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weed30

They all died :(

weed30 St. Louis
11 years ago

Last Saturday I posted that I'd gotten about a dozen BST eggs off of my neighbor's dill. They are all dead :( :( :(

Only half of them hatched, and those died within 1 or 2 days. I know it is from the mosquito spray trucks that go by every Thursday evening. Her plants are on the side of the house close to the front, so they probably get a big dose of permethrin, piperonyl butoxide, malathion, or whatever is in that useless fog.

I am studying about the effectiveness of fogging, and will start a petition to stop the trucks in my area. There is a lot of information on the net saying that fogging doesn't really help, unless creating resistant "super mosquitoes" is the goal.

Comments (2)

  • MissSherry
    11 years ago

    I'm so sorry! I imagine that spraying is indeed what killed them, and, I agree, it's a totally useless activity. They don't do it any more around here, but when they did, I used to scream at the truck driver to stay off my road, and he did - he was probably afraid of that 'crazy woman'!

    I hope you take some type of action to try to fix this situation!

    I live in mosquito country, close to the MS Gulf Coast where the first mosquito eradication program was begun in this country, or so they said. When I was a child, the mosquitoes in Gulfport would take you away! They solved it by encouraging everybody to eliminate all small areas of sitting water, and they put oil in standing water areas too big to drain. The oil sounds dubious by today's standards, but it's better than spraying! You could call the Mosquito Control Commission when I lived there and ask them to come out and put oil in your standing water - 'don't know if they still perform that service. I'm surprised that St. Louis hasn't advanced. I live in Mississippi - synonymous with backwardness - and they've dropped spraying even here in the country.

    St. Louis needs some education and common sense. Why kill so many innocent critters without getting at the source?
    I've got a bat house attached to my husband's ham radio tower, and when they returned to it about ?a month ago, the mosquito situation improved drastically. A coincidence? I doubt it!

    Sherry

  • terrene
    11 years ago

    Years ago at my previous house they used to spray malathion for mosquitoes. I hated it also and used to call and complain and mark my property with signs that said "No Spray". I agree that it is ridiculous to blanket spray poisons that have so much collateral damage, just to try and kill one species that isn't even going to be effectively controlled that way. Pesticides can be useful at times but must be applied judiciously!

    Thank goodness they don't spray this town for mosquitoes, however I have had to deal with herbicides that have been sprayed on the fields across the street and drift this way. After much complaining by neighbors, the farmer has responded by converting these fields to organic agriculture. Also the neighbors sometimes use pesticides, like a weed and feed, or Sevin, and I worry about the bugs and birds and critters.

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