This Old House: The Yellow Light Solution

Summertime and the livin' is easy -- or is it? Many of us enjoy the pleasures of whole house air conditioning, dry, cool and comfortable inside, when it is warm and humid outside. Sometimes the weather just wants to make us stay inside, especially after sundown when it's time to turn on the outside lighting, which is a real necessity for us. There are not many street lights here.

Our home is in an area with a lot of woods nearby. Deer are known to roam the streets (or on occasion walk up your driveway so they can check out the yummy plants and trees you have in your front yard), whacky rabbits love to hide in my bushes and rush out in front of you as if on a dare to catch them. Acquisition of a wheeled, locking garbage can finally persuaded the pesky raccoons to search for easier targets elsewhere. We still find snakes, and the occasional skunks and brown bears that have been seen a few years ago not too far away. All the forest critters, large and small are thriving. A neighbor has finally quit feeding the birds in their backyard so the squirrels have moved a few blocks over. There are some newcomers, too, foxes and cayotes have moved into the nearby woods.

These animals love to roam around late at night, so we need some lights on outside to discourage close encounters.

During the winter months we use regular white lightbulbs in our outside lighting fixtures and that works fine. But what we forgot to put on the list for the heat and humidity of summer was new yellow lightbulbs on the lights that are close to walkways or above an entryway. The bigger animals don't try to sneak into your house, but the bugs think they are welcome --you open the door, they fly right inside and this year has been a particularly annoying one trying to catch the ones that do get in, but we'll head out to the store soon and get the yellow ones which seem to be of some help as most bugs prefer the brighter white light.