Insects seem to have an attraction for me and I suffer insect bites this time of year, but the last couple of weeks have been exceptional.
We've a cat in the house that's been treated twice recently with drops on the back of it's neck and there's no evidence of any life on it in the form of live or dead fleas, or flea excrement.
The problem started when I visited a pub and I'm thinking it had some life in the carpet. I suspect I may have brought some home. The house has been vacuumed to within an inch of it's life (all the corners, skirtings and soft furnishings) and sprayed with an insecticide, including the furnishings, but I'm still getting bitten, about half-a-dozen times yesterday.
I take B complex daily, use coal tar soap and apply a deet based repellent at least twice daily. nearly all the bites are my ankles and lower legs, usually at the sock line or trouser line.
Any suggestions anyone? Would a sticky trap work to collect a few, so I could at least identify the damn things?
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Eats lots of garlic. Keeps them away.
Used to crush it up in the dogs food, she only ever got two ticks, and got fleas once when investigating a mangy hedgehog.
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>>>Eats lots of garlic. Keeps them away.
One of the horse breeds we kept was insect bite prone and we'd put garlic in the feed mix. No idea if it was the main benefit as we used spray on her coat and other management to minimise the issue but a lot of folks use it.
One thing bathtub have you used the smoke bombs and shut the house up for requisite no of hours?
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Ankles means carpet or grass.
So, a carpet or mat you haven't treated? Any grass on your regular walk in or out of house?
When in Brazil, we always spray repellent on our socks and the end of the trouser legs to avoid such bites..
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Look at Craghoppers Nosilife range of trousers. Seem to work remarkably well. Dont pay list price - a bit of Googling will find some Outlet stores.
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>> Ankles means carpet or grass.
Or clothing/shoes?
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>>Or clothing/shoes?
Then it would be more widespread. Mosquitos, for example, like to be out of drafts so that bit around the bottom of your leg / top of your sock just under your trousers is favourite.
Ditto under the edge of tables and chairs and other similar places.
Stuff in grass/carpets gets kicked up as you walk along. It tends to fall back off your trousers or shoes, but in that gap.....
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Not too impressed, still got bitten to (insert vorboten c4play word) Perhaps it needed the deet relaying on the material.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 18 Jul 14 at 16:40
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Try Avon So Soft. Personal experience of it working very well against Scottish midges, and Mr Google says others have been successful with it against head lice, cat fleas, horse attacking insects and more.
Costs under a tenner and Amazon sell it, and doesn't have intensive chemically old deet in it. Just some other secret old chemicals.
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Good old DDT? That aside, this site might be of interest: www.bcmj.org/article/mosquito-repellent-effectiveness-placebo-controlled-trial-comparing-95-deet-avon-skin-so-sof
West Nile virus appears to be a worry. No doubt in London marshland it's malaria. Again, as it was of old.
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Fri 18 Jul 14 at 20:14
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We take Vitamin B1 every summer, which seems to work quite well. Insects literally come with the territory here and we find that even if we are bitten the bites don't irritate so much.
A friend brought us B Complex by mistake a few years ago and that didn't seem to work.
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If you are bitten, tea tree oil is by far the best salve.
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A friend of ours, still in Spain, seems to attract bites from jumping spiders.
Nasty little beasts.
SWMBO had a bite from one and it needed antibiotics to clear it up. Our friend also needs jabs when she gets bitten by one, which happened yet again, a couple of days ago.
Last edited by: Roger. on Sat 19 Jul 14 at 14:27
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This is the sort of thing I'm having to deal with at the moment:
tinyurl.com/makakl3
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>> This is the sort of thing I'm having to deal with at the moment:
>>
>> tinyurl.com/makakl3
Far too much detail!
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>>A friend of ours, still in Spain, seems to attract bites from jumping spiders.
Nasty little beasts.
SWMBO had a bite from one and it needed antibiotics to clear it up.<<
Yup, got them too. The worst ones seem to like cypress hedges and get you on the wrist. Sometimes I think it's me versus the rest...
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As a small boy in 1940s Sri Lanka I saw a few vast hairy jumping tarantulas and damn great evil scorpions, but none of those ever bit or stung me. The things that bit, and very painfully too, were ants, both red and black, varying in size and species from very tiny to what seemed about an inch long. All you had to do was brush against the wrong leaf and ther would be three or four of the little horrors biting into your hand and injecting formic acid into the bites. Yarooh! I had it in for ants, and they had it in for me.
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Red ants nests, in bushes, seething with the monsters, I recall. All their own stitch-work, joining the leaves into a sphere. Looking for a cricket ball could lead into dangerous brush with them. Soon learned the lesson, Ipoh, Perak.
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I stroked a tarantula once (in the line of duty). It felt just like a hamster but when you looked closely you could see its little fangs going.
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For me Eurax is the best. Got bitten loads of times, it works quickly and last for ages.
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Citronella oil? Heavy, cloying smell but worked for me in the tropics.
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>> For me Eurax is the best. Got bitten loads of times, it works quickly and
>> last for ages.
sooty. Got some Eurax yesterday. It's the most effective stuff I've ever found to relieve the itch of bites.
Thanks for the recommendation.
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Insect bites - Zero
