Moths, and other small
insects tend to be attracted to lights. When these are your normal
tungsten bulbs or
neon strip lights, this is not a problem. The
beasties bounce of the lamp repeatedly until they die of exhaustion, or flee out of the window into the cool air of a
June evening.
However, if like me you have a 500 watt
quartz-
halogen lamp in the corner of your room, you're in trouble. Q-H lamps are designed to run much much hotter than normal tungsten bulbs. The halogen (usualy
iodine) is present to stop the tungsten
filament from degrading at high tempratures. As such the bulbs last for years. The quartz bulb is there because normal glass (which is NOT pure silicon dioxide) would melt at such high temperatures. When a small insect flies into such a heat source (usualy over 1000
centigrade) it burns. The smell this produces is similar to
the smell of burning human hair, a
sulphorous organic smell. It's very unpleasent, and as a result of it, you are forced to open your window. At which point more insects fly in..... giving an
infinite loop of insect
destruction.