Still Bugged

I'm bugged about a lot of things. My sagging skin. My thinning hair. My inability to pedal the exercycle for 30 minutes. The new month's bills that come in just as I've paid the old ones. My neighbors' lawn mowers or lawn services making a lot of noise in the early morning when I seek quiet on my porch.

Right now I'm really bugged about bugs.

Back in 2018 I wrote a post about bugs. It started, "If there is one thing I dislike more in summer than heat, humidity, weeds and deer, it is insects."

That hasn't changed. That post talks about all the insects, the importance of them in the cycle of life and how we must dress to deal with them.

What I didn't discuss was DEET. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

DEET (chemical name, N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) is the active ingredient in many repellent products. It is widely used to repel biting pests such as mosquitoes and ticks. Every year, an estimated one-third of the U.S. population use DEET to protect them from mosquito-borne illnesses like West Nile Virus, the Zika virus or malaria and tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Products containing DEET currently are available to the public in a variety of liquids, lotions, sprays, and impregnated materials (e.g., towelettes, roll on). Formulations registered for direct application to human skin contain from 5 to 99% DEET. Except for a few veterinary uses, DEET is registered for use by consumers, and it is not used on food.

Recent haiku: 

Here I sit,

Home from my birding.

Smelling of DEET.

At this time of year, besides the heat and humidity, it is more difficult for me to find any interesting birds, aside from the types of birds I'm likely to find in my backyard all year. In August the foliage is denser than in spring, the migrant birds less brightly colored and they are not singing territorial or nesting songs. When I go into the field in the days after one of the many global-warming-enhanced torrential downpours, I must look up in the treetops to see if anything is flying around.

That exposes the area of my neck under my chin to hungry flies, gnats and mosquitoes. And they've been biting.

So now I spray DEET on the backs of my hands and rub the smelly liquid on my neck, face and ears. It is very effective. The bugs don't bite. But they don't go away either, they hover and try to find a vulnerable area, like the deer that found a weakness in my fencing and took a few bites out of one of my sedum plants a few weeks ago.

The DEET smell stays with me when I drive home and I must wash it off, unless I plan on going out again to bird, so I add more.

98% DEET. I don't mess around when it comes to protection.
(Margo D. Beller)

The areas by standing water, of which there is a lot on both sides of the paths I walk after a major rain, are mosquito breeding grounds. They are bad, and so are other areas in the woods. Out in the sun, on a paved sidewalk, they are not so bad. But then I am in the sun, and on a humid day the combination is deadly.

DEET is found in a number of spray and liquid products under a variety of names including Off! and Repel, exactly why you would want to buy a chemical like this.

Says the Cleveland Clinic: 

Some people experience rashes or irritated skin after using DEET. It can also irritate your eyes if sprayed too close to your peepers.

More alarming, there have been rare reports of seizures associated with DEET. But according to the National Pesticide Information Center, most of those cases followed people drinking products with DEET or otherwise using them in ways that don’t follow recommended guidelines.

But overall, reactions are few and far between given the hundreds of millions of users.

I would not be stupid enough to drink DEET but I do know about the eye irritation.

At least this year I have not had an infestation of fungal gnats, carpenter ants or drain flies anywhere in the house or on the enclosed porch, at least not yet.

When I see people blithely walking or running through a known mosquito area while wearing shorts, open shoes and nothing on their arms, while I have on a shirt or jacket with the collar up, my hat pulled down, my light gloves on and my stink of DEET, I think, "Better you than me." But they keep moving while I stand and scan, a perfect target.