Comments on: Top 10 mosquito cities

By: Surellin

Surellin — Wed, 16 May 2018 18:16:48 +0000

Ah, the DDT truck. How about the camphor sticks? Came in aluminum tubes like cigars, you’d rub the skeeter bites with the camphor to make it stop itching. Or that was the theory.

By: Surellin

Surellin — Wed, 16 May 2018 18:16:07 +0000

How about the camphor sticks? Came in aluminum tubes like cigars, you’d rub the skeeter bites with the camphor to make it stop itching. Or that was the theory.

By: Seawriter

Seawriter — Wed, 16 May 2018 15:19:49 +0000

If a city has a worse mosquito problem than Houston, they have a mosquito problem. And both Chicago and NYC have Houston beat by a country mile.

By: John Guilfoyle

John Guilfoyle — Wed, 16 May 2018 06:38:02 +0000

We used to ride our bikes about half-a-block behind the spraying trucks…until our parents found out…they made us come in until you couldn’t see the fog any more…bah.

Closer than that distance & you’d be gagging over your handlebars…good times! 😉

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Wed, 16 May 2018 04:34:49 +0000

We had the fog-spewing trucks in my Texas Panhandle hometown, but the really serious mosquito killing was handled by the crop dusters.
One of them came by overhead just when a cousin of mine had climbed up to the top of his tree, just to show off.
He came down again mighty quick.

By: Cornhead

Cornhead — Wed, 16 May 2018 00:44:23 +0000

Oxitec (a sub of XON) has genetically modified skeeters but no one will pay for it.

By: Gary D G

Gary D G — Tue, 15 May 2018 23:59:14 +0000

I never remember getting bitten at Wah-Nee from ’47-’57.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Tue, 15 May 2018 22:38:16 +0000

My former next door neighbor here in TX was from Monterrey (city of tightwads/muy codo 🙂 ) Mexico, which is in a semi-arid region. She was continually complaining about the mosquitos here. There were probably more mosquitos here than Monterrey, I would grant you. I hardly noticed the mosquitos here, which were a lot less common than they were in my rural New England hometown.

I claimed that my eating garlic helped ward off the mosquitos, but that is apparently an old wives’ tale.

By: steve walsh

steve walsh — Tue, 15 May 2018 20:11:47 +0000

I recall that when I was a little kid in eastern MA (1960’s) the trucks used to come through at night and spray for mosquitoes. I still recognize the smell.

By: Julie near Chicago

Julie near Chicago — Tue, 15 May 2018 19:25:54 +0000

Neo, thank you for your articles on this, and especially for the links you give — with the follow-on links from the linked articles.

I wish it were possible to bash sense into the heads of some people (especially certain relatives).

Anyway, it’s good to have sources to examine, and to cite with some degree of confidence.

The DTN article on DDT to which you linked is particularly excellent in that regard. Unfortunately, the people who most need to read it are the very ones who’ll write it off as rightwingnutDavidHorowitzextremistlies, lacking all credibiity.