Bugger

Seeing this article in today's Post literally made my skin crawl. In the couple of years prior to leaving the DC area, we experienced the full wrath of the Asian tiger mosquito, which seemed to find our backyard especially welcoming. Despite trying to never allow standing water to collect, I think rain water would form little pools in the leaves of an ivy patch. From late spring until the chill of fall set in, I basically couldn't go in the backyard without wearing mosquito repellent and/or long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, none of which is ideal in the steamy heat of summer. It kind of takes the fun out of having a yard when every trip outside is fraught with peril. I'm getting itchy just thinking about having to go back next year. (For some reason they hardly bothered Gretchen, and even when they did bite her she hardly reacted. I, on the other hand, looked like I had chicken pox and wanted to go on a Benadryl drip to stop the itching after spending 5 minutes outside.) We do have the occasional mosquito in summer where we live now, but it's quite manageable since we're not near water and they're not that aggressive (which is especially fortunate since windows here generally don't have screens).