My entire life, I’ve been surrounded by mosquitoes. I grew up in a small Massachusetts town about 30 minutes outside Boston, and our house was tucked away deep in the woods, surrounded by wetlands. Through the warm months, bugs would come out right about that prime time of 7 or 8 p.m., and the swarms would wrap around my head and ankles, latching onto my skin for a taste.
But it wasn’t just our house. Almost every place in town was surrounded by forests, swamps and creeks, which seemed to dictate the concentration of mosquitoes you would have to deal with. To reach the athletic fields from the K-8 school in the middle of town, you had to cut through a path in the woods about 100 yards long. I may have been a flatlander, but I saw every kind of wildlife not called a moose in my backyard and sometimes in the house, too (squirrels, a couple of bats, even a racoon found its way in through the chimney).
Our hometown newspaper was called The Carlisle Mosquito. My first foray into journalism was the middle school newspaper, appropriately dubbed The Bite.
See what I mean? Mosquitoes were so rampant in the area it came to be a part of the town’s identity. All you could do was go inside to get away from them or break out the bug spray to get them away from you.
Now I’ve lived in New Hampshire for about 10 years, and shortly after the Granite State became my new home I quickly found that I never wanted to be inside. Summer meant swimming in Lake Winnipesaukee or floating on a tube down the Pemigewasset River. While winters can be tough in this region, I’ve always believed summer in New Hampshire is as good as life can be.
But back to the bugs.
Mosquitoes have been grabbing a lot of headlines as of late, and people are concerned for good reasons. The American Mosquito Control Association says these insects “cause more human suffering than any other organism” through mosquito-born disease and by transmitting diseases. Zika virus has found its way to New Hampshire with four travel-associated cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Does this mean we should hole up inside only to enjoy the summer air as it carries through a securely screened window? Of course not. But taking steps to protect yourself against mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers and every other critter lurking in the twilight could be the difference between catching something nasty and staying healthy this summer.
But what is the best remedy for keeping the bugs off your skin and clothes? Most people will go with the popular brand names for bug spray, such as Off! and Cutter. Those are easy enough to find at any chain drug store or super market. But there are other options as well, repellents made right here in New Hampshire that some might say are a healthier because they do not contain DEET and are made from all natural ingredients.
So I made a trip to the Concord Food Co-Op and checked out a couple of insect repellents made in the Granite State: Don’t Bug Me by Herbal Energetics in Northfield and Squito Ban by YAYA Organics in Hopkinton. From there, I zipped over to CVS and grabbed a can of Off! Deep Woods with 25 percent DEET.
This summer, in addition to reporting for the Monitor, I took up some part-time work at Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion – also known as Meadowbrook. The concert venue is surrounded by wetlands and the bugs can get pretty vicious right around the time the music starts. It’s the perfect place to test repellents.
Right about 8 p.m. on a Friday a week ago, I spotted the first mosquito of the night circling my face before I brushed it away from my forehead. The time seemed right, so I first applied the Don’t Bug Me on my left arm. This repellent is a gel that comes out of a tiny 1-ounce bottle and is smeared on your skin. It had a ripe scent but wasn’t very sticky, making it easy to put on. One drawback: it can’t be applied to your clothes like a spray can.
I then broke out the Squito Ban, a spray that comes in a larger 4-ounce bottle that claims to be DEET-free, safe for children and 100 percent plant-based. This spray didn’t have as strong a scent and can be applied to skin and clothes.
It gets a little cool in the evening, but I wore shorts so the Off! spray had a place to participate. I sprayed the Deep Woods repellent on my legs, put the bottles away and went back to work.
Of course this is not a perfect experiment. Who knows how the concentration of bugs that night differed from others, but I was sure they were out and it showed in the results. I left the show that night without a bite on my legs or arms, but my neck wasn’t so lucky. The only patch of skin that didn’t get any repellent, the back of my neck, had a couple of bites that quickly became itchy and irritated.
For this, I pulled the Don’t Bug Me back out and rubbed some gel on the spot. It wasn’t perfect, but it did soothe the irritation enough to eventually forget about it and quit scratching.
When you’re making a choice on bug repellents, there are a couple of things to consider, namely price and the contents of the remedy. David Brooks’s story alongside this one goes deeper into the science of bug sprays and what different compounds mean for your health. The Off! Deep Woods spray is 25 percent DEET, which can cause skin rash for some people. Brooks also reports that anything above 30 percent is unnecessary. Parked alongside the Deep Woods spray on the CVS shelf was Off! Active (15 percent DEET), Off! Family Care Unscented (7 percent DEET) and Off! Family Clean Feel (5 percent DEET).
All three of the repellents I used worked fine that evening. The only drawback was the price tag. While you can pick up a 6-ounce bottle of Off! Deep Woods for less than $9, you’re going to hand over between $11 and $12 for smaller bottles of repellents made with natural ingredients.
Even for a 1-ounce bottle, Don’t Bug Me came in at $11.49 at the Co-Op. Give Brooks’s story a read to gain a better understanding of DEET and the possible implications it can have on your health. From there you can decide what is the right choice for you and your family.
But don’t wait around. It’s the best time of the year to enjoy New Hampshire, and when the bugs are finally gone, summer will be, too.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3309, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)