Chiggers only bite where your clothes are tight like under clothes and socks. Garden nude, I do and don't get Chiggers except under my socks.

Treatment for chigger bites goes about the same as poison ivy. Calamine, oatmeal baths, benadryl, steroid cream, anything to keep you from scratching and causing a secondary infection.

As far as getting rid of them goes, I don't know how else you could do it without using an insecticidal soap.

Chiggers got me a few years ago - lower legs, contrary to Basil's description :o)

The itch was infernal and, wow, were my legs ugly! Clear nail polish does the trick. Once a welt is 'open' (scratching does that), paint the area w/the nail polish. Rumor has it that suffocates the chiggers below the skin, and it does relieve the itch. Whatever .... anyway, it worked. Didn't improve the cosmetics, though .... tan from a tube and splotches of nail polish are not compatible and shaving the legs was a real adventure! Just wear long pants in public and you'll be okay.

If you can find powdered sulfur at the feed store or drug store (its cheap) and sprinkle it on yourself before you go outside it will keep chiggers and ticks at bay. Sulfur is harmless to pets and people.

Once you got them in your yard they are impossible to get rid of completely. They most often come in on rabbits and rodents which are their primary target.

Once you feel the itch the chigger is long gone. The nailpolish trick really works but it doesn't suffocate anything, it just somehow speeds up the recovery.

zigzag, were you wearing long pants are shorts?

99.5% of my chiggers are under my socks.
0.5% of my chiggers are in tight parts of my body such as behind my knees (when on hand weeding and knees bent).
When one of my sister come to visit me, she get chiggers (so they are around). I get about 5 a year on me.

I can remember getting a bad case of chiggers when a little boy. They were mostly in the area of my tight jocky shorts.
A lot between the tight area of my legs and under my belt and behind my knees.

Were you wearing long pants are shorts?
Maybe you take a good shower as soon as you done are a good bath to drown and wash them off. I shower a lot and get in my pond a lot.

They really are awful. I have some recently where my underwear edge meets skin. I did try the nail polish treatment and I don't know if it helped or not. Chiggers are so much worse than mosquito bites! Although, those ain't great.

If I do any garden work now, it's Off Deep Woods. I hate applying something like that to my body but it works.

DH gets very few bites because he wears long pants tucked into his combat boots... I guess I might just have to go with his method. Of course, men also get fewer bites since they tend to have thicker skin, geh (maybe men need thicker skin to put up with us women?). I mostly get bites behind the knees (maddening when I try to walk), though a few do get me at the sockline, inner thigh, waistband, braline etc. Good grief I hate them!

Showering does indeed help wash them off before they bite (or at least before they have too much time to inject their nasty skin-liquefying enzymes) but with the drought I'd wanted to avoid showering twice a day. Also I used to like to put aside a set of "gardening clothes" that I'd wear two-three times before washing them (since I only get 1/2 hr - 1 hr. stretches in the garden anyway), but apparently reusing clothing between washes is one of the best ways to get lots of chigger bites. Ah well, shorter showers and maybe some extra sets of gardening clothes so I have enough to make full wash loads will probably be the answer. Maybe bug spray too... but neighbors are too nearby for me to garden nude, heh. DH probably wouldn't mind watching, but he'd get mad at the other folks around.

Despite how horrible they are, it's kinda nice to hear others have them around too -- a few people were trying to tell me that chiggers are only found in deep woods etc. and I made me think I might just be crazy. Well, we do have plenty of rabbits and birds around here though, so it makes sense that they'd be around our home.

The acetone in fingernail polish pretty much burns any living thing to death so it acts as an antiseptic of sorts and keeps the bites from getting infected. The enamel leaves a coating that helps prevent the entrance of additional substances that could infect or irritate the bites. Unfortunately....chemicals such as acetone, peroxide, and alcohol have been found to kill healthy skin tissue and the enamel also keeps air from getting to the wound. This may speed along healing but it inhibits proper wound healing and increases the chances of scaring. They really are not good for your skin. Triple Antibiotic ointment is OK for a day or so but those small open injuries will need to breath so you only want to use a very thin coating. If you haven't scratched them until they are sore and bleeding your best bet is to keep them clean, dry, resist scratching, and resist intentionally bursting pustules. If they do happen to break wash them with a mild soap and water and pat dry.

In the days before insect repellants, my father, a federal agent who searched for illegal moonshine in rural areas, found that taking a bath in water and Clorox killed those chiggers. I used to do that, and when my children were small and we had been berry picking, we always returned home, put on bathing suits, and immediately went to a local chlorinated pool for a quick dip. Never had a chigger problem. Nowadays I use insect repellants, but the old timey Clorox method works after exposure!