Mozzie Magnet

Okay so I'm not someone who likes bugs.

It's only a couple of blogs back that I went on - at length - about my total dislike of the moth, especially the big brown Sydney variety.

Now I'm on about mozzies. Mosquitos. I've come up against them before, but never like this. In NZ we have sandflies, and they can be pretty sizeable and can slow you down with a decent sized lumpy, itchy bite. But they just don't compare to the Aussie mozzie. These things have staying power, attention to detail and determination that makes the Kiwi sandfly appear only slightly more troubling than a baby lamb. The Sydney mozzies are out to get me. They love me.

I'm scratching right now as I write this. I've suggested to friends I could hire myself out for outdoor parties, to ensure no one else gets bitten. The Mozzie Magnet Girl. A mozzie will fly past six people to get to me. I've seen them do it.

I must be tasty. I've read that scientists know some people are more appealing to mozzies than others, but they don't know why. Where the hell are they wasting medical research money when they could be figuring that one out?! Baldness? The mental health effects of soap operas? People like me are out here really suffering! I have at last count six bites on one leg and four on the other, in various stages of aging. I have four on my back, two on my feet and one on my bum. Don't ask.

Last weekend I'm out in the garden planting a shrub that was a gift, so I had to make an effort, even in the blazing heat. When I get back inside I realise I've been bitten by a mozzie down my back FOUR times. I was wearing a tee-shirt at the time. How did it get me? Did it fly up the sleeve or bite me through the shirt? A couple of weeks back I arrive home, stop at the front door to put the key in the lock, and while I'm standing there for one minute fumbling for my key, I'm bitten twice - once on each ankle. How did they do that?! Do they attack in tandem?

Another time - this week while cooking on the barbeque - I'm bitten on my feet, once on each foot. Not remarkable - except that I was wearing socks! Little bastards.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet I have been able to do a bit of research on this, driven by my husband saying 'do something about it' when I start bleating AGAIN about another bite.

So I found a couple of sites, one that had some really good tips for using natural remedies to either protect against bites, treat bites or even keep the damn things away from your house altogether. It's got a great name: http://www.mosquito-kill-net.com/ and the tagline is "The Buzz Stops Here". In my case I'd prefer 'the itching and scratching stops here' but I suppose that might have given the wrong impression through a search engine.

Anyway this very good US site has some handy hints and makes the useful point that not all treatments and remedies work for everyone the same. A good point to make, as I've been covering myself with commercial DEET type products and it simply doesn't work. Believe it or not I've been using Vicks VapoRub, which I have traumatic childhood memories of, but it works a treat on mozzies. They won't bite you if you smell like a tub of Vicks. Nothing will.

Of course there are places where you just can't go smelling like a tub of Vicks, anywhere outside your own home for example, so I'm going to have to try a few other remedies as a back-up. This site suggests vanilla, rosemary and tea tree oil. Also an essential oils mixture of clove, eucalyptus, geranium, orange, palma rosa, rosemary and sage, which sounds lovely!

The one thing I don't want to do is resort back to using the mosquito coils - the incense-like slow burning chemical pollutant which unfortunately works very very well outside. They are also apparently full of lethal carcinogens and should never be used indoors - which I have done in a night of desperation. Sigh.

I'm also trying to improve my own reflexes - so I can tell when I'm being bitten and I can slap the little bastard flat before he can do any more damage. Trouble with this is I find I'm tending to over-react to any little skin twinge, and that coupled with my bad eyesight, finds me standing outside cooking on the barbeque, slapping away at my own freckles. Needs work.

I'm going to plant rosemary, catnip amd marigolds in my garden and I'll try not to get bitten four times through my shirt this time. I might wear a jersey and a coat. And boots.

The fight goes on.