Monday, July 16, 2012

Mosquito Plague

The big news here in Gainesville, Florida is that in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Debby, we’ve been hit by a mosquito plague and I am covered in uncomfortable and itchy bites.  They kept me awake for most of one night, such was the discomfort.

The joy of mosquito bites!
The reason for the mosquito plague is the massive amount of water that Tropical Storm Debby rained down on us not long ago.  Mosquitoes like standing water as a venue for their egg laying.  Even if it’s dry, the mosquito eggs can sit around for months, then spring into life when the rain comes.

By the way, for the linguists out there, the shortened name for mosquitoes in England tends to be “mozzies”, but in the USA they are more commonly referred to as “skeeters”.

Anyway, I am bitten to hell. 

A range of cures and reliefs have been offered to me for mozzie bites, ranging from dabbing the bites with gin, to tea tree oil.  The alcoholic cure maybe sounds the slightly more appealing, but I am using Cortizone at present.

I am spraying myself with “Off!”, when I go out, a DEET spray, which the skeeters don’t like (at least in theory!).

 

The mosquitoes are worst in the morning and at sunset.  Unfortunately, at the end of the last week, when I put the trash/rubbish out, the cat decided to make a dash for freedom and explore the neighbourhood.  Pets aren’t supposed to roam around where we live, so normally the cat spends its time shut inside, or out on the (mosquito-netted) porch.  Anyway, I went after the cat and eventually managed to retrieve it, but got bitten about a zillion times in the process.

We have mosquitoes in the UK, but there aren’t a lot of them.  There are midges up in Scotland which are maybe just as bad, or worse in some respects, although they don’t give you any tropical diseases!

9 comments:

  1. The state bird of Florida.

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    1. They have certainly been more prevalent recently.

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  2. And you seem to react to them pretty poorly! Most of us just get a bit of a bump, but you get teacup sized lumps on you! lol

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  3. That is my body rejecting them! :-)

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  4. State bird up in Maine too - tho we got really lucky last week as there seemed to be hardly any in Bar Harbor. Plenty in Blue Hill tho' where my husband was :-(

    Some of us just seem to react much worse to bites than others. We had to find a 24 hour chemist when my son got bitten by bugs in the UK a couple of years ago. He and I both react much worse than DH and DD do.

    Love that picture of he giant skeeter! Did you take it?

    How's your tooth BTW?

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    1. My mother has real problems with bites. I remember one time in Germany, her hand puffed up to about twice the size, and she had to go to a doc.

      My teeth aren't great. I've got an appointment with a dentist here at the end of the month. I have insurance but dentistry is still massively expensive here compared to what I paid in the UK. I've been tempted to go back to the UK for a month and get the work done there on the NHS - it sounds absurd, but it seems cheaper to fly somewhere else!

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  5. I remember when I thought I needed a root canal done at one point, my mother got the price list from her local dentist and for the same price as having a root canal done in the US I could have flown to the UK AND paid for the root canal to be done over there. Prices in the UK have gone up since then though, and my dentist over there no longer accepts NHS patients. (Not that I'm technically eligible for NHS treatment anyway after almost 27 years in the USA!)

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  6. Toothpaste. For the bug bites. I mean, for your teeth, too, but they help with the skeeter bites:)

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  7. And that was not meant to imply anything about your teeth! Lol- I just realized that the comment above was about teeth and I was recommending toothpaste. Oy.

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