For decades, I stalked the invertebrate enemy.
I bought a propane-powered contraption that promised to lure and kill mosquitoes by mimicking human breathing. I caught about three.
I fogged my deck before guests visited, removed all traces of standing water and dropped mosquito dunks into a bucket of water to serve as a trap. And still, the bloodsuckers attacked.
I lined my walkway with citronella tiki torches — until one of the lamps lit my shrubs on fire.
I hired a company to spray a garlic-based repellent in the bushes, and I scattered garlic granules in the lawn. It didn’t bother the mosquitoes a bit, and my yard smelled like a pizzeria. (It did keep the vampires away.)
In desperation, I resorted once or twice to having the spraying company use chemical insecticides that actually do kill mosquitoes — and probably humans, too. But even that was a short-lived fix.
So when my wife and I bought a place in the Virginia piedmont last year, I was prepared for the worst. If I had that much trouble with mosquitoes on my postage-stamp lot in the city, surely I would be donating a quart of blood every evening to their country cousins.
But they didn’t bite! Here, in the mountains, I walk the fields and putter about in the woods without wearing my usual Eau de DEET, and yet the mosquitoes do not feast. I sit on the porch at dusk, baring my arms to all comers — and not so much as a nibble.
It isn’t my imagination. Entomologists tell me this is part of a worldwide phenomenon. Continue here....
-- Dana Milbank
