No-See-Ums?
This problem has been troubling me since the weather got warmer. Whenever I’m in my house (Garden and Parlor floors with large yard) I feel like I’m getting bitten by something. It isn’t painful, just a little itch, but i never see anything on my skin or flying or jumping around. I have a dog,…
This problem has been troubling me since the weather got warmer. Whenever I’m in my house (Garden and Parlor floors with large yard) I feel like I’m getting bitten by something. It isn’t painful, just a little itch, but i never see anything on my skin or flying or jumping around. I have a dog, but it definitely isn’t fleas (I know what they look like). At first I thought I was imagining it, then I thought it was dry skin, but it only happens at home. I keep my house pretty clean and shower a lot, so I don’t think it is a cleanliness problem. I have experienced no-see-ums in the Caribbean and that is kind of what this reminds me of. Could it be bedbugs? I’ve heard they’ve made a resurgence in NY. Are they visible to the naked eye? Is there some other 100-yr-old house problem that I don’t know about? It is getting very annoying. Help!
I live with my sister in Huntsville Alabama and we have been fighting no-see-ums for three years now. We’ve moved twice, gotten rid of three sofas, one chair, several mattresses, and numerous sheets, blankets, etc. We have just moved into a new place and are still fighting them, though they have gotten less troublesome. But we think they nest in fabrics, like mattresses and upholstered furniture. No one else in our family is ever bothered by them, including my sons, our brother, or mother. They are not coming in from the outside anymore (though I think they did at the originating nest of hell where we got them first). They used to start in September and continue through December (or until the first killing frost). Then they’d go away until the fall again. Now they come out every several weeks in lesser quantities, and with less force, but they are still annoying and deeply frustrating. We don’t want to get rid of even more furniture and certainly not our clothes, but we don’t know what to do. We sprayed in the first house multiple times (professionally and on our own). They never went away, but I felt like we were poisoning ourselves with the pesticides, so we stopped. We just keep moving and throwing things out, and hopefully they’ll keep diminishing. I don’t want to have to move again. But I want them to DIE! Any new ideas?
I can’t believe I found this website.Thank you for the info. I too feel I’m going crazy and must leave coastal Florida. These things are creating terrible stress in my life. It seems worse this summer and worse since the hurricanes of 2004. I have lived on a wood boat in southeast coastal Florida for 5 years. We have traveled north to the Chesapeake during the summer months for 3 of the 5 years. They were still present during the trip up and down the coast, but not as bad as Florida. I do not believe these microscopic critters are noseeums that make a sensation on the skin…kind of a creepy..crawly sensation…mostly lower legs and torso with only a little itch. Sometimes a tiny sting. I have no rash or marks from them. It is not possible to see them or touch them. Just the lower legs and torse feel it. Sometimes other parts of the body in bed. We do not have bed bugs. They are in the carpet and bare floors and there is relief for about 1 day after intense vacuuming. I’ve tried Raid spray, set off bombs and left for several days, to no avail and am trying boric acid now. I’m also considering taking out all carpet. We have a wood floor in the kitchen and they are there as well.
I’ve had an exterminator basically tell me I’m imagining this as he couldn’t feel them. I’ve had a dermatologist tell me it is probably allergies. Does anybody out there live on a boat and have the same problem. When I leave the boat it goes away. I wash the bedding constantly. I use free and clear detergent and no fabric softener. I’ve tried everything. These things take over our lives!!!
hello again,
after trying so many ideas, i tried to eat a lot of garlic (which is new to me) and it didn’t work. noseeums are relentless. unless you have something that attract and kells noseeums 24/7 365 days a year, you will have to suffer their totally annoying pestering and biting.
i googled Indoor Noseeum Control and i see that there are attract/kill machines that supposedly imitate humans with a heat/light/co2/scent approach that suck the buggers into a container and allow the noseeums to dehydrate. maybe 2 of these in my apartment will work.
the thought of living with these pests for the rest of my life is depressing. i am one of the types who are so allergic to their bite that after the itching goes away (weeks) the bites slowly turn into the type of tiny moles that you see on actor morgan freeman’s face! (i wonder if he knows where those tiny moles come from?) I will post as to wether or not the indoor attract/kill machines work.
mindtour
p.s. I wear long sleeve shirts/sweaters and long legged pants/sweats in my home all the time. besides attacking my head/face, i now find that the brief time i’m on the toilet and my lower half is exposed I GET BITTEN! just to give you an idea of how relentless these creatures are…
mssgr kasarsik has it right!
I’ve been fighting no-see-ums since sep 2006. I lived in the suburbs of atlanta, then moved to the downtown Detroit area. No-see-ums are relentless and unstoppable at this time. If you can breathe, they can get to you. They are attracted to you by the carbon dioxide, octenol, lactic acid you breathe out. They also can tell which target is the best by analyzing your breath. For instance, if you take vitamins everyday especially iron or eat iron rich foods and take care of your health, then you will be chosen over someone who doesn’t (they’ve have been tracking mammals/humans ever since mammals/humans came into existence!). To give you an idea; when I drove my uhaul truck from the Atlanta suburbs, they attacked me all the way, being especially intense during sunrise and sunset. They use the light and the shadows to approach and at these times thay become like kamikazes. The females do the biting and there is always a male no-see-um nearby.
They will land on you outside and ride you into your home, apt, condo, penthouse, car etc., etc. When I lived in Georgia, in a house, I started spraying insecticide on my white screendoor while entering. I would see as many as twenty or more no-see-ums stuck to the screendoor. If you add to that the no-see-ums that were piggy-backing on me, it could have been as many as fifty whenever my door opened. And now I see them in the elevator with me. Which means thay rode me from the underground parking garage, through the glass tunnel, into the lobby…(you get the picture!)
What I want to add is that, now that I wear long clothes all the time, I get attacked around the face. They go up my nose, in my eyes, ears. Especially if i start spraying insecticide…they make a beeline for my eyes, the only safe place in my home! I am not sure but i think that they are laying eggs in my eyes. I slide out 20 to 40 tiny grains from my eyes on a daily sometimes hourly basis. It could actually be adult insects.
And when it comes to attraction, I have a marina and a walking/kids/basketball park right below me, I’m on the 18th floor and when I stand near my windows and the sun is setting, no-see-ums and mosquitos start swarming onto my windows trying desperately to find ways to get in, even with sometimes hundreds of people below!
I am not going to stop exercising and taking vitamins everyday…but, I am going to try eating lots of garlic in hopes that my breathing/sweating garlic out will deter them and stop advertising myself as the one to suck blood from! I might even start drinking alcohol!
p.s. No-see-ums come in wave after wave (one female can lay 50-100 eggs as many as ten times in her lifetime). So whatever you do to get rid of no-see-ums in the morning, another wave of freshly hatched no-see-ums could attack you an hour or so later. The only thing the female no-see-um lives for is to suck your blood, then mate with a nearby male, then lay eggs, then suck your blood again, ad infinitum… I will keep this board posted on if the garlic works!
mindtour
I’m having the same “bug bites” but do not have any marks on my skin. My head feels like something crawling on my scalp. My arms and legs and neck are attacked by something I cannot see that must jump all over because in an instant I feel it here then there. I started a compost pile this year in my back yard. Is this the culprit and I’ve brought the pests into my house? They are in the family room which is the room to access the back yard. At least I haven’t been sleeping with them yet and can get a good nites sleep. But twice I’ve started itching at work HELP!
Holy cow, it’s so wonderful to find this forum. My husband thinks it’s all in my mind, and the bites on my legs and torso are psychosomatic, since I’m the only one who gets bitten! He keeps saying, “How can you not see them, when they’re biting you?” and, “Why would they be biting you, and only you?” I’ve been pouring over internet pages, looking for some sort of an answer. The itching is terrible, and the welts are so unsightly (I have approximately 100+ bites at this writing). I never see an insect, but my skin says otherwise. I have a home in VA, and a farm in VA as well, and the biting “whatevers,” seem to follow me from farm to home. The itching wakes me up at night, and the bites and subsequent scars are so unsightly. I’m going to have to buy burn-scar makeup to cover the numerous welts. I’m also going to try some of the links that above posters have listed. If someone finally comes up with a definitive answer to this, PLEASE post!
I have been having the same problem. I live just outside of Philadelphia, in Ardmore. I think the bugs look like small bits of dirt, some look like the bits of vanilla you see in vanilla icecream. Last night, I took a shower, and then got into my bed with fresh, clean white sheets. When I woke up, I found these black specks where I had been sleeping. I picked up the flecks with a piece of clear tape, and put the tape in a container.
A few days ago, an exterminator came by. He put white pieces of paper around the floor that have sticky-stuff on them. (These are those sticky-traps for mice. Most of those sticky traps that I have seen are black. It is helpful that these are white.) A few black flecks appeared on the sticky-paper, but not nearly the same numbers as were on my sheets. Somehow, they are attracted to and manage to find me. I think these black flecks are causing my itching.
Occassionally, I see something that looks like a fruit fly fly off of me, but I don’t know if that is at all related to the flecks.
I will have the exterminator come back and tell me what he thinks. I also just sent an email over to The American Entomological Society at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Answering the questions above:
1. I am in a suburban area, and there are lawns and parks nearby. There is a big mowed, grass lawn outside my back window.
2. I have carpet in most of the apartment
3. I have wood molding
I just as a neighbor if he was experiencing the same thing, and I was told that he wasn’t. A friend is experiencing the same thing, and she stopped by. So maybe it is transferred person or animal to furniture, to other person or animal?
I have found something helful in the meantime. I use witchhazel and it seems to stop the itching— and maybe encourages the pests to leave me alone for a little bit.
It’s not phorid flies–phorid flies do not bite, according to MSN Encarta.
We’re having a terrible infestation, too. They only bit my husband for a while, but now I’m getting bit, too. We live in NY State and have no AC, so we have to leave windows open, and they get through the screens. I wondered about trying a mosquito zapper–in the house!
Try this:
http://www.buzzoff.com/CMSContent/Products-Golf.aspx#
It seems this might help.