Mosquitos are an inevitable part of the environment around my house, which is in a warm wet part of Hawai’i Island and surrounded by dense tropical vegetation. The winter, which is cooler if not exactly cold, isn’t so bad, but in summer they are relentless.
One advantage of living in a perpetually warm climate is that your body adjusts, so wearing long sleeve shirts and long pants isn’t as uncomfortable as it would be for someone adapted to cooler weather. I also just ignore the bites as I’m used to getting bitten; I know that within half an hour after going inside I’ll be fine.
Although they work well, I don’t like using standard chemical repellants, as I am outside working in the garden constantly, plus I hate the smell and greasy feel. A friend just suggested using catnip oil, so I Googled and found that yes indeed, there seems to be evidence that it is a good repellant. He says that just a few drops on your clothes work wonders. I have just ordered some.
Buy yourself a head net. Actually buy a whole net suit. I have one that I use when I walk the dogs in the woods on warm/hot days. I can’t stand wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts when it’s warm and I’m walking. I get overheated. I can slip the jacket and pants over a tank top and shorts. It’s much more comfortable than sweating and getting bit up.
I really don’t like mosquitoes. (they seem particularly fond of me, however) I’ve seen the worst in Alaska, Maine and northern Wisconsin. But, in reality, they can be bad in a lot of places. Fortunately, for some reason, our home on Puget Sound has zero of the little buggers. We can sit on our deck at dusk all year round, without a care in the world. It’s one of many reasons I’m never moving.
Unfortunately for the OP, the long-range weather forecast for July in NE Minnesota is for above-average rainfall (but average for the upcoming 3 months).
Might be worth checking around home and with neighbors to see if there are any prime sources of standing water serving as mosquito breeding grounds that can be eliminated.
You can improvise a method to apply heat to a bite by using a couple of spoons and hot water. Put some hot water in a mug with a couple of metal spoons. Touch the back of a hot spoon against the bite. It should be hot enough to sting at first, but not so hot it burns. When the spoon cools off, put it in the mug to heat back up and grab the other spoon that’s sitting in the mug. Keep alternating spoons a few times to break down the mosquito saliva. I’ve also done basically the same thing when in the wilderness by rubbing some metal against fabric to warm it up and then pressing it against the bite. You can use anything hot to break down the saliva (but not hot enough to burn, of course).
In 8 years living in Shanghai I got maybe 200 bites total. And that’s with using mozzy spray in the summer.
In 36 years living in England I’ve never been bitten, and only one time can I say I definitely saw a mosquito.
So they are not entirely absent but in much of England they effectively are.
(I say England and not UK, because apparently mozzies like Scotland, which I’ve not been to)
Unfortunate is right! There is a chance of rain every day this week. It’s drizzling right now! And the temps are going up into the high 70s, so the humidity will be through the roof.
In my neighborhood, actually in the entire town, everyone has woods behind their homes and in those woods are loads of little ponds, puddles, and on our side of the road there is a huge pond that has a small stream coming from it that runs behind 4 of the houses (mine included) into a large swamp. So eliminating mosquito breeding grounds would be impossible.
We’re surviving by either sitting in our newly erected gazebo with mosquito netting or we use a pole fan on the patio. Mosquitoes are weak fliers, the fan blows them away.