Mosquitoe Replleent funny story !!

Well I have a great friend who helps me when I'm not able to get arround. Last week she brought me some new bug repellent, I was so excited she had found it for just $2.00, I have a terrible problem with bugs here, Well any way for the last 2 nights I have been using it and I am covered from head to toe with bites. I mean everywhere !! Tonight they were so bad I saw at least 10 at one time on my leg. So I came in and am doctoring all of my bites, I just happened to have the can in my hand and Im reading the label and I see sun screen listed and nice pleasing smell, but no bug repellent, I have been spraying myself with sunscreen for 2 evenings, Its a wonder I can get out of bed in the mornings (being that stupid) well I'm not alone my friend thought it was too!! She said she read on the bottle sunscreen and repellent, but put that bottle down and picked up another that she thought was the same. It had a cute little frog on the bottle and I didnt read it,, I just assumed since she had read the bottle it must be ok ! Whats that diease carried by mosquitoes? I called and told her if I'm dead in the morning just to burry me in the rose bushes,,, LOL

Must've been "insect attractant". :) Glad you discovered the error before you scratched yourself wacky!

Our mosquitoes seem particularly plentiful this summer for some reason. I slather the repellant all over every time I go out in the garden, but always get a couple of bites.

You'd think, with the general drought, there'd be less water, and fewer mosqitoes. But nooooo!
Deb

I wonder if we have some sort of Super Mosquitoes down here!!!!! they find me everywhere,,,maybe its all the fertilizers. I've been using THE RECEIPE fertilizer I found in the Brugs forum maybe thats it !!LOL Megan O

You don't have standing water hanging around do you? Half filled pots . Fish pond? Poorly drianing ditch etc.

No extra water,,, I really cant understand where they are coming from I live on a farm and there is nobody close to me that has a pond or anything there is a stream about 200 feet away but thats dried up this year..no just bad luck...LOL

Yup. I don't have standing water either, but there is a large pond at the farm down the street. There still seem to be more of them about than last year, though. When I was a kid, and we'd play outside at night (small town, so no problem), I remember coming in the house and my friend and I passing the rubbing alcohol back and forth and just sloshing it all over our legs to try and curb the itching!

Have you ever used Skin So Soft (by Avon) as an insect repellant? Years ago when we lived in Georgetown and would go to the boat races, I noticed everyone has a little spray bottle close by. The knats and mosquitoes are plentiful in this area because there is alot of marsh land. You mix half SOS and half water, It works!

Hmmm... I might try that skin so soft, I hate using chemicals on anything especially on me !!I But would go crazy from all the bugs if I didn't use something.. I know that using ammonia works to help stop the itch and a wet bar of soap also helps just rub on some soap and leave it.

Skin so soft works the best for me on knats. Most evil bug of all time.

BSD: Coincidence! Georgetown was the "small town" I was talking about in my earlier post. :)
Is that your home town or were you a temporary Georgetonian?

I don't mess around when it comes to insect repellant. DH says Skin so Soft works for him, but I have a giant can of Deep Woods Cutter on hand all the time! Darn mosquitoes love me.

Core: I'm with you about gnats/knats. Little tiny flying teeth.
Deb

Debin,
Georgetown is my home and also my husbands. We graduated from Winyah High and married after college so have not actually lived there since 1963. Conway is only 40 miles away. We lived in the Bayview area or what is now Maryville and that was mosquito heaven. We played outside at night because you had to spray your house with that great flint gun, close it up and go back in hours later. Isn't it amazing how we actually lived thru all that!!

Good to hear from a good ole Georgtown girl.
B

BSD:
Too cool. I was Winyah HS class of '72. :)
Deb

Anyone used the 'don't bite me' patch or Cactus Juice (www.dontbitemepatch.com and www.cactusjuicetm.com) ? These products were written up in the Raleigh News and Observer last week. I'm always a cynic, as in my yard, even DEET is only about 80% effective (and I won't use it unless I absolutely have to). I've never found a so-called "safe" or truly "natural" product that works, and I've ordered the Cactus Juice to try.....

We use to have deep woods wipes at work. Not sure who made them but they worked very well. Only problem was very serious warnings on them that made me think they weren't a very good idea to use. It basicly said unless you are in the prime of your life you should not use these. The warnings were full on.

I was just reading about Deet-even though I probably should know that its not good to use alot, for some reason, that fact "took" last night for me. I use it every am and every pm because of the no see ums-they drive me crazy. So I just ordered a lemon euculyptus oil repellent. The CDC says that it is even more effective than Deet for mosquitos and other bugs. Has anyone tried that? Or anything else besides Skin so soft? I used to use Skin so soft-but I put it on straight-never thought to cut it with water, and I hated the oily feel. Plus I figured I must be clogging up my pores big time. It does work though.

Whusssup, tigerlily!?! Let me know if the lemon euc. oil works...DD is a mosquito magnet! And she seems to be highly sensitive to the bites, too...swells something awful! Me, I'm with y'all on the gnats...ewwww! Wonder how many one needs to swallow to make a serving of protein, lol!!

I love when I get them up my nose.

You're all cracking me up...Here's a great way to end all our mosquito and squirrel and deer issues.....take a beautiful forest, chop down all the trees, reroute all the streams and creeks underground, strip off all the topsoil as you "fix" the topography, build lots of buildings and cover what's left with concrete. Problem solved!!!!

So when the mosquitos and deer and squirrels really make me mad, I just remember, their presence means I have a welcoming, healthy ecosystem in my yard----and other places around me do not. Hey, they gotta go somewhere for dinner.....right? I've been plenty of places near my home where their ain't nary a skeeter or a squirrel...and it scares me!! Imagine what you have to do and spray to not have a single mosquito or squirrel or chipmunk????

Years ago, if lightening did not start a fire, they used to intentionally burn the forests every year. Some vegetation, like the gorgeous Long Leaf Pine, are dependent upon the annual burns. Another positive side effect was that there were fewer bugs. The native americans started this practice long before our time. Now, with all the development they can't burn as much and the bugs love it.

Those with centepede or St. Augustine lawns also used to burn the thatch off early each spring. It provided nutrients, killed any insects or diseases and actually only looked bad for a week or so if you did it at just the right time. The fresh green coming up through a black background looked beautiful. The extension services had to start downplaying the practice; once again, with heavy development, it became too dangerous.

I rarely feed the fish in my water features, they get plenty of fresh protein from the ev il skeeters.

I got in to water pond big time, I started small and then got bigger and bigger, I dont have a pond now, but I have more bugs now then when I had the ponds??? maybe it's because a had tons of frogs back then! but the frogs brought snakes and at least one was a copperhead and that was the end of my water gardening. I miss my fish! but not the snakes and the frogs, at 1st I liked the frogs I even had a couple of those silly frog huts, but the frogs grew by the hundreds each year untill they were so load you could not enjoy the garden at night because of the noise,but the snakes started getting in the rocks betwwen the liner and the soil and thats when I had to say goodbye to the ponds.

As far as ponds they kill many flying pests. Our pond has bass in it and they are a never ending eating machine.

Good point Alice about burning. Up till about 7 yeras ago they did controlled burns in Bluffton and across the May river. They still do some controlled burns but not large tracts at a time and not close to houses. Where Palmetto Bluff is they use to burn off a 1000 acres or so at a time and that probably did help with bugs. If I could get away with it I would burn off my yard every spring. It's more a problem of controlling where the fire goes. I could contain it to the road one way and the pond the other. The guy next to me is hiding chickens in his yard at the moment (against convants) and I'm sure he would have no problem with burning off the yard and would join me but I'm not sure the rest of the hood would like us doing that. Half my street would understand what and why but the rest would think we're hillbillies.

BTW he let's the chickens (no rooster) loose to eat bugs in the yard. I guess he's collecting eggs from them. I know he's a member of a hunt club out by Ridgeland and he does a bunch of stuff. Every year he raises ducks in his back yard and out at the club he is a bee keeper and raises goats. He gets $10 a Lb for his honey BTW. Seems a little pricey to me but people love to buy local honey.

I grew up on the edge of the marsh on Winyah Bay and recall they burned the marsh every year. Can't recall what time of year it was (many, many years ago!) but I do recall I still had a "gazillion" mosquito bites. Perhaps if the hadn't burned, it'd have ben a trillion-gazillion!

Speaking of which, about an hour ago, I went out and took a brief walk around the yard. I was outside for less than 15 minutes and I came in with 11 mosquito bites - which I counted as I slathered on some Caladryl. Silly me - went out without repellant, thinking it was bright and sunny and high noon and the mosquitos would be less active! Ha!
Deb

You burn in the spring before new growth. The timber guys do it to keep the forest healthy and to limit under growth which could lead to a major fire that kills off the trees. Burning the marsh probably was for kiling bugs.

I wish I had a nighbors with chickens; nothing better than really fresh eggs. We can't have fences or I would sneak a few in myself.

We can have low fences I think 40 inches? Our POA has just formed so we'll see if anyone runs around trying to enforce rules. LOL. Technically we're not allowed to have out buildings or boats in our yards. That would be the first battle I see. We have a parking area but someone got their stainless steel props stolen so no one wants to keep their boat in it. I know one lady has a problem with that.

Next will be the out buildings which at least 25% of the people here have a shed, tiki hut, dock house and for that matter most places say play ground sets are out buildings. I'm organizing a fight to change that rule. Lots of support and I figure we better change the rule as soon as possible or a big fight will happen. I hate to say this but we need an ARB or at least someone to look over plans to make sure someone doesn't build something horrible. If you say out buildings are alright someone will either build the cheapest shed they can or they will go the other way and build a 4000 sq ft two story barn. We don't need either of those to happen but some where in between would be fine.

The chickens might get spotted. LOL. Some guy up front is hiding a rooster. I've seen him more than once but I have no idea where that guy is hiding him. One of those fancy roosters, nice colors and all that but I'm not a rooster fan. We did have a guy try to bred dogs in his back yard. That was too much and he got shut down by the developer.

We have a young neighborhood, most of the old and retired were chased off. LOL. My favorite was the guy who said he hated dogs and kids. Response was "Why on earth do you live here?". He moved out pretty fast after that. With a younger neighborhood we seem to have many rule breakers. If you took our bunch and moved them out to where Ardesia lives it would be a never end battle on a day to day basis. LOL. Can't figure out why house prices drop weekly around here. We're such fun people.

Hillbillies, lol!

I could be wrong but these look like chickens.

We've got chickens in our urban yard, and love them. So much better than your neighbor having a noisy dog or marauding cat (and before I get people annoyed, yes, I have one of each and love them dearly..). But the chickens are quiet, don't smell, are completely contained and make very useful items--eggs and fertilizer!! Plus they make you laugh and don't take alot of daily care. Not sure what all the uproar is about urban/suburban poultry, so long as there are limits on the number and noise and hygiene restrictions are in place (no roosters). Alas, I have not seen mine eating mosquitoes, however.........

FYI, as per my previous post, got my 'Cactus Juice' spray today, and going out to test it....I'll report my results soon!

I tried a new repellent this year. We have bad mosquitoes this year because of all our flooding. So far, this product is working extremely well for me and I have very few bites. It is called "Swy Flotter" (funny name, play on fly swatter) and is from the brand "Kiss My Face". It is all plant oil based, no DEET, but works a treat for me. Better than my "Deep Woods Off" worked last year.
Claire

I got my lemon-euculyptus spray yesterday, and so far it works, but I have noticed a weird feeling from it, and I think its the euculyptus that is doing it. You know that product that you apply to sore muscles and it makes it feel cold? I think it was "Red tiger balm" ? Its the same thing. Not sure if I like it or not, but I haven't had any bugs bite me with it on.

So I'm hearing that your mosquito repellent gives you a buzz, tigerlily?? jk, lol! So where did y;all get these things anyway??

The euculyptus will probably be felt. LOL. It's used a lot in sports rubs and in some shampoos to give you that "tingle". What's in that vick's stuff that you use at night? That might be euculyptus.

I got my Swy Flotter from drugstore.com.

I'm one of those magnets, and the lemon eucalyptus stuff worked ok, but not as well as the deep woods stuff...either way they still manage to find somewhere to get me.I won't spray my plants with chemicals but I have to spray myself. Some of the organic repellents work better than others, Cutter's Lemon Eucalyptus is one I've tried that works pretty well, but not as effective at dusk when the bugs are the worst here. Camphor is what really gives that icy hot sensation in tiger balm and vicks, there is likely some eucalyptus too, which gives a very minor warming feeling, but not like the camphor.

yesterday I crumbled a leaf from the citronella plant rednyr gave me and it worked really well

Here are the oils in the Swy Flotter product:

Citronella
Bay
Cedarwood
Vetiver
Patchouli
Juniper
Tea Tree
Lemon Peel
Tansy
Goldenseal

Claire

Whats with the citronella plant and crumbling the leaves? How is that supposed to work when you are moving around.....lol ? Like Hansel and Gretel and the crumbs? How many plants/leaves does it take to get through a summer? Wait....I just got a brain flash (every once in a while that happens to me-so exciting!) Do you take the leaf and rub all over you?

That Swy Flotter product is going to make you smell like a drunken hippie. Nothing like a good junpier and tonic. I mean Gin and tonic.

LOL, must be why I like it so much! Hic!

Actually it just smells faintly herbal - nothing very strong. :-)

tigerlily!!! You are making me snort water through my nose, you naughty lady!!!! Hansel and Gretel...too much, waay too much, lol!

I've never had problems with mosquitoes biting me, but I had yellow jackets chasing me around my yard last summer. Seriously! They'd pick me out of a group of people, to chase. I finally changed my soap to Pears and it stopped - I think they were coming after my citrusy body wash.

Bats are huge mosquito eaters - do you guys have bats around? We have quite a few here.