While I don't think it's nearly as bad as some northerners make it out to be, I think it's the year round possibility of mosquitos that helps fuel that fire. Although, I expect that any time we've had a lot of rain...which has nothing to do with living in the south or a burb with lots of lakes or trees
Yeah, I think it really depends on where you live. How much stagnant water sits within a few miles of you.
If I go outside at my grandmother’s house across town, I will get eaten alive every single time. There’s a lot of water that sits over there and a few stagnant ponds. Plus, she’s on the bad side of town, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the city didn’t spray from above as well over there and her neighbors didn’t pay to treat. Her neighborhood backs up to the projects, so doubtful spraying is happening there. I know her HOA treats for bugs inside and out, but it can’t stop the stagnant water in the projects which is breeding them, so it doesn’t help much.
At my house, however, I hardly ever get bit except at night during the worst times of the year in the summer, but we have no stagnant water anywhere nearby, and I’m in an affluent area, so I think more money goes into treating them at the neighborhood and city level.
You can treat all day, but if your neighbors can’t afford to, the mosquitos are going to live next door and come bite you, so how much the whole area around you, for a few miles, handles them really factors in.
Southerners, how common is the Fire Ant problem? Are they everywhere? Some limited places? Do you guys need to treat the lawns all the time to keep them away?
It really depends on where you live.
We had them so bad in Houston. You couldn’t get rid of them no matter how much you sprayed. They’d just pop up somewhere else. Sort of like wack a mole. Get rid of hill on left side of yard and new one pops up on the right. Me and my sister were always getting /stung bit as children playing outside.
I had quite a few traumatic encounters as a child. I even sat in a fire ant hill once. You can bet I was stripping all my clothes off right there in the middle of the park.
What makes them so bad is that it’s not one or two bites; it’s hundreds. They will swarm you in seconds like something out of a horror movie to the point you can’t see your clothes or shoes through them. Then, they wait and all attack at once! I thought I was imagining this nefarious tendency, but no, they really do that. So you step in a hill, don’t realize it, they swarm your sock pants leg, then all start stinging / biting at once, and it is extremely painful.
Where I am now in TN, however, we have them, but they are pretty rare. I don’t think I’ve ever been stung in TN, and only rarely across the lone hill. I don’t see them in the yards in town like we did in Houston.
I always thought bug issues are bigger down south simply because you don't have the long term foot deep freeze into soil to eliminate the population. Up north it takes a few months to really get the bugs going and then things freeze and away they go, right now it's a lot of solo bugs looking to set up homes.
Yes, agree. I think that’s a big part of it. Some of them just only live in warm climates, though, too.
If you go outside of it's range, you will get bitten. Just part of living in the north country. The good news? No snakes, except for an occasional garden snake.
