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Comment by acchow | Hacker News Reader

There are also no mosquitos in San Francisco

I also went on a 3 hour hike in the Oakland redwoods this weekend and did not encounter a single mosquito. Pretty amazing

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Its also a bit of a relative thing.

People who haven't lived in a mosquito infested area (e.g. Northern Canada or Alaska) have no concept of what "a lot of mosquitos" mean, and will talk about seeing a lot of mosquitos, which other people would consider an undetectable amount.

We rented a houseboat on a lake for a week in northern Canada when I was 6 or 7, and I'm still haunted by the number of mosquitoes to this day. We cut the trip short to about 2 days and immediately went home and I think only visited Canada once after that, despite being a couple hours from the border.

The mosquitoes are annoying, but just be happy it wasn't horsefly season.

The worst I've ever seen was when i was a kid we went camping near Rabbitkettle Hot Springs in Nunavut. I swear, every time you clapped your hand, you would kill 7 mosquitos

As a canadian, let me assure you, we do have some nice less mosquito filled places :)

I used to live in the Chicago suburbs. When we got bored as kids, we'd kill mosquitoes and feed them to the fish in my dad's aquarium. They were well fed.

I've lived near San Francisco for 30 years now. I have had zero mosquito bites.

I've been visited by black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, bobcats, wild pigs and the occasional fox or badger. But no mosquitoes.

I used to have plenty of mosquitos in Soma. I’m pretty sure they were from standing water in my apartment neighbor’s balcony plants. I always entertained the idea of attempting to spray or throw some sort of chemical into the pots I could easily reach.

You were thinking of throwing poison into your neighbors pots because your assumed they could be breeding mosquitoes?

Every year when they detect west nile in my neighborhood, they start driving trucks around once a week spraying concentrated poison directly into the air.

They don't even put up signs to tell us what day to close our windows, or that they are doing it at all.

... and that is bad. Not a status quo we should all settle for.

Your being downvoted, but i agree. Chemically treating someone's plants without telling them is not ok.

Doubly so if they are intending to use it for food purposes.

Good thing he didn’t do it and it was only a thoughtcrime

God forbid we think UnApprovedThoughts™

Well, yeah, it was more of those “why I ought to…” thoughts when I was frustrated by the mosquitos. I would have asked my neighbors if it got bad enough that I really wanted to go through with it, because that’s just basic courtesy. But also if we’re really going to put up our “property rights” battle lines, I kinda think the tiny insects routinely bringing strangers’ blood into my home from my neighbor’s property and attempting to stick their used needles into my skin would justify a judicious response.

But you don't have much evidence that the pots are the problem, your idea to poison their plants is a far more egregious property crime, and there are so many ideas that you could do first. I get that you're saying you wouldn't actually do it but christ that's such an extreme desire to casually float.

> I kinda think the tiny insects routinely bringing strangers’ blood into my home from my neighbor’s property and attempting to stick their used needles into my skin

Mosquitoes don't inject other people's blood into you and the used needle analogy is not apt at all.

There are definitely mosquitoes in San Francisco. They sneak into my place if I leave the door open for too long and then wake me at 2am as well as doing other things mosquitoes do.

I remember when they started putting something in the storm drains and after a few years they were mostly gone. You can see the layers of colorful dots on top of the drains

https://www.mosquitosf.com

https://99percentinvisible.org/article/making-the-rounds-wit...

acchow has been extremely fortunate because I've encountered them in the Mission, Russian Hill, Tenderloin, and not surprisingly Mountain Lake Park. Some of the storm drains aren't draining properly. Yes, we've used those expanding screens, but I think the mosquitoes are blood-thirsty enough to crawl through any cracks and most Victorian window frames are no longer square.

You can call 311 to ask them to check the drains again, or buy some dunks yourself.

I don't remember ever seeing one or being bitten by one the entire time I lived in the bay area. I also think there were less bugs in general compared to the east coast. Except for spiders. Maybe the spiders keep them in check.

No mosquitos is new. I grew up in the east bay, with a view of the GG bridge.

When I was young 25-35 years ago, I would get eaten alive at night.

I did get one bite earlier this year in downtown Oakland. It was the first in a while.

We find mosquitos inside in the mission, so yes and no.

Some people are magnets for mosquitos and can somehow managed to get bitten and harassed in places I never ever see mosquitos.

I used to think this was a tall tale. In my culture, they call it "sweet blood" when mosquitos go after certain people. But it is for real! https://www.23andme.com/topics/traits/mosquito-bite-frequenc...

This was me when I was a young. My record was 31 mosquito bites in a day. Nobody else in the room was bothered. Now as an adult, my unwanted superpower has disappeared.

mosquitoes are attracted by smell of sweat. sweaty people get bitten more often

There certainly are, but they aren’t common. If you go for an evening hike July to October on Mount Davidson, you’ll know.

I can confirm this. I'm curious though, why? Why are there no mosquitos in northern California?

I recall plenty of mosquitos on my porch in the haight area back in my day

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