Do you think you have a horrible job? Consider the 47 employees of the Harris County Mosquito and Vector Control Division. After every major weather event in the Houston area, these resilient public health workers are deployed to 21 locations around Harris County. They work in teams of two. One employee stands still, bare-limbed and without insect repellent, while the other counts how many mosquitoes land on him in a minute. If the number is over thirty, the county sends a pesticide truck.
“That’s how far our staff will go to protect the county from the risk of mosquito-borne viruses,” said Max Vigilant, the division’s appropriately named director. “They definitely take a few bites.” In the wake of the deadly wind storm that hit southeast Texas last week, 19 of the 21 teams recorded at least thirty bites per minute. (Oh!)
Those results simply confirmed what Houstonians like me already knew. To paraphrase Shakespeare: hell is empty and all the mosquitoes are here. The bloodsuckers surround us as soon as we leave. They follow us to our cars and houses. They attack our pets. They despise our pathetic attempts at pest control. No amount of smelly citronella candles, beeping Thermacell devices, and sticky cans of Off! Deep Woods Sportsmen is enough to stop the attack. “This year we have a combination of heavy rainfall, high temperatures and lots of sunshine,” Vigilant told me. “That presents an opportunity for mosquitoes to breed earlier than normal.”
Mosquitoes are nothing new in Southeast Texas. The Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca, who was shipwrecked near Galveston Island in 1528, found “a large number of mosquitoes of three types that are very bad and annoying.” He observed the people of Karankawa smearing themselves with spicy alligator fat to keep away the pestilent hordes. Early Anglo settlements on Buffalo Bayou, in present-day Houston, were decimated by annual epidemics of mosquito-borne yellow fever. One early visitor described the swamp town as “one of the muddiest and nastiest places in the world.”
Eventually, yellow fever was controlled in Texas, at least for now, but mosquitoes are here to stay. They are an unavoidable nuisance to Bayou City life, like fire ants, flying cockroaches, and Joel Osteen. We even feel a perverse pride in our bloodthirsty little friends. Until a recent name change, minor league baseball fans in nearby Sugar Land cheered the Skeeters. A decade ago, a local advertising agency went against the grain by boasting about our mosquitoes in a clever campaign called “Houston. It’s worth it.”
Earlier this week, I asked X users to share their mosquito horror stories. Catherine Clarke, a Houston investment manager, told me that before working in the garden last weekend, she covered her entire body with insect repellent, including her face. A mosquito bit his eyelid. Another user reported that a mosquito got into her mouth. One Houston native said she “doesn’t remember when it was this bad.” If anything, the situation outside of Houston appears to be even worse. Marissa Riolo, a homemaker in Montgomery County, north of Houston, said her family can’t swim in her pool because “any part of the body that isn’t underwater is just covered in skeeters.” A Galveston resident who suffered more than fifty bites in recent days described the island as a “war zone.”
And it’s not just Southeast Texas. Across the state, unusually hot weather and heavy rain have created the perfect conditions for a biblical plague. “We just saw an attack,” said Robin Neely, owner of a Mosquito Shield pest control franchise in the Plano-Frisco area, north of Dallas. “They’re really aggressive this year.” Texas A&M entomologist Wizzie Brown told me that climate change has extended the state’s mosquito season to encompass the entire year. “Mosquitos rely on environmental cues,” she said. “They’re not thinking, ‘Oh, it’s January; We don’t need to be active today.’ “
Texas is home to about 85 species of mosquitoes. The most common are the black and white Aedes albopictus and the tan-brown Culex quinquefasciatus, which lays its eggs in stagnant water. Periods of heavy rain can attract so-called flood mosquitoes, such as Aedes vexans, which lay their eggs in dry ditches or drainage areas. The eggs hatch when they come into contact with water. Although flood mosquitoes generally do not carry diseases, they are bigger and meaner than the more common varieties. “You know when they bite you,” Brown said.
Despite widespread reports of a Mosquitogeddon, experts told me this year is not the worst on record. In 2014, Harris County experienced the worst outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile virus in recent memory. Vigilant told me that 2020 was also unusually bad, although many Texans didn’t realize it because COVID-19 restrictions kept them inside. In addition to sending human guinea pigs into the field, Vigilant’s department sets hundreds of mosquito traps across the county and then tests the captured bloodsuckers for disease. On Wednesday, the county reported its first positive West Nile mosquito of the season. It was captured in Houston’s 77019 ZIP code, which includes a portion of the affluent River Oaks neighborhood. The mosquito control department responded by spraying the affected area with insecticide. Local officials have warned of a possible increase in mosquito-borne illnesses this year. Last year, six deaths in Texas were linked to West Nile, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
To protect against mosquitoes, experts recommend using repellent with DEET, emptying standing water on your property, and keeping your grass trimmed. When I asked X users how mosquito treatedSome suggest home remedies like catnip oil, peppermint oil, or lemon eucalyptus oil. Others recommended wearing long sleeves or just staying inside. One lucky texan She claimed she had never been bitten.
“I really doubt it,” said Brown, the Texas A&M entomologist. He explained that mosquito bites are itchy because of our skin’s allergic reaction to mosquito saliva. Some of us are more sensitive to skeeter bites than others. “Some people may be bitten by mosquitoes and simply not have that reaction. “It is a controversial topic.”
Research also supports the idea that some people are simply tastier to mosquitoes. And if you’re thinking of coping with your frustration by drinking a beer on the patio, beware: according to multiple studies, alcohol consumption appears to dramatically increase the chances of being stung. Spiked blood, anyone?
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