Sliding Mosquito Nets for Old Goa.

Mosquitoes are the plainest fact of life on the low ground around Old Goa. The Mandovi and the pools the monsoon leaves behind both breed them, and dusk is when they come indoors. Partial screening does little: if the bedroom windows are netted but the bathroom ventilator is open, the house fills anyway, so plan for every opening used in the evening. Flats and colony houses with aluminium sliding windows take a sliding net alongside the glass. The older houses have shutters, grilles and frames that have settled out of true; there a pleated or openable panel is made to each opening and placed where the shutters can still be worked. Fibreglass mesh is sufficient here.

• Colony houses near wet ground: nets on every window, ventilator and the back door, not just on the bedrooms.
• Old houses with shuttered windows: made-to-size pleated nets fixed inside the grille, so the shutters still close in a storm.
• New flats along the highway: sliding nets for bedroom windows and for the door to the balcony, running next to the existing glass panels.