Revenge of the Mosquitoes

Last summer, while we were still living in Tucson, we suddenly had an infestation of mosquitoes in our neighborhood.

We could only let the dogs out for just as long as it took them to go to the bathroom and come back inside because they were getting eaten alive. My poor Shadow's entire snout from eyes to nose was literally covered in bumps/bites. I would have to stand at the door with a towel to swat off as many as I could as they came inside to control the number of mosquitoes in the house.

We went to Home Depot and bought a bug zapper...and had it on in our living room overnight!

It was miserable. One night I recall turning off all the lights in the house, taking the dogs, going into our room and closing the door all night because it was the only place in the house that didn't have mosquitoes buzzing in our ears. We couldn't even be comfortable living in our own home.

It was about mid-late July that these mosquitoes quickly wore out their welcome...

Eventually after about a week or so they were gone. All of them.

I didn't know if there was something in our neighborhood that had standing water, i.e. an empty house with an unkept pool, the wash behind our house, etc. All I knew was that I was so thankful they were gone. I then began the quest around the house wiping up all the dead mosquitoes off the walls.

Well, last night we took what hopefully will be our last trip to Tucson related to our move. We had a handful of random things that needed to be donated/thrown away in the garage, and we hadn't quite cleaned up all of the dog poop from the backyard. So, when Dan got home from work, we changed clothes and drove down. We started in the backyard with the dog poop with hopes of getting it all finished before the sun was completely set, or it started pouring...one or the other. We stepped out back, ready to go, when I felt a pinch on the side of my head...I scratched and was horrified at what I saw...

A dead mosquito...

I was suddenly taken back to all the miserable days and nights we had with last summer's mosquitoes. I knew we needed to make it quick before we caught multiple strains of West Nile... Here's how it turned out...

Though it may not seem like it, Dan actually got it much worse than me.

How glad we are to not have to deal with those mosquitoes anymore. I'll take our 2" long field crickets over them any day.

Good riddance mosquitoes.