I thought I had a bad skin reaction, with the bites puffing up like dime-sized blisters, but I can see that I’m probably getting off easy compared to some of you guys!
I hate mosquitoes. They are annoying little disease vectors and they seem to love my blood, so I think I’ll try my best never to visit any malaria zones.
You have to take anti-malarial pills early. First time I got it, I was only two years old. I was living with my unwed mother and my aunts. When my aunts got home from schoolteaching, they say my mother was reading a novel and I had crawled under the two-burner stove (no oven) in a desperate attempt to get warm. The chills were on me, and my temperature was rising, so I was shivering like mad. They loaded me on the motorcycle (which was all they had) and drove me to the doctor, who gave me quinine.
The next time, I was 15 and in the States, and had an opportunity to go to India for two months; but I had to leave in less than two weeks. So I wasn’t able to get enough pills in me ahead of time, I presume (you need to start it two weeks before). The incubation period is long, so I had a great time and didn’t actually come down with it until I got back.
Mosquitoes suck ass.
I would be happy enough if they just fed on me and left. I get the welts, they itch, but scratching feels good.
The high-pitched buzzing is what’s making me crazy. Especially at night, when I’m just about to fall asleep, and I hear one near my ear. I have to jump and all sleep is lost. I just hope that when I get older, I won’t hear it anymore.
I carry deet-infused repellant in my purse from May to September. I hate the little suckers. My friends never notice them, I tell them it’s because the mosquitoes want to bite me. I get the welts from the bites, they will even bite me through my clothes.
I hate mosquitoes so much that the one and only requirement I have for where we (my wife and I ) will live when we retire is: No mosquitoes.
I say nuke 'em from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure
Mosquitoes are one of the few animals I will pre-emptively attack/kill (yellowjacket wasps are the other ones)
Related question…
How well do bats control mosquitos in a typical wooded suburban area?
I was thinking of putting up a bat house (like this) in my back yard in the hopes of attracting some bats to feast ot the mosquitos at night. Would it help?
Mosquitos almost never bite me. Literally, I only get bitten by mosquitos during one week of my menstrual cycle. All other times, they ignore me. When I do get a bite, it puffs up quickly, but if I don’t scratch it will be gone entirely in an hour.
I mean, I don’t love the little bastards, and there’s nothing better than killing one with a quick snap so you can examine the corpse, but I wouldn’t say I hate them, or that the presence/absence of mosquitos is a huge factor to me.
Yah, malaria is pretty much pure, distilled evil. I’ve never had it, and hope I never will; that stuff seriously harms nations. I’ve heard entirely sober, pro-conservation environmentalists argue that driving mosquitoes to extinction would probably be a decent idea.
EDIT: This article from Nature has a good overview of the argument. Requires free registration, I’m afraid. Ecology: A world without mosquitoes | Nature
I don’t like trying to sleep with one buzzing around the room. Other than that, I don’t really mind them anymore. I grew up in a wooded area in rural Minnesota and was bitten many, many times when I was younger. I used to get welts and itch from the bites, but I don’t anymore. I can feel them bite me, watch them do their thing, and let them fly off with no ill effects afterward. I don’t know if I developed immunity or it’s genetic or what…
Same here. I get these nasty crusty hives, and I have to keep squeezing at them and get all the sticky colorless liquid out of them. I have to draw blood, or they won’t go away.
DEET works well on mosquitos, they are a non-issue if prepared for them. Nothing works effectively on stable flies, other than barriers. That is the insect for which I reserve my hate.
I hate them because I can hear them. If there’s one in the room, I hear it. The buzzing is enough to keep my from sleeping or relaxing at all. And it’s not because I think I will get bit. I can’t even remember the last time I was bit. I thinking maybe it was 5+ years ago.
I thought as we got older (30+) we weren’t supposed to be able to hear the damn things. I’m 42 and I can still hear them plain as day.
With the fire of 6.02 * 10[sup]23[/sup] galaxies full of blazing suns.
The bastards love me. I can be with other people, and nobody gets bitten except me.
Bugs that crawl on me and drink my blood ick me out. If I could wave a wand and make all mosquitos extinct, or, better yet, all creatures that get a significant amount of their nutrition by drinking other creatures’ blood, I’d do it in a nanosecond.
I LOVE mosquitoes.
I do research on them. I’ve become narrowly famous working with them. They pay my mortgage, my retirement, and my daughter’s college fund.
That buzzing sound? Its the sound of job security.
I hate them! Hate hate hate! My skin reacts to them just like pbbth and some of the unfortunate kids mentioned in this thread.
I had a party on July 4th and I fogged my yard with 2 cans of fogger. I sprayed myself with Off. I had a fire.
I was VERY proud of myself for being outside for 14 hours and not getting any sunburn or bug bites.
The bug bites didn’t show up until the NEXT DAY! I had to run to the store to get topical antihistamine in the middle of the work day. I had to take both Benadryl and Aleve at night because the bites BURNED so bad.
I took a bath in milk and oatmeal before bed one night, that seemed to help a lot. That and the topical, and the Benadryl before bed.
I like to travel with my own bottle of Off during the summer (no one seems to have it at their house…?) but I still always end up with at least 1 or 2 weeks of battling major bites.
I’m another one who’s allergic to the dang things. It started in my early 20’s and was horrific. Now I’m 37, and it’s still bad but has calmed down a lot, so don’t lose hope! I find that if I put a lot of Benadryl cream on right away–and keep doing it–it helps a lot, though nothing prevents some swelling and blistering.
I wouldn’t say I hate them, but I make pretty decent efforts to not get bitten (don’t want West Nile or anything else mosquitoes are carrying). If it wasn’t for all the diseases, I wouldn’t make as many efforts to not get bitten - they’re a nuisance for me, not a real danger.
To make matters worse, up here in Maine, we now have TWO types of mosquitoes to deal with, the normal small mosquitoes, and the much larger Asian Tiger mosquito, easily twice as large as the normal skeeters, an established swarm of them could easily carry off infants and toddlers…
Come to think of it, I hate all blood-feeding insects, and would happily EXCTINCT the lot of them…
Here in Maine, we have;
Mosquitoes; regular and Asian Tiger
Black Flies
Deerflies
Horseflies/greenheads
Mooseflies (take a horsefly and double it’s size)
Ticks; deer, wood, and dog
Stable flies (a housefly evolved to feed on blood, extremely painful bite and hard to kill as it has the reaction speed of a housefly)
I think Kermit would disagree with you.
Since only the females need blood (or so I’ve heard), surely you have some love for the males?