Mosquito query in the Seattle area

[Winter_fan]

Urgh...Redmond was our main area of consideration. Shall have to have a long hard think about this one

[LordBalfor]

Yeah, mozzies are present in Western Washington - we have them at our house north of Sea-Tac airport. However, having lived back East (Long Island, Michigan, North Dakota) I call tell you that they are NO WHERE NEAR as common or plentiful as most of the rest of the country.

They are around though.

Ken

[haggardhouseelf]

Mosquito's are anywhere there is warmth and water. It's only warm enough a few months out of the year here, so keep that in mind. If you are coming from someplace hot and humid like Texas (I'm a native Texan) the mosquito's you'll find here aren't as big a deal. They are still pests, but not as awful.

Also... it depends on where you are. We are in the outskirts outside of Redmond city in an unincorporated area right across the street from an 800+ acre protected watershed wilderness area. So, we have mosquito's. Down Novelty Hill in the City of Redmond, where there are less trees and slightly less water, they might not be so bad?

Another thing we do have a lot of out here, are bats. They help keep the mosquito populations down. Love bats!

[cindycat]

We live a mile west of the Hood Canal Bridge on the edge of the Olympic Peninsula. It's maybe half a mile to any water. The mosquitos here are horrible in the summer. Make that HORRIBLE!!!! I lived in Oklahoma for 60 years and they were never this bad. On the other hand, when we first moved to Washington, we lived between Silverdale and Seabeck and had very few of the little suckers.

[M3 Mitch]

Oddly enough in the Lower Valley area, Tri-Cities, particularly around Prosser, they can be pretty thick. Little rainfall but enough river water and irrigation water that the mosquitos can breed OK.

[Condorll]

We live in West Seattle on Genesse Hill. We have no mosquitos, zilch, nada, none. Don't need screens on our windows.

[Woof]

Not too many in Seattle, except once I got bit up in the Madison Ave side of Washington Park.

[fastsix]

I've gotten bit more times in a single day in the South, than 5 years of living in Redmond - no exaggeration. Mosquitoes just aren't a serious problem around here. There's usually only a month or two where it's warm enough for them to breed, but those months are also generally very dry so there aren't as many sources of stagnant water as there are in the South where afternoon thunderstorms are common during the summer.

[toughguy]

I grew up in a house with a backyard that ended in a huge greenbelt,which had a small creek running through it. Every summer they would breed in the creek and then would all congregate around the floodlight on our back porch. I used to wait until there were thousands of them, then I would take a can of WD40 and a lighter and torch the living sh** out of them. One quick blast was usually enough. It would make this huge crackling sound, and they would all fall to the ground simultaneously in a huge ball of blackend insect parts. So my advice....if you live near water, keep a crude, haphazardly constructed, and potentially hazardous torch device handy.

[LMB]

Originally Posted by toughguy

So my advice....if you live near water, keep a crude, haphazardly constructed, and potentially hazardous torch device handy.

I'll keep that in mind! We have a year-round stream that meanders through our backyard in intown Poulsbo. Also, we live just a block or so from the waterfront of Liberty Bay--lots of water all around, which we love! Surprisingly, we didn't see one mosquito last summer. Lots of bees and a few other flying insects, but no skeeters. Coming from the humid buggy southeast, the lack of mosquitoes here is wonderful!

Lynn