Do deer ticks "nest"

[Sue Gremlin]

Chiggers are mites, and they are pretty easily suffocated by oils. DEET is oily.
But it's not a chemical insecticide. Alcohol won't do much. Permethrin will kill them.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

This reminds me of an old story. A number of years ago we rented a warehouse which had old furniture and bedding stored in it and was infested with fleas - something which we discovered unpleasantly after walking through.

When we had a contractor look at the place a few days later he also noticed the fleas and said "let me show you how to deal with that." He started up his truck and stood next to the exhaust pipe so it blasted his clothes. He said it worked every time, the carbon monoxide kills them.

Not sure whether or not I buy that, but it was amusing nonetheless...

No, but it may put them to sleep for a while. When I work with fleas, I knock them out with carbon DIoxide, and I can keep then out for at least an hour before they start to die off. That would kill a mammal in a matter of minutes. Fleas are tough.

 

[Boyd]

Anybody else ever see The Hellstrom Chronicle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle

A fictitious scientist called Dr. Nils Hellstrom guides viewers throughout the film. He claims, on the basis of scientific-sounding theories, that insects will ultimately win the fight for survival on planet earth because of their adaptability and ability to reproduce rapidly, and that the human race will lose this fight largely because of excessive individualism.

 

[woodjin]

Sue, have you heard of, or experimented with sulfer as a means of repelling chiggers? I never tried it but I hear that it is an old time method of keeping them away and is very effective...although smelly.


Jeff

 

[Sue Gremlin]

Sue, have you heard of, or experimented with sulfer as a means of repelling chiggers? I never tried it but I hear that it is an old time method of keeping them away and is very effective...although smelly.


Jeff

No, I haven't done a whole lot of work with repellents in general, and defintely not with chiggers. Raising those in the lab would be a nightmare. I work mostly with insecticides in fleas, ticks, flies and mosquitoes. Repellents are a finite chemistry (meaning there simply aren't many possible things to use), and the repellency tests are actually pretty hard to do in a scientifically valid way.

 

[BobNJ1979]

i've had good luck spraying my pants, boots, socks, heck, all of my clothes w/ Permanone (permethirin).. how long does that stuff last for on your clothes ? is it really still effective after washing them (like the bottle claims?).. it does seem to work well though. whether i'm fishing, hiking, or riding in the pines.

 

[Boyd]

Yes, it does seem to continue working even after a washing. I have 3 sets of clothes that I treat with it, and I rotate washing and re-treating them. It's really effective against ticks, this spring I was going about a month between re-treating which included washing.

Now chiggers seem to be another thing. I have been treating after washing recently because somehow I keep getting bites which I assume are chiggers... not sure exactly when and where they're nailing me though, it may be at times when I'm not wearing the treated clothes.