Think you have a crummy job? Consider the 47 employees of Harris County Public Health’s Mosquito and Vector Control Division. After each major Houston-area weather event, these hardy public health workers fan out to 21 spots around Harris County. They work in teams of two. One staffer stands in place, bare-limbed, without bug spray, while the other counts how many mosquitoes land on them in a minute. If the number is greater than thirty, the county dispatches a pesticide truck.
“That is how far our staff is willing to go to protect the county from the risk of mosquito-borne viruses,” said Max Vigilant, the division’s appropriately named director. “They definitely take some bites.” In the wake of the deadly windstorm that swept through southeast Texas last week, 19 of the 21 teams recorded at least thirty bites per minute. (Ouch!)
Those results merely confirmed what Houstonians like me already knew. To paraphrase Shakespeare: hell is empty, and all the mosquitoes are here. The bloodsuckers swarm us as soon as we step outside. They follow us into our cars and homes. They attack our pets. They scorn our pathetic attempts at pest control. No number of smelly citronella candles, beeping Thermacell gadgets, and sticky cans of Off! Deep Woods Sportsmen is enough to stop the onslaught. “This year we have a combination of high rainfall, high temperatures, and high sunshine,” Vigilant told me. “That presents an opportunity for mosquitoes to breed earlier than normal.”
Mosquitoes are nothing new in southeast Texas. Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca, who shipwrecked near Galveston Island in 1528, encountered “a great quantity of mosquitoes of three types that are very bad and vexatious.” He observed Karankawa people slathering themselves with pungent alligator grease to keep away the pestilential hordes. The first Anglo settlements on Buffalo Bayou, in present-day Houston, were decimated by annual epidemics of mosquito-borne yellow fever. One early visitor described the swampy city as “one of the muddiest and most disagreeable places on earth.”
Yellow fever was eventually tamed in Texas—at least for now—but mosquitoes are here to stay. They’re an inescapable nuisance of Bayou City life, like fire ants, flying cockroaches, and Joel Osteen. We even take a perverse kind of pride in our bloodthirsty little friends. Until a recent name change, minor league baseball fans in nearby Sugar Land cheered for the Skeeters. A decade ago, a local ad agency went against the grain by boasting of our mosquitoes in a clever campaign called “Houston. It’s Worth It.”
Earlier this week, I asked users on X to share their mosquito horror stories. Catherine Clarke, a Houston investment manager, told me that before gardening last weekend, she covered her entire body with insect repellent, including her face. A mosquito bit her eyelid. Another user reported a mosquito flying into his mouth. One native Houstonian said she “can’t remember when it was this bad.” If anything, the situation outside Houston seems to be even worse. Marissa Riolo, a stay-at-home mom in Montgomery County, north of Houston, said her family can’t swim in their pool because “any body part that isn’t under water is just covered in skeeters.” A Galvestonian who suffered more than fifty bites over the past few days described the island as a “war zone.”
And it’s not just southeast Texas. Across the state, unseasonably hot weather and high rainfall have created the perfect conditions for a biblical plague. “We’ve just seen an onslaught,” said Robin Neely, who owns a Mosquito Shield pest control franchise in the Plano-Frisco area, north of Dallas. “They’re really aggressive this year.” Texas A&M entomologist Wizzie Brown told me that climate change has extended the state’s mosquito season to encompass the entire year. “Mosquitoes rely on environmental cues,” she said. “They’re not thinking, ‘Oh, it’s January; we don’t need to be active today.’ ”
Texas is home to around 85 species of mosquitoes. The most common are the black and white Aedes albopictus and the tannish-brown Culex quinquefasciatus, which lays its eggs in standing water. Periods of heavy rainfall can attract so-called floodwater mosquitoes, such as Aedes vexans, which lays its eggs in dry ditches or drainage areas. The eggs hatch when they come in contact with water. Although floodwater mosquitoes don’t generally carry disease, they are bigger and meaner than the more common varieties. “You know it when they bite you,” Brown said.
Despite widespread reports of a Mosquitogeddon, experts told me this year isn’t the worst on record. In 2014, Harris County experienced its worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus in recent memory. Vigilant told me that 2020 was also unusually bad, although many Texans didn’t notice because COVID-19 restrictions kept them inside. In addition to sending human guinea pigs into the field, Vigilant’s department sets hundreds of mosquito traps around the county, then tests the captured bloodsuckers for diseases. On Wednesday, the county reported the first West Nile–positive mosquito of the season. It was captured in Houston’s 77019 zip code, which includes a portion of the affluent River Oaks neighborhood. The mosquito control department responded by spraying the affected area with insecticide. Local officials have warned of a potential increase in mosquito-borne diseases this year. Last year, six deaths in Texas were connected to West Nile, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
To protect against mosquitoes, experts recommend wearing repellent with DEET, emptying standing water on your property, and keeping lawns well trimmed. When I asked users on X how they dealt with mosquitoes, some suggested home remedies such as catnip oil, peppermint oil, or lemon eucalyptus oil. Others recommended wearing long sleeves, or simply staying inside. One lucky Texan claimed she had never been bitten.
“I really doubt that,” said Brown, the Texas A&M entomologist. She explained that mosquito bites itch because of our skin’s allergic reaction to mosquito saliva. Some of us are more sensitive to skeeter bites than others. “It’s possible that some people are bitten by mosquitoes and they’re just not having that reaction. It’s a controversial topic.”
Research also supports the idea that some folks are just tastier to mosquitoes. And if you’re thinking of coping with your frustration by drinking a beer on the patio, beware: according to multiple studies, consuming alcohol appears to drastically increase your chance of being bitten. Spiked blood, anyone?
