Go Big or Go Home?

Last week I posted that in one day I had received 370k comments in my spam folder in the a 24 hour period.  Things have slowed down a little bit, this morning I have 564K. SMDH!!!!!

When I contacted wp support, they suggested that I activate the comments option that makes name and email required.  Ok did that.

I also added almost 100 individual ip addresses to the block list

I have added all the repeating words that I found in the posts (ty SDC for the tip)

I have blocked anyone using an email from outlook (as that was a huge portion of addresses)

I went through the 1.8k comments that I have approved in the past and removed any from an anonymous user as was suggested by another blogger.  (thank you Ralph)

Tom and Tanya both suggested bot blockers and upping my spam control.  Whatever version on wp I am using only allows me to use askiment, and it says it have blocked another 300k in spam.

I switched back to all comments needing to go through moderation ( sorry for this guys), but after my phone going off ever 2 minutes with notifications for an hour, I have now removed WP from my phone.  Which means I will be checking it less frequently.

I want to apologize in advance if I miss something you have commented on, I am deleting spam in bulk, and although I do scan it first, there are literally thousands of comments.

The only other thing  I can think to try is switching to self hosted.  I have heard of sites like godaddy, siteground, bluehost.  Would anyone mind sharing what host you use?  I need a site that will “hold my hand” so to speak .  Thank you in advance!