SansBug in Senegal
May 21, 2013 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Researchers from Stanford University recently took the SansBug mosquito net tents to Senegal for a project on early language acquisition by children living in rural villages. Here’s an email from them:
Habari gani? Mzuri sana!
March 26, 2013 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
“They worked great!” First Baptist of Fayetteville, TN sent a group of 44 to Uganda for 9 days this month. Sherry was kind enough to share this pic with us. Not only would it have taken a while to suspend 44 regular mosquito nets from those steel beams, but looking at that floor, tucking the nets under the mattress or sleeping bag would probably have frayed the material. Furthermore, the nets can become dislodged from under the sleeping bag during the night exposing you to mosquitoes. In a situation like this, the SansBug is the best choice, hands down.
Now available in Europe!
February 26, 2013 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
The SansBug can now be shipped to 26 EU countries:
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Ireland
- Portugal
- Austria
- Bulgaria
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Greece
- Hungary
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Malta
- Poland
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Sweden
It is as much loved on the other side of the pond… here are some reviews on Amazon.co.uk:
“This has got to be the best idea invented to keep the bugs and creepy crawlers from interrupting your rest. Simple to use and fold away and it is very big and roomy.”
“Got him one of these to sleep in on his bed, and you should have seen this face when he snuggled up for bed feeling 100% safe. Thinking about getting one for myself now!”
“So now the SansBug is a bedbug-free-zone.”
Saving Eyes and Lives
January 3, 2013 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Here’s an email from a Canadian Unite for Sight volunteer in Ghana:
Hello,
This is a picture of my tent in Accra, Ghana. My tent was utterly fantastic. Many others had tents they had to assemble while mine popped up completely on it’s own! Also, it was quite easy to fold and store once you got the hang of it. I am so pleased with what I paid for my tent and how useful it was to me. I would recommend it to anyone travelling to an area where malaria is endemic.
Not only did the SansBug protect me from mosquitoes but it also helped me feel safe to sleep on top of any bed.
Thanks!
Gabriela (Saskatoon, Canada)
I lived in a SansBug for 11 months…
November 2, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
I worked in Haiti for 11 months, and slept in my SansBug mosquito net tent every day. I’ve used it on beds, grass and even concrete floors. I was working on the island of La Gonave as an Environmental Engineer, working for a DC-based NGO. I helped build treated drinking water facilities for the local communities.
Being lightweight and compact, it was easy for me to take around, especially while riding on the back of a motorcycle. If people didn’t see me coming, they knew I’d passed by when they spotted the round blue bag from behind!
Traveling on the airlines was even more fun – most people had to ask what it was, but one person even thought I was a circus artist of some sort! I took the SansBug as carry-on with 2 other small bags, and the airlines haven’t had much problem with me. I once had to place it in the closet space up front (where the pilots hang their coats) because it was a narrower plane and it wouldn’t be able to fit in the overhead bin. But again, the flight attendants were pretty accommodating. Sometimes it’s a tough fit for the net to fit through the security scanner, but I put it in diagonally and it usually works. Only once in Haiti it didn’t work but they removed it from the bag and patted it down so it was fine.
I would recommend the SansBug mosquito net tent to anyone looking for a quick and easy set up, and a stylish solution to keeping those bugs out. Especially useful is having the all-enclosed bottom tarp layer to keep the creepy crawlers out (particularly while sleeping on the ground).
Yee from Michigan
How to Stop Bedbugs
October 14, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Here’s a review from England, left on Amazon.co.uk:
“This is the 11th no-bedbug-bite-day since starting to sleep inside my new SansBug tent. Previously I was being bitten daily or every other day. So I feel fairly sure of my ground when I say that I believe that bedbugs cannot enter a zipped-up SansBug tent. The thing that takes up my time is making sure I don’t take bedbugs into the SansBug myself!
They can hide in the seams of clothing and are very small, especially in the early life-cycle stages. So for bedbugs, you have to treat the SansBug much like nurses and surgeons treat an operating theater – do not enter it unless you have tried to make sure you are free of ‘bugs’. Anything I wear in bed or cover myself with only goes inside the SansBug after laundering above 40C, ideally 50C. And then it stays in there with the zip closed – until it comes out for re-laundering. I only open the zip when I need to; I never leave it open.
So now the SansBug is a bedbug-free-zone. If you leave the zip open or enter the SansBug wearing your street clothes, you are asking for trouble.
Bedbugs aside, I like the way the SansBug folds-up, and the subsequent small space it takes up.“
Scout Camp, Canvas Tents and Mosquito Netting
August 23, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
It’s been a hot summer with many temperature records broken all over the country. In fact, this year is the hottest on record in the US, even beating records set during the Dust Bowl. The very hot summer in collaboration with the mild winter and early spring seems to have contributed to a spike in reported cases of West Nile virus. 2012 already has the highest number of cases of WNV disease reported to the CDC since the virus was first detected in the US in 1999.
All the more reason to equip your scout with mosquito netting. The SansBug provides an easy and convenient solution by providing protection at the release of an elastic strap. One user left this feedback on Amazon: “This thing is crazy wonderful. Toss it in the air and it lands as a full little tent.”
Mark, who accompanied his son to scout camp, sent this pic of a SansBug III in a canvas tent: “The canvas tent was basically used as a rain cover for the Sansbug III. I did not stake the left side of the tent so I could have room to get into the tent from the side… The Sansbug was easy to setup and take down. I really enjoy your product.” The SansBug I can be placed on a cot within a canvas tent.
Don’t take a chance… send your scout into the wilderness fully equipped!
SansBug Tents at Camp Buck Toms
July 10, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Dear SansBug Friends,
We had a great week of Boy Scout Summer Camp at Camp Buck Toms in Tennessee. We were in 3-sided cabins known as Adirondacks. Nice sturdy structures that shelter the weather, but open air and accessible to spiders, mosquitoes, and other varmints. The Sansbug I’s (free-standing mosquito net tents) fit nicely in the bunk-beds and provided both protection and peace of mind. They were a big hit for the scouts who had them (and the envy of those who didn’t)!
Best regards,
Kurt Neubek
Houston, TX
Free-standing Mosquito Nets for Conservationists
May 18, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
“(The SansBug) assures me that I have a good bug, scorpion and snake proof tent to sleep in every night.“
Here’s a letter from Rick Williams, the reserve manager of the Northern Jaguar Reserve in northern Sonora, Mexico. The reserve is managed by Northern Jaguar Project (NJP), formed by conservationists from the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. The NJP is dedicated to ensure protection of the jaguar in its northernmost range, as well as a host of other threatened species and habitat. Please visit their website at northernjaguarproject.org to learn more about this beautiful creature and their efforts to protect it.
Rick took the picture on the left when he was using the SansBug III to supervise a construction project. He used a small section of a used billboard tarp for a ground cloth for added thorn protection.
Hello SansBug,
I’m writing to tell you how much I have relied on my (two) SansBugs both for comfort and safety, as well as piece of mind and getting a good night’s sleep. I am the reserve manager for the newly-formed Northern Jaguar Reserve in the northeastern region of the state of Sonora, Mexico. (Yes, we have a sustainable population of wild jaguars, the same as the jungle cat, just south of the U.S. border. They once ranged throughout much of the southern U.S. and we’re hoping our conservation efforts will help to re-populate some of these areas someday through natural dispersal.)
The NJR consists of over 50 thousand acres of former ranches in rough foothill mountains, and with the infrastructure very primitive, I camp every night I’m there, often moving daily to a new location. The ease of setting up and taking down a SansBug is a great help so I can concentrate more on my work than on making and breaking camp every day. And, of course, this convenience assures me that I have a good bug, scorpion and snake proof tent to sleep in every night. Without the SansBug, I’m sure that some nights I would cut corners from being tired, not properly fix a mosquito net or pitch a conventional pole-stake-rope-rainfly tent, and get bitten by something, or at least awakened in the middle of the night by the inevitable buzzing in my ear of mosquitos. As well, I greatly enjoy the almost all net design, because the reserve is hot during much of the year.
Thank you so much for your product, and I might say as well for selling it at a reasonable price.
Sincerely,
Rick Williams
Reserve Manager
Northern Jaguar Reserve
From Anchorage to Baramita
March 31, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Not much to accompany this pic other than it is from a very remote area – Baramita – a small mining village in the north-western part of Guyana which is only accessible by plane or a 7-day trek through the jungle! When you’re going remote, you want a mosquito net that can stand up by itself; not one that needs to be suspended. Here’s the 5/5 feedback left by this customer on Amazon:
“Very Amazing Tent – This tent is great, very light, and very, very easy to put up and take down. The instructions are difficult to read for taking the tent down so I recommend getting on YouTube and watching it there (makes it much easier)…“
Bedbug Tent!
February 16, 2012 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
“I literally went from 2-7 bed bug bites per night to zero the first night in the tent, and I never got one since.”
Here are imag
es of a bedbug in it’s various life cycle, courtesy of Department of Medical Entomology, Westmead Hospital in Australia. Below is the image of the SansBug mesh also magnified by ten. It’s easy to see why Mark was able to remain unscathed after he started sleeping in the SansBug:
“As you’ll recall, I was pretty careless with bedding and clothes inside and outside the tent, but I literally went from 2-7 bed bug bites per night to zero the first night in the tent, and I never got one since. It was absolutely worth the price of the tent to maintain my sanity until I could be out of the apartment for 24 hours, so someone could spray the place down and I wouldn’t have to breath it at all. The ease with which I could set it up and take it down indoors, even in my tiny bedroom, has been great, too. I really do love this thing.”
Bedbug Protection
December 22, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
After Amy Terlitsky mentioned the SansBug’s ability to protect against bedbugs, we’ve seen quite a few sales for the same purpose. Mark, a graduate student at UPenn, sent the following:
“It’s only been a few nights so far, but, as far as I can tell, I have not been bitten since I started sleeping in the tent! (And that’s after 2-5 bites per night, nightly, prior to receiving it, on the extremities or my neck.) I only washed my bedding the first night, too — I haven’t been very vigilant or diligent about not bringing eggs and nymphs in with me. I suppose I might get a few bites if some eggs hatch, but then I’d just wash all the bedding again and wipe down the tent. The tent is definitely helping me preserve my sanity until I get a professional in!”
And here’s an update a few days later:
“Still no bites. All the old ones are fading, so I should be able to easily tell if I get a new one. It’s fantastic.“
Pop-up Mosquito Nets
October 11, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Dear SansBug,
I ordered a SansBug tent to take with me for an annual camping trip to northern Michigan. I am the Recruiting Coordinator at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment and each year we take our new students to a university research property for orientation. The property we go to is affectionately called “Bug Camp.” Needless to say, my new SansBug tent was perfect for my trip this year! Of course my tent was very useful for outdoor areas, but what I loved even more was that it laid perfectly on the bed in my cabin. The cabins are known to be very rustic and often have bugs at night and sometimes mice. Using my new tent this year, helped me sleep better than I ever have there! We also raffled a tent for one of our students to win, which was a big hit with a crowd that hikes, camps, and conducts outdoor environmental research! Thanks again for a great product!
Adam Ancira
Recruiting and Admissions Coordinator
University of Michigan- School of Natural Resources and Environment
Malaria and Mosquito Net Tents
September 28, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
We recently had some high school students from the Copenhagen International School in Denmark use the SansBug II for their trip to Thailand. The students were part of the Burmese Refugee Assistance Program (BRAP), a charitable organization which they founded to help refugees who have migrated to northwest Thailand to escape the political upheaval in eastern Burma (Myanmar). Here is Tim’s feedback about the SansBug:
“We got back last week from a great trip to Thailand. It was an amazing experience and we were so glad that we could help the locals in their daily struggle for survival. The (SansBug) mosquito (net) tents were absolutely brilliant, they helped us so much – none of us got any mosquito bites, no malaria (thank God), no scorpions, snakes, spiders, or lizards in our tents! I have attached… a picture of the hut we slept in with the tents.”
Malaria accounts for 25% of all deaths in eastern Burma. Comparitively, gunshot wounds account for 0.6%. Since malaria prevalence also increases as you move closer to the border with Burma, the BRAP team made a wise decision to take the SansBug with them. You can read more about BRAP and their work on their website.
SansBug in South America
September 7, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
I have attached a few pictures of our tents but there was no way to get a picture of all of them at one time. Our group of 28 stayed in two different homes in Nicaragua and we had your tents spread out all over the place. I believe we had about 16-18 tents with us. They were great to have and kept everything from bugs to chickens away from us while sleeping. The women had to take up the tents each day and they were so easy to fold up and put away! They were definitely worth buying and I won’t be going on any trip like this without it!
Emily, South Carolina
Internet here (Haiti) is too slow to send all pictures, here is one picture from St. Damien hospital’s international volunteers’ tent where I have slept quite comfortably without mosquitoes for the last 3 weeks. I will send the rest when I return.
Matt, Ohio
Our last trip was to Haiti. We are now in Costa Rica using the tents. They are working great.
James, Florida
Travel Mosquito Net
August 25, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
The SansBug travel mosquito net is going places. Here is a review from Daniel Kim of ODPC in Herndon, VA:
“We bought 30 SansBug (mosquito net) tents for our church’s missions trip to The Gambia (West Africa) last year. They were perfect for us because we were looking for light and durable tents with good mosquito netting that wouldn’t cost us a small fortune. I would definitely recommend these tents to anyone!
Here are some pictures of our team sleeping in an open courtyard at our base camp. We were given rooms to sleep in but it was just too hot so most of us decided to take our sleeping pads and SansBug tents outside. It was great to sleep in the open air without the worry of getting bitten by mosquitoes. The best thing we love about these tents was the fact that they were so travel friendly. While in The Gambia we visited several different locations to do our work and there were times where we had to stay the night away from our base camp. Because we had our SansBug travel tents we were able to setup and breakdown quickly. This was very important to us because we knew that we didn’t have much time in the morning before we started our day’s work.”
Bed-Bug Tent?
August 17, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
A bed bug infestation in your home
will probably not only cause your friends to keep their distance but will also result in many nights of insomnia. So when Amy Terlitsky sent us the email below on returning from Liberia, it was another feather in the cap for SansBug.
“Our team returned safe and sound thanks to our (SansBug) tents. Another point to make about the benefit of your tents, is that IF you get to use them on a bunk bed or a mattress, the sturdy plastic lining helps protect from bed bugs!!! Here is a photo of one of our bunks with the Sansbug tents- we had 6 in all. This photo is from Vonzua – Liberia, Africa.”
The super-fine mesh and the sewn-in polyethylene groundsheet offers total protection from bugs. Even if a bed bug hitches a ride into the tent by landing on your clothes or your bed sheets, there’s not much place to hide inside the tent. So if you don’t want to show up for work half asleep and with itchy red welts, look into sleeping in a SansBug tent. The 1-person tent is 86 inches long so it should fit on a bed without a headboard and footboard. The SansBug should allow you to sleep in peace and comfort while you work on long-term measures to control and get rid of bed bugs permanently.
Mosquito Netting for Boy Scouts
July 21, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Here are some photos of the SansBug tents on cots in a boy scout wall tent. My son and two other boys used SansBug (1-person) tents on this trip to Camp Rodney in Maryland last week. Camp Rodney is located on the Chesapeake, the ‘permanent’, canvas scout tents are filled with spiders. The SansBug fit very well inside the wall tents and did an excellent job keeping the boys bug-free! All three boys were thankful to have the SansBug, they all agreed it made their stay at camp much more enjoyable without the worry of having any critters bothering them in the middle of the night.
We will certainly recommend the SansBug to everyone, it is an excellent product!
Best regards,
Lisa, Joe & Joey, NJ
SansBug in Afghanistan
July 5, 2011 by Fayaz · 2 Comments
“Of ALL the tents I looked at, yours was the best, hands down. This one stands up by itself, fits on a cot and is a tight weave!… He was exceptionally pleased with the tent. Everyone was jealous of how well it performed… He told me the other guys were envious as he sat, bug-free, in his tent. He loved it.”
Amy, Pennsylvania
Afghanistan is one country where you wouldn’t want to go down with malaria… or for that matter – any country. The mosquito-borne disease is characterized by alternations between chills and fever with sweating and it may lead to coma and death if not treated promptly. According to the CDC, all areas of Afghanistan which are lower than 6,500 feet in altitude have malaria between April-December. Amy’s son was well protected in his SansBug free-standing mosquito net tent which he placed on top of a military cot. And it’s not just the skeeters – the sand flies (midges) also drive you nuts. If you have a loved one serving abroad and are looking for a GI bed net, the SansBug I is what you need. Unlike other bed nets issued by the military in which you can only lie down, a 6′ person can comfortable sit in the SansBug.
The other side of nature
May 9, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Times are tough. Lots of folks have lost everything they had; whole communities have been wiped off the map and many lives in the Midwest and Southeast have been lost in the past couple of weeks. To top it all, an increase in mosquitoes and vector-borne diseases is expected with all the flooding.
In an effort to make the SansBug pop-up mosquito net tent even more affordable, we have decided to utilize another low-cost service provided by FedEx (in collaboration with USPS) but which would probably increase delivery time by 2-3 days. Of course, we can still offer faster delivery upon request. Otherwise, take advantage of the reduced shipping together with the limited time discount.
Cot in a SansBug
April 27, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
“All the groups before us had been using mosquito nets hung from the ceiling. At our location we only had one ceiling cross beam in one room, so it would have taken a small engineering feat to make ceiling nets work. The (free-standing SansBug) tents were definitely the right way to go for us.”
Here are some pics of the SansBug 2-person tents in Haiti taken by a group from North Carolina. This was the first time that the SansBug has been used with a cot – most people place it on an air bed as can be seen from the previous pictures. According to Dave, the cots were 6 feet long so it was a snug fit but it worked.
Since the SansBug II is over-sized, we asked him about extra baggage fees, if any, that they had to pay: “Because we told the airline that we were going to Haiti for relief work they pretty much turned a blind eye to all of our additional check-in baggage. That was really nice.”
What Seasonal Product?
April 4, 2011 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
It’s been a busy winter. The SansBug mosquito net tent is always a favorite for volunteers and missionaries heading to Haiti and Africa. In fact, we’ve had a few groups now opting for the 2-person and even the 3-person tents. A few SansBug tents have even made their way to Afghanistan.
Back home… as the sugar-glider (a marsupial that looks like a flying squirrel) is becoming more popular, so is the SansBug. The SansBug is used for “tent-time” as it provides a safe environment for the gliders to climb and run all over the mesh and their owner!
Now that the weather is warming up and everyone is looking forward to picnics and barbecues, the need for an easy-to-use screen tent is more prevalent. The SansBug should be a useful tool in aiding the No Child Left Inside movement. While the older kids are playing soccer and riding bikes, infants and toddlers can also enjoy the greenery and fresh air from within the safe enclosure of the tent whose mesh prevents even the tiniest bugs from getting in.
Unzip. Pull out. Slide off. Fling up.
THANK YOU!!!
December 24, 2010 by Fayaz · 2 Comments
Wow, what a first year it’s been! As versatile as the SansBug mosquito net tent is, it is proving to be a favorite for so many different people.
From military personnel to faith-based groups, volunteers traveling abroad to those wanting to meditate outdoors, boy scouts to sugar-glider owners, geologists working in Alaska to mothers traveling to India… Not many companies can boast of having customers from 44 out of the 48 continental states within their first 10 months. We’ve also had customers clamoring for the SansBug from as far off as Australia, Kenya and several European countries.
Thank you all so much for your support and we’re looking forward to another exciting year. Have a safe and bug-free holiday!
Meditation Tent
October 26, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
What is better than reconnecting with nature than actually physically experiencing it bug-free? I take time to meditate inside it. I even have a screened in porch, but nothing beats being able to feel the earth beneath me while I experience raw nature around me.
I also love taking my son outside to be in the SansBug tent and we will have a ‘picnic’ in our front yard. Or even just being in it in odd times just for fun. I’ve also found that it’s great for laying down in for a little nap and a quick read of a few books. Why be inside when you can be outdoors breathing in the healthy air?
Lately, during the fall, I’ve set it up and we rake up a bunch of leaves in a huge pile next to it and my son plays a variety of imaginary games with the tent (his house) and the leaf pile. It’s really an imagination station for him.
For me, as a single mom, it occupies him safely, and gives me a few minutes to get some light errands done. It’s been an invaluable tool for both of us. Thank you Sansbug Team!
Mikki Lamoureux
Nine Months Later…
September 30, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Almost nine months later, Haiti does not look much different than it did a few days after the earthquake. Recovery is frustratingly slow, primarily because of lack of funds. Very little of the money pledged by the international community has been received. Meanwhile more than a million people continue to live in temporary shelters among the rubble. The shelters don’t offer much protection; last Friday a storm ripped through Haiti killing five and shredding and washing away thousands of shelters. Many people lost all they had – for the second time.
While they wait for crushers, dump trucks and other heavy equipment to clear the mountains of rubble, volunteers like Stephanie are using their own money, time and effort in helping Haiti. Stephanie had gone through Hands On Disaster Response, a US-based volunteer-driven non-profit organization. Although HODR assists volunteers with housing, meals and tools, volunteers have to pay their own airfare. Stephanie spent her time removing rubble, visiting orphanages, assisting in laying down a foundation of a school, building water filters and mentoring students in a youth club.
She had taken a SansBug 1-person tent for the trip and according to her “it was a wonderful thing not to worry about bringing a heavy tent or sleeping in the bunks.”
We had told her that a group heading to Trinidad took the tents as carry-on and stowed them in the overhead bins. She also did the same without any problems. The fact that the 1-person tent “can fit comfortably” in the airplanes’ overhead compartment considerably increases its value as a travel net. Stephanie had also attached a “ceiling fan” to make her bug hut even more comfortable in the heat. Her take on the tent? “I quite enjoyed it and will use it again on my next trip down… hopefully in December.” We hope that the international community will have come together by then and that she will see a substantial dent in the mountain of rubble.
SansBug in Haiti
August 3, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
We’ve had quite a few groups and individuals taking the SansBug net tent to Haiti. Not many pictures have come in yet but Billy Grady of Springfield, MO was kind enough to share the pic on the left. The SansBug pop-up is an ideal tent in such a setting and is much more convenient than suspending a net. For their flight, Billy and his team threw their 7 tents in a large duffle bag which can be obtained from any army surplus store.
This seemed like a good idea so we ordered a 30” x 50” duffle bag with a side zipper from armynavydeals.com to try it out. Here it is below with 12 tents in it!
With free shipping on orders over $200, the SansBug 1-person free-standing tent is a great alternative to the regular nets which need to be suspended and which cost about the same amount.
SansBug has Canada covered
June 4, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
When you talk about mosquitoes in North America, the swampy Florida Everglades comes to mind… or Texas which hosts the most species. But the highest concentration is actually found in the Arctic tundra where mosquito swarms can gray grey the sky. The pesky skeeters even compel the caribou to gather in enormous herds (post-calving aggregations), sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands!
We are now shipping the SansBug mesh tent within Canada just in time to catch the wave of mosquitoes expected in the next 2 weeks. According to the City of Winnipeg’s entomologist, this summer’s mosquito infestation may be the worst in 5 years.
Make the most of your summer by getting outdoors and reconnecting with nature… without being eaten alive (or carried off by those buggers!). Send an email to sales (at) sansbug dot com with your order, complete shipping address and phone number and a representative will get back to you. Merci de votre fidélité!
Choosing a mesh tent for your trip to Haiti
If you have a 6-person-volunteer-team heading to Haiti, what kind of mesh tent do you get them? A $200-professional-backpacker tent for each team member? And if the place you’re going to be staying at has space limitations, are you looking forward to erecting a tent every single night and taking it down the next morning?
With the SansBug mesh tent, you slide off an elastic strap and it explodes 
into shape. Blink and you’ll miss it pop-up! Now you can plop into your sleeping bag without the hassle of joining poles while getting bitten by mosquitoes. Rainy season in Haiti is May-July and you don’t want to take a chance with malaria. One bite is all it can take. Folding up your tent should take you less than 10 seconds even if you’re still half asleep! The SansBug is a breeze to use, pun intended.
But… but don’t you get what you pay for? Dispel the thought of a poor-quality, heavy and tiny tent. We’ll let our customers rave about the quality but let’s talk about the weight and dimensions for the 1-person. Weight? 2.5 lbs. Yes, that’s two and a half pounds… about what a 32 oz. drink weighs! Dimensions? More than seven feet in length and 3 feet in width… that’s even more than what a twin mattress offers! With a height of 3 feet, a six-foot tall person can comfortably sit in it.
The 6 tents could easily fit into two of our 28” x 28” x 3” cartons (62 linear inches and 18lbs total weight… well within the free allowance), which if shrink-wrapped should be flight-worthy. If you’re traveling alone or if each group member is carrying his or her own net, the 1-person tent fits comfortably in the aircraft overhead bin. So if you’re heading to Haiti or any other malaria-endemic area, the SansBug mesh tent is your instant refuge. If you know of such a group, let them know about the tent and cash in on your reward points!
World Malaria Day is April 25
March 25, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
It had not rained for months and the cattle had to be taken far in search of grass. “The European breeds are not used to walking long distances and milk production has dropped,” explained Abdulla as we looked at the cows chewing cud in the shade. It was March 2008 and temperatures were hovering above 90. With the humidity, it seemed more like 120. Suddenly he spotted a heifer on the udders of a cow and he shouted out in Swahili to his manager. Soon, the thief had a muzzle on. “We have to be careful to spot such vices; otherwise we come in the morning to find little or no milk.”
I was in Gazi Bay, a quiet village 34 miles south of Mombasa, Kenya. In the international arena, Gazi is best known for its 2.4 square miles of mangrove forests and is probably the most studied mangrove ecosystem in the world. The resident population, about 1500 (most of whom survive on less than $2 a day), depends on the mangroves for house and boat construction, firewood and providing fish habitat. Some mangrove species are also used to make medicinal products, dyes and the green Avicennia marina logs are used to keep away mosquitoes since they are very smoky when burnt (the Kenyan coast is malaria endemic and about half of the hospital admissions are due to malaria). Overexploitation of the forest has led to degradation but thanks to reforestation efforts, more than 1 million trees have been replanted at Gazi.
Abdulla invited me home for a delicious meal of biryani, a spicy dish of rice and meat which is very common in the muslim world. Behind his house was a tree with one almost-ripe jackfruit growing from the trunk, several meters high. I loved jackfruit but I never knew that they grew so high off the ground, much less directly from the trunk. It actually is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, weighing up to 80 lbs. I wouldn’t want to be under one of those when it fell! Abdulla promised me he would send it to me in Mombasa when it ripened.
After lunch, I got a tour of a boardwalk through the mangroves. It was built by the locals to provide a source of income to the community and to raise awareness of the need for conservation efforts. In South East Asia, villages sheltered by mangroves suffered less from the tsunami as compared to the open stretches of coast which felt its full effects.
Not wanting to be caught in the Sunday evening traffic jam at the Likoni ferry, I left Gazi around 4pm after loading my car with oranges and apple mangoes (a mango cultivar whose flesh is firm, sweet and doesn’t leave fibers sticking in between your teeth). The oranges are a little dried out, Abdulla told me as he bid me kwaheri… hopefully it will rain soon…
In commemoration of World Malaria Day on April 25, Hakuna Matata Tents would like to donate a share of the proceeds from its SansBug tent sales. Until April 24, for every 20 tents that are sold, we will donate one tent to a needy family in Gazi. Ahsante sana!
Show 'n Tell
March 2, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
Love your SansBug tent? Spread the word and get rewarded for it! Just ask your family/friends/neighbors/workmates/… to type your name or email address (or even invoice number) in the “Referred By” box when they make a purchase.
You will earn 1 point for every $1 that they spend on their first purchase. For taking the trouble to let us know that they were referred by you, they will also earn 1 point for every $1 that they have spent. Each of you can continue referring new friends and continue accumulating points!
For every 200 points that you accumulate, we will mail you a $10 Amazon gift card. In the future we will give you the option to register where you can log in to your account and view your transaction history and reward points. Until then, we will send you an email notification when somebody whom you’ve referred makes a purchase.
So flaunt your SansBug tent in the backyard and at the park and wow everyone with your folding skills; get acquainted with outdoor clubs and organizations at the local school, college, community center and other institutions and rave about the benefits of a tent which pops open and folds down in seconds. Start earning points today!
Return of the Bug
February 16, 2010 by Fayaz · Leave a Comment
While driving up to Montreal last summer, we stopped at a gas station in Cornwall, Ontario around dusk. The moment we stepped out of the vehicle, we were greeted by a cloud of mosquitoes. Unable to withstand the stinging assault from the tiny piranhas for long, we beat a hasty retreat back to the car, taking a few hitchhikers with us.
It was as recently as 1951, after almost five million house spray applications of DDT, that malaria was considered eradicated from the US. In the past decade the number of mosquito-borne diseases has increased globally. Although the numbers are much smaller than pre-WWII, there is still cause for concern. There’s West Nile reported all over the U.S., chikungunya in Italy, dengue in Florida and even occasional outbreaks of malaria in California, Texas, Michigan, and near NYC. Much of the influx is due to the expansion of global trade and travel. In the mid ‘80s, importation of used tires for the retread market brought stowaway Asian Tiger mosquitoes to Houston from where they were trucked around the U.S.
The SansBug mosquito net tent is a welcome relief for those seeking respite from mosquitoes, as well as anyone wanting to enjoy the outdoors. Whether you’re a mother in Cornwall, Ontario taking your baby out to play in the backyard, a book lover who wants to relax with a novel without being bothered by stubborn flies, a picnicker who wants to ward off bees or a tourist looking for that perfect travel mosquito net, you can now look forward to bug-free outdoor enjoyment.
I don’t know what I would have done without my SansBug during my 4-month tour of South Asia. I didn’t have to look for multiple spots to suspend a mosquito net or join poles to erect a tent for each of the 120 nights (and as many siestas) that I needed protection. Although I could use some improvement on my manual dexterity, I had instant refuge after a long day.
We love the SansBug and we’re very excited to share it with you. In the near future, we plan to launch a rewards program that will enable you to earn points for shopping and also for referring your friends! Stay tuned for more info. Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to share your bug stories while you’re here.
