Exclusive: Upper West Side Mosquito Mystery

Families Terrorized By Swarms Of Underground Insects That Invade Homes

November 3, 2011 11:59 PM

(credit: CBS 2)

Reporting Dave Carlin

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NEW YORK (CBS 2) — An insect invasion is terrorizing New York City homeowners, making life miserable, even dangerous, for many families. Parents have been forced to take extreme measures to protect their children and their homes.

CBS 2’s Dave Carlin investigates the growing Upper West Side mosquito mystery.

These rare mosquitoes are extra blood-thirsty and active year-round. Carlin saw some of them in a lab after they were collected in the unlikeliest of places, Bernard Lagan’s home on West 84th Street.

“They trapped 150 mosquitoes in the basement in a 24-hour period coming from underground and into the basement and up in to the house through the air vents and it’s the same story as the other brownstones on this block,” Lagan told Carlin.

UPDATE: Rare Breed Only Feeds In Darkness

It’s an invasion that has almost every resident of 84th Street between Riverside and West End Avenue slapping, scratching and suffering.

“They’re hungry. They’re hungry,” said resident Susan Nicholson.

“Three on this ear; one on his cheek; one on his neck,” another woman said, illustrating the bites on one of her children. “And there are some on his arms going up his arm.”

Frustrated neighbors said after numerous complaints to the city and no concrete action, they feel abandoned. So like busy bees, they’re taking matters in to their own hands: covering cracks, vents and drains, both inside and out.

“Every vent is covered with mesh. It helps. It cuts it by 50 percent,” resident Pauline Galiana said.

In bedrooms on the block you see mosquito netting over the beds. Residents told Carlin it is the only way to get an uninterrupted pain-free night of sleep.

“This mosquito is well known for being in sewers in New York,” said Dina Fonseca, a professor at the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology.

Fonseca said the blood suckers’ scientific name is Culex Pipiens Molestus and that they thrive year-round in sewers and feast on humans at night.

“The best way to address that is to close all connections to the sewer and do aggressive mosquito control in the sewers, but that’s a tall order in these old cities like New York,” Fonseca said.

“Eliminating them, we are told by the Health Department, is going to require ripping up the road, treating it and putting the road back down,” Lagan said.

But Lagan said he is tired of waiting, and so are his kids, 7-year-old Rosie and 9-year-old Gracie.

“All on the walls there are mosquitoes and blood,” Gracie said.

“I just get bitten really all over me,” Rosie added.

Carlin contacted the Health Department to ask when something will be done. He has not heard back.

“It really is unacceptable for a city to ignore this kind of plague,” Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal said the Department of Transportation must provide some relief.

“I just saw coming up from these holes a whole bevy of mosquitoes. If the city were to patch up the holes in the street it would take care of at least some of the mosquitoes,” Rosenthal said.

Residents vow to bug every city agency they can think of to make all these pests buzz off for good.

Residents said the problem started last summer and got progressively worse. They said, initially, they were told because getting rid of the mosquitoes was not a top priority because they tested negative for West Nile Virus.

Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

Exclusive: Upper West Side Mosquito Mystery

Erin Stanton

THANK GOD this was covered. Literally covered in bites. Calling 311 is completely useless (they won’t open a case, they won’t look into it, they won’t tell you who to talk to, they won’t give you information). The line i received 20+ times is we have no information on that at present.

Prussiantiger

collect as many as you can and then turn them lose on the city government by letting them lose in their building. That should at least get their attention!

Tom Menino

LOL… yes every NYC resident should capture a couple of hundred in a jar and release them in Bloomtard’s office.

kurt

Bloomtard? That’s funny!

elda

Why do people call the “City” when things like this happen? What ever happened to fixing things for yourself. The city does not produce insects or bad weather.What a bunch of babies.

tom hoser

People tend to call the city when the city infrastructure has something to do with the problem. The problem is in the street or the sewerage system.We don’t live out in the woods where we could, say, drain a pond. We in the city are not babies we pay the highest taxes in the country including city taxes and deserve service for our infrastructure.

G-Jean

Does not appear, right now, that you are getting much for all of those tax dollars. Good luck getting rid of the pests!! Don’t like mosquitoes either!

Terry

Lift the ban on DDT. It is the most effective insecticide agains mosquitos.

Myron

The ban on DDT has been lifted. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215084,00.html

Margaret Pickett O

Wow! I can’t believe the ban was lifted in 2006. Imagine how many lives could be saved if they used it in Africa – no more malaria. Imagine if we used it here – no more dengue or lice! Probably would get rid of the bed bug problem too.

Mike A

They do use it in Africa. It has saved millions of lives, but newer, safer, and even more effective methods need to be and are being looked into. Lots of interesting scientific studies are being done regarding the genetics of the mosquito’s olfactory senses and different possible control measures that result from these studies.

LovinFL

“Carson materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her anti-pesticide agenda”

Hmm, sounds like the Global Warming scientist of today misrepresenting their science in order to advance their political agenda and pocket book size!

Kevin Pearson

I haven’t read the book, but from what I have read about it, her comments were that the overuse of DDT was creating strains of mosquitoes that were immune to it (they were) and it would lose its effectiveness. And she DID NOT recommend that DDT be banned for disease vector control. Apparently her writings were distorted by militant environmentalists to get measures taken that she did no approve of.

Alan

DDT is still banned in the US, but yes, it can be used overseas. The ban in US was largely political – chemical companies could not make a profit on it so it was a no-brainer to give up.

Nonetheless, residual sprays on resting areas will be effective for at least 3-4 generations, even in a population with resistant individuals. It will help knock them down for a bit.

Best approach is an integrated approach – get rid of standing water (including water in containers). Hit the large breeding areas (like sewers) with an insect growth regulator (like methoprene) as well as a biological such as Bti.

Also – get in touch w/ the American Mosquito Control Association, see if they can hook you up with Harris Co. Mosquito Control (Houston) – they can give you the specs. for their rig that they use to fog inside the sewers (resmethrin would probably be a good choice).

Yes, I know way too much on this subject

George Johnson

Yeah, Heaven forbid that some people should actually have to take action themselves!! Complain the city for months at a time, and then when finally, nothing is done, we’ll “have to act on our own”…. My God, what sort of America are we raising here?
Can you whiners do ANYTHING for yourselves??

Mike Notsaying

GMO MOSQUITOS READ UP ON IT <<<<< THESE WERE BREAD IN A LAB < THEY RECENTLY RELEASED THEM AND YES ITS MAIN LINE NEWS THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MODIFY THE ENVIROMENT PLAYING GOD

Kruelhunter

For Pete’s sake Mike don’t read/watch The Stand by Steven King. Judging by your paranoid comment you’d probably be driven into a heart attack.

Wait – maybe that’s just another plan to get you because you know too much!

Tom Menino

bush’s fault

Lilith

Yes, Yes, Obama can fix it by only adding 2.3 trillion more to our deficit and ramming another bad bill through congress. And of course it is Bush’s Fault LOL

kjc

Don’t be so quick to dismiss his RATIONAL FEAR…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/science/concerns-raised-about-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes.html

These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill — their own children.

Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.
Mike Notsaying

heres the news articles argue with them >>>>>
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350708/Genetically-modified-mosquitoes-released-Malaysia-sparks-fears-uncontrollable-new-species.html

heres a article from gene watch world foundation http://www.genewatch.org/sub-566989

im aware of reality but hell if you think a statement like “dont watch the stand” is significant well i hate to tell ya but this issue effects you , and if ya want to live in ignorance and not face the wrongs perpetuated in this world i will leave you with this thought :

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. — Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776

Clarity-jane Seer

PLume Island
ali3nation

Mike, it’s BRED, not BREAD, otherwise, very intelligent comment, stay informed

LovinFL

LOL, You deserve a blue ribbon for that post!

BTW – I have little sympathy for anything that happens to NYC or Kalifornication! They both deserve what they get. Maybe they were released to “take care” of the occupiers.

Susanna Gordon

Meantime, let’s keep building those wind turbines that are environmental catastrophes. Hundreds of thousands of Migratory bats a year are killed by them – these are bats that eat millions of mosquitos a night.

They don’t fly into the turbines. If f they fly anywhere around them, the suction created by the turbines causes the bats’ lungs to collapse. They suffocate and die.

The turbine industry tries to keep this quiet, as they do with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Raptors, per year. Twice as many bats are killed as Raptors. Horrible carnage, and bad for the environment – all for a business, that along with solar, creates less than 1% of our energy.

their population is declining swiftly in the U.S.

A. Reenan

Hundreds of thousands? Really? So, exactly what flavor is the kool-aid you’re drinking?

Do the math folks, were these numbers to be real, the technicians who work on these killing machines would be using SHOVELS to get to their turbines. HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS!!! How hysterically funny and patently inaccurate!

Oh! And the “suction” created, and the lungs collapsed??? Also either a fabrication of a fertile and imaginative mind, or another full-to-the-rim glass of kool-aid. This one is even better than the woman who claimed her husband was killed by cancer caused by the wind turbines emitting or leaking toxic materials.

And as for the “less than 1% of our energy”? Last I checked it was a little bit higher than that at 2.3%. While that is not a massive amount, it is second in the world. By state it’s a bit more obvious the contributions. Iowa gets more than 15% of it’s power from wind.

People, think for yourselves and for the love of truth, look stuff up! Don’t take someone’s word for it! Especially if it’s someone working for some foundation or an organization with “people’s” or “world” in the name.

Hundreds of thousands? Anybody got a shovel?

Tom Menino

If we didn’t have wind turbines, the unemployment rate would be 15% instead of 9%. I read it on the internet.
Liberty Jane

I looked it up:
http://www.wvmcre.org/neg_imapcts/turbineskillbats.htm
“In a Washington Post article, Merlin D. Tuttle, president and founder of Bat Conservation International was quoted ‘Take the most conservative estimates of mortality and multiply them out by the number of turbines planned and you get very large, probably unsustainable kill rates. One year from now we could have a gigantic problem.’”

proudnot2bliberal

just becasue its in print doesnt make it so! There are books written by nutjobs that say 9-11 was an inside job because it was cheaper (to kill 3000 peopek crash 4 airplanes & spend billions on awar ) than to remodle (aka rosie odonnel) Mein Kampf is also in print doies tahtmake it true? Morons

merlin1246

“Hundreds of thousands of Migratory bats a year are killed by them ”
“the technicians who work on these killing machines would be using SHOVELS to get to their turbines.”
>>> Why don’;t you learn how to read. It was clear that person was referring to all wind turbines collectively, not just one or another.
eor

When 3 raptors (different species) are found under one turbine you know it is bad. The rodents and misquitos will take over!! This was reported in our area.

April Romero

Yes, and who do we blame for the turbine industry? Oh of course it must be Bush’s fault.
Pogue Mahone

There are no turbines in the middle of New York City. These mosquitoes are not affected by some turbines somewhere else on earth. Earth and life on it will survive with or without wind turbines.

If these people just took care of things themselves, instead of picking up a phone and demanding other people to do it for them, the problem would be gone almost immediately. Thinking outside the box is easy when you haven’t had it taught out of you. It’s why the very people that these urban Upper West Siders like to snicker and laugh about are the very ones who can deal with problems like this at any time without batting an eyelid. Sometimes the government can’t or doesn’t come running to your rescue. Some in America will have to relearn this, via mosquitoes or otherwise.
tom hoser

Boy are you misinformed! The pressure differential between the front and back of the blades of a turbine is not enough to effect a bat’s lungs in any way

. A few bats, birds, kites, and balloons do get into the machines from time to time but not in significant numbers. You have to realize this technology has been around for over a century pumping water on farms throughout the world; it’s just harnessed to a generator.

The fact that alternative energy represents just a small but significant portion of our energy mix is because the commitment via government and corporations has been lacking. Also, people like yourselves who are ignorant of the facts set the progress back.

JR

Mosquitoes breed in standing water, so eliminate it anywhere near your living space, including and most especially, basements. Install screens. Use DEET products. There are even organic ‘natural’ products on the market. Start doing some research. Don’t hang out outside with your family unless everyone is swabbed down with something.

I’m a coastal transplant to the Midwest and mosquitoes are ubiquitous in summer. No one lives with them IN their homes. You may not be able to deal with the outside until the government does something, but you sure as heck can deal with your own interior living space.

But you have to be willing to work, especially with older buildings. You CAN install screens over interior heating vents, you can run around with a tube of caulk and patch cracks in your apartment, etc.

What you don’t do is just sit there and be a buffet for the critters while you endless wait for someone else to do something. That’s just plain ridiculous.

Police your home.

Lilith

Good advice
Alan

Back when I was a grad student working on mosquito ecology at LSU (Geaux Tigers), there were folks that lived deep in the bayous that would report mosquito ‘biting / landing counts’. There was one woman in Vermilion Parish that only bothered to report if she was bit more than 15 times while sitting in AM ‘doing her business’ (yes,indoor plumbing, but window was open).

I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up

mike

I used to use insecticide canisters that released a lot of insect killing chemicals into my home. I don’t see why they can’t put and release such inexpensive insect bombs in these sewers until the problem has quieted down. A few thousand dollars worth applied daily over weeks might do the job.

John

Because then they couldn’t spend a few million dollars paying city union employees to do it. The point is not to solve problems for citizens, it’s to funnel as many tax dollars at the unions as possible.

I know because I used to work with the NYC unions, I saw every day how your tax dollars were simply poured down a drain.
Clarity-jane Seer

Not so have you heard of the overuse of insecticides? Better check Plume Island and their evil genetic experiments. They created Lime Disease!

Hope44

For those who have filled/covered holes with mesh, try using steel wool instead.
steve

What a bunch of whiners. Come to Alaska where we have “real” mosquitoes.

mrkwooley

Or Texas. My dog was sucked dry in 2 minutes by a swarm of Galveston swamp mosquitos. He was gone before we could get to him and all we had to bury was his bones and fur.

Everyone who lives near a coastal marsh knows that I’m not lying. Those suckers (no pun intended) fly in formation…

Mikey

I spent a few days in Port Aransas last year and the mosquitoes were absolutely unbelievable. We literally had to sprint from car to building to keep from getting covered by them. I swear they were trying to break through the windows of our car!

Thankfully I live in north Texas so we only have to deal with the moderately rabid mosquitos…

Jerome from Layton

I used to think NJ had mosquitoes. Then, I was assigned to Pleiku, Vietnam. Those highlands critters bred in the grass and it took two nets to keep them away. Sooner or later, a malaria carrier will get bit and then “life” in NYC will get very interesting. George Washington caught his malaria as a surveyor in Virginia.

Rocket man

You libs on the Upper Westside know the drill. First, blame Bush. I’ll bet you can trace these mosquitos to Texas some way. Then, insist the city raise it’s personal income and property taxes so you can also use other people’s money to pay for this. Afterall, it’s so unfair that this is only hitting the upper Westside. And don’t forget to call Rev. Al so he can demagogue the issue for you, always a crowd pleaser.

mmr

Hey Rocket Man Your comment is great!

Princess D

I live in a 2 family home in Brooklyn and I’ve been bitten by the same type of mosquitoes and my reaction to them is called cellulitis. Just this past Sunday night, I was bitten on my right hand and by Tuesday morning my hand had swollen to twice the size.

Lilith

Sounds like you need to do some work on your health then. People don’t just get that if they are healthy. You can also do things to protect your home.
RealDoc

It’s not cellulitis, it’s a delayed hypersensitivity reaction.

I’ve seen this misdiagnosed scads of times.

Think about it. Even “normies” get localized swelling and redness (erythema).

You are just having an exhuberant reaction. It involves the same parts of the immune system so you get similar presentation to cellulitis.

Ronald Moscatello

Blood Suckers !!!! Don’t they look a little bit like Barney Frank !!!

Tom Menino

Except the bodily fluid that he’s gargling in his throat when he talks isn’t blood.

BobtheMoron

Is this the first of the plagues on the godless city of New York? Or is it just OWS filth?
dog

We should feed them to the woodland creature.

http://www.leadfootedrabbit.com/2011/11/chronicles-of-woodland-creature.html

caligula

So they’re calling the OWS protesters mosquitoes now, eh?

LovinFL

That is an insult to mosquitoes everywhere! I wouldn’t even want to insult a rat by calling them rats.

Sum Guy

If you pour a very small amount of gasoline in a pool of still water containing mosquito larvae, the gasoline will form a very thin layer on the surface and larvae will start to die within seconds and will all be dead in a few minutes. In a confined area the gasoline odor will be noticeable, but will dissipate in a few hours.

caligula

or just dump the water out…
Randy

Kerosine works as well, and is not as volitile as gasoline.

Bugged in SWFL

In southwest Florida they have a fleet of DC-3 aircraft that regularly flyover and spray. It’s the only way to control these Tiger mosquitoes. They bite through your clothes and attack in large swarms.

I’ve often returned from a walk only to have a series of large bumps all over my back.. Find a good bug spray and apply it before you go out.

Large scale spraying works. I think it’s the only way to control this problem.
JoeCamel

Designated Smoking Areas = Natural Selection Safe Zones

Harley Davidson is all show

Wow, so Bill Gates has already released his vaccination mosquitoes?
Well, I guess there is no where to hide from their cancer viruses now.
Mosquito predator drones are now out circling the land looking for us, their victims.
They said they were going to reduce the population and it looks like its in full swing now.
GOOGLE EXCLUDED INCOME
Make the politicians obey the tax law, and stop funding your own death through Bill Gates, government, and the other murderer war-criminals.

Happydots

DDT anyone??

Joey Ramone

DDT did a job on me.

GOD

IT DID NOT, JOEY

JAY BECKER

try pouring cooking oil in the sewers and drains!
Ed Anger

I’ve experienced these little buggers in hotel rooms and pensions in Italy, as well as my apartment in an older building in Hoboken years ago. We stayed in a nice hotel in Florence and were attacked at night. Earlier I had the same experience in Rome, awakening from a dream that I was being bitten by swarms of biting insects. Looking around I noticed that there were bloody marks on the walls where previous guests had swatted them. They are truly voracious, and make sleeping impossible. I suspected that they were breeding in the basement, since closed windows have no effect. My experiences have always been in late summer and fall, also. This is the first article that I’ve seen about them. Good luck getting rid of them…
Buck O’Fama

How can you tell the difference between these and the bloodsuckers in the capital house? These fly on their own wings whle the elected leaches fly on our dime.

mystic

Tell that to unelected Michele who likes to fly on Air Force One on her weekly luxury vacations during a depression.. And she can bite.

TheRealKingMax

Ummm, I didn’t know about that.

I know Michelle SUCKS big time, but not bite.

Anon

NYC is a toilet. Its residents live in said toilet. This is not news.

CrooklynBoy

Yeah, that’s why it’s the most valuable real estate in the world, because it’s a ‘toilet’.

Uh, huh. surrrrreeee.

toilet refugee

Wrong. Toilet dwellers almost never notice they’re living in a toilet. They’re used to it.

NYC is beaten by Paris, Oslo, Copenhagen, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Singapore, Helsinki, Stockholm, Madrid, London, and even Beirut of all places.

NYC is expensive only by American standards, and that only because bankers prefer to live high up on a toilet tank where they can look down on all of the people living in the toilet bowl. It’s just more enjoyable that way.

Gang way!

You’re a toilet, and I’ve a dump brewin’.

Jerzey Boy

Gee, I thought the all went to Zuccotti Park
Izzy

The flyer from West Side Rag has information about who to contact to tell your story and complain: http://www.westsiderag.com/2011/10/28/rare-breed-of-nasty-mosquitoes-attacks-the-upper-west-side-welts-bandages-and-hospitalizations
MarkT

-

RARE Mosquitoes??!

Don’t tell PETA or the Sierra Club — they’ll be protesting to have the little blood-suckers placed on the Endangered Species list, and then then Obama’s little environmental police force will start handing out FINES if you slap one dead!

_
Mandy

Oh no. This means more of these crazy New Yorkers will be moving south to ruin our states like they have in NY. Stay in NY and straighten out the mess you have made there. We don’t need you down here, raising our taxes and installing wasteful stupid government programs that don’t work and just waste money.

CrooklynBoy

Amen to THAT!

I’m comin’ any ways, tho…

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Exclusive: Upper West Side Mosquito Mystery

Families Terrorized By Swarms Of Underground Insects That Invade Homes

November 3, 2011 11:59 PM

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