Saturday 23 June 2012

Mosquito Mayhem





Mossies have always been a pest in Bodrum and I've learnt to cover up or retreat indoors at dusk to avoid them.  In the village we weren't too affected by the little blighters because the frogs in the pond, geckos in the house and bats swooping over the pool, kept numbers down to a manageable quantity.  So I've been surprised by the number of itchy lumps appearing over my body in the week since I came back from Scotland.  My husband is also uncharacteristically itching and scratching.  Something is definitely amiss.  I was watering the garden yesterday morning and felt a dart in my arm and caught sight of the perpetrator for the first time.  A tiny black and white striped mosquito, quite unlike our usual bigger brown variety.  A visit to google-land identified this varmint as an Asian Tiger Mosquito and the bad news is that they don't wait until dusk, they bite all the time. They are a recent introduction, thought to have come in with imports. So while our bats, geckos and frogs are taking five, these immigrants are drinking our blood.  It's a toss up which is the most unhealthy - slapping on DEET day and night or risking the long list of diseases these blood suckers carry.  I shall come back from my next trip to Scotland with a consignment of Avon's " Skin so Soft." The burley, tweed-togged gamekeepers up there all swear by it to protect them from the midges. The idea that under their kilts and plus-fours, those tartan lads have skin as soft as a baby's bottom cheers me up no end. 





21 comments:

  1. Avon should be paying you for this... I'm going to get some, even if only to conjure up your image of the gamekeepers's nether regions when I look at it. Hope it works for you. J.

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  2. I hope the gamekeepers don't get wind of this blog.

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  3. wishing you relief from the mosquitoes...if they become overwhelming here in Florida, I'll do as Janice is doing...get some Avon (for much the same reason LOL ;)

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    1. I will have to get the guys to line up for a photo for you girls.

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  4. I live in Scotland and use Skin So Soft when I go camping it really works. I also use it when I visit Turkey, every evening when the sun goes down I spray it on and never have any bites.

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    1. I've looked on the Avon-Turkey web site and the don't have the same spray oil version here.

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  5. Hello again, I've never seen an Asian Tiger mosquito but I can see from that photo why it is so named. And it sounds as fierce as a tiger. (Not that I've ever met a tiger in the wild, just at the zoo.) Remember that Avon product and stock up on it the next time you fly to Scotland and return home.
    Until then, just what are you going to do?????? Peace.

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  6. Thanks for the warning, B to B. I (Jolee) am a mosquito's favorite dish. Folks like to have me around just to distract the buggers! And now these newcomers - Oy! We'll have to order some Skin So Soft from our next visitors. Good luck in keeping these new devils at bay.

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  7. It's dreadful this year. I'm stuck watering the garden as I'm on my own at the moment. I cover myself from head to toe but they still get me. And yes you're right, they bite all day. We've also had swarms of black hopping beetles on our balcony (not the stag beetle type)..have you had those? They don't bite but they blody attack as soon as you walk out of the door. Oh the joys of living in Turkey!

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    1. I'm glad you think it's worse this year. Thought I was just going soft. we have brown beetles that throw themselves against the windows.

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  8. . . that's globalisation for you - the blood-sucking elites are spreading around the world and sucking the rest of us dry!
    Had the odd few of these around our house this year, but the bane of my life is a tiny black fly that brings me out in great welts.

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  9. The black flies bite and draw blood. I hate them too.

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  10. What is going on? I was sitting in my sister's house in south London and a jumbo jet of a mozzie buzzed around my head. It was fat and slow, and landed on the laminate. I made sure it saw God.

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    1. They seem to be on course for world domination this year

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  11. I'm normally immune to mozzies but not this year and there's something new...a tiny black thing which produces huge itchy lumps in seconds.
    Americans here used the Avon product so I'm getting a friend to post me down a supply....perish the thought it should be available in Costa Rica

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    1. It's the black ones which are causing all the problems.

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  12. I live in a big city...we don't have too many mosquitoes sometimes. But the ones we get you can get the "Nile Virus"...which is not a good thing.
    When I go to Izmir to visit my husband's family I see a few times a week some big truck rolls around spraying...and then there is absolutely nothing flying around. Sometimes I wonder, if it kills them lil' pests how about us????

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  13. This happens in Bodrum too and they spray at dusk. this gets rid of the usual mossies, but doesn't affect the ones around in the daytime. when the first machines started spraying, I was horrified to see the children running behind , covered in the fumes.

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  14. I don't miss them here in England, though I must say would jump on the next plane to Bodrum inspite of them! - hope you get them under control, not fun.

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