Rains behind mosquito explosion

The answering machine at the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District pretty much says it all.

"We are aware of the severe nuisance mosquito problem," a beleaguered-sounding woman says. "We will be spraying in your area as soon as possible."

In other words, WE KNOW! WE'RE TRYING! STOP, er, bugging us!

And Cook County is not the only place. Because of the recent, consistent cycles of rain, it's like that all over.

Clarke Mosquito Control in Roselle contracts with governments in DuPage County, Kane County, Chicago, DeKalb County and everywhere in between.

"These Aedes vexans truly will vex you," said Laura McGowan of Clarke, referring to the scientific name for the particular genus of mosquito that is currently dominant. "(They're) vicious, nasty buggers who really want to eat you."

Craig Johnson can vouch for that. A resident of the Country Knolls subdivision in Elgin, Johnson got a taste of the pesky creatures -- or rather, they got a taste of him -- when he went out to clean up after the storms.

"If I don't put on bug spray, I kinda feel like I'm going to be eaten alive," Johnson said.

Mike Szyska, director of the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District, said the culprit is the rain we have had in regular intervals. Like clockwork, every few days it has rained. The floodwater mosquitoes lay their eggs above the waterline, so when it rains and the water rises, another brood hatches, flying off to bite and lay more eggs.

The mosquitoes can live two to four weeks. So with rain every few days, you're getting a new batch before the old ones are even gone.

"These successive rains since July have been producing basically synchronous broods of floodwater mosquitoes," Szyska said.

Szyska wouldn't bite at a reporter's bait to call it the "perfect storm" for mosquitoes, but he did acknowledge, "this would be almost a perfect scenario."

McGowan pointed out the eggs can lay dormant for quite some time, so the floodwaters that raised water levels have hatched both new eggs and those that were laid years ago but never have been reached by water.

To get an idea of how bad the problem is, Szyska said the traps they lay out to catch mosquitoes for study normally get a maximum 35 mosquitoes in them.

"We've been getting (recently), on an average, up to the hundreds," he said.

In Lake County, Grant Township Supervisor Kay Starostovic said she's heard the buzz of complaints too.

The road department has done some work to kill the larvae in sewers, but there's no money for spraying, which kills the adult mosquitoes.

"After this nightmare of mosquitoes, we'll probably put something in our budget for next year, just in case," she said.

There is a bit of good news with the swarming mosquitoes, however. Floodwater mosquitoes, or Aedes vexans, are not the type of mosquitoes that typically transmit West Nile disease. Those are Culex mosquitoes, which thrive in stagnant water and hot weather. The regular rains tend to flush out any stagnant water, Szyska said.

And, McGowan points out, because floodwater mosquitoes are so pesky, it's making people aware of the need to put on DEET-based bug spray, which prevents against the Culex mosquitoes, too.

That's important because, while instances of West Nile virus are down this year, it's still out there.

John James of Inverness thinks the Cook County Forest Preserve District, which doesn't spray for mosquitoes, should put up warning signs.

On a recent walk in Crab Tree Nature Preserve, he got 29 bites in 20 minutes, literally forcing him into a run to escape.

"As I ran, I started perspiring more," which only brought more mosquitoes, he said.

If the Chicago Park District warns when beaches have high bacteria and the state issues ozone alerts, why shouldn't the county warn people to wear repellant, he reasons.

Good question, John.

We'll have to chew on that.