this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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I remember there being these large square trucks that would fog in the 90s. My parents told us if it was coming down or street, to come inside. I can't find anything about it, so I'm starting to question if it's a false memory, but I can picture them clear as day. When I try to look it up, I can only find info about DDT from the 50s to 70s or more modern pickup mounted foggers.
I work in mosquito control. You aren't imagining it.
I'm new to the field but the guy I work with has done it since the early 80's and used to drive those trucks.
The way he tells it though people used to open up their windows when they heard the truck coming so the chemicals would come inside and kills the mosquitos that already made it in the house ๐คฃ
The residential truck spraying isn't done any more though, for obvious reasons. Where I'm from it's just larval mosquito control, using bacteria that only kills mosquito larvae in the wayer. In the states they fly planes overhead and fog agricultural fields and whatnot. Killing all the mosquitos and bees and shit which may be pollinating the crops.
It's crazy that folks were opening their windows, I'm glad my parents weren't like that. I'm glad to hear I wasn't imagining it. It's probably for the best that it stopped, though. Too often, we've coated ourselves and the environment in harmful chemicals. Sucks to hear about the pollinators, though.
I'm not exactly sure what they're spraying, but it's still a regular thing where I live. I'm on the edge of suburbs/country south west of Chicago.
We did move a lot as a kid. Maybe it was just one region we were in, then. Oddly enough, I'm not far from you in Indiana, yet I haven't seen any fogger trucks, but I don't see a lot of mosquitoes, either. I'm glad I'm not crazy and somebody else has seen this.
Since you're in the states it may be Naled.
Not sure if Illinois has the same rules as where I live but for me we have to place advertisements every 3-5 years for mosquito control and have written plans in place which state every product used and methods of control and a bunch of other stuff which can be requested by the public.