pesky mosquitos during the summer months! I hope this blog post was useful for anyone who is also looking to mosquito-proof their van!
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