Did anyone else growup with "the mosquito truck" coming through their neighborhood?

[underpants]

I was talking about this with my boss who grew up on Va's Eastern shore. I grew, for the most part, in Tidewater-coastal Virginia.

Starting around this time of year at some point in the early evening we would be playing outside and we would hear the low rumble of the chemical dispersing motor and see the flashing yellow light

MOSQUITO TRUCK!!!! someone would yell and everyone high-tailed it into the closest house.

[hippywife]

1. Yep.

Central Ohio. I high-tailed it inside, too. Couldn't stand the smell.

:hi:

[RedRocco]

9. the stuff they used here

smelled like a cross between grape and green apple chewing gum

[peekaloo]

2. Yes.

The "slower" kids used to chase it on their bikes. :-(

The truck has recently reappeared in our neighborhood(s) due to standing water from earlier rains. I had not seen that thing for years, thought maybe it was an ambulance or cop car when it showed up last month forcing me to run through the house to close all the windows before we got gassed.

[Minimus]

5. I never understood

why the driver didn't stop spraying with all those kids following him so closely. I lived in Va Beach and the spray truck came through the neighborhood quite often and some of the kids just loved it! :crazy:

[carlyhippy]

3. We have the mosquito truck spraying every morning at 6 a.m.

I have to get up and shut all of the windows. Sometimes he is running late and I am outside watering my trees, and have I have to high-tail it into my house.

[LibDemAlways]

4. When I was a kid in Northern New Jersey my family would occasionally

go to a drive in movie during the summer. Before the show the mosquito truck would make the rounds through the aisles spraying everything in sight. Definitely could not have been healthy but I remember it well.

[Paladin]

6. Happened All The Time In Austin, TX.

We used to run behind the trucks in the "smoke," then stumble home and wash our eyes out in the sink to stop the burning. I don't imagine parents allow such behavior anymore---at least, I hope they don't....

[JohnnyLib2]

7. Yup, we chased it on bikes, raced through the fog.

Everyone is still kickin' 50 years later, but we're all a bit odd. :shrug:

(Nevada, not Texas. Maybe it was the atomic fallout?? )

[Capn Sunshine]

18. Well, when I was last in Houston in the 90s

I stayed in the Woodlands, the Skeeter truck came by and sure enough, there were kids on bikes weaving in and out of the stuff.
I'm convinced that every politician in Texas did this as a child.

[Richardo]

8. We still get mosquito trucks in the hinterlands of Houston

Not every year, but sometimes.

[underpants]

10. How about the guy who has to drive the truck

ALL day

[Ikonoklast]

11. My neighborhood got an ice cream truck.

I guess the market for insects just wasn't there.

[JitterbugPerfume]

12. mmm! the smell of DDT in the morning

There is nothing like it!

[tigereye]

24. yeah it must have been DDT or something nasty like that...

[Seneca]

13. I'll never forget the foul smell

Clouds of skeeters, replaced by clouds of toxic gas, lol.

[azmouse]

14. I remember aerial spraying for gypsy moths in PA.

[TransitJohn]

15. Yes, but we would all ride our bikes through the fog.

Stupid Wyoming kids, we were.

[SoxFan]

16. We high-tailed it OUT of the nearest house

Put on a diving mask and chased after the truck on bicyles.

This probably explains a lot 35 years on...

[iris27]

17. Remember? Hell, one just came down the street last night!

Stinks to high heaven, yet the obnoxious kids next door were out laughing and playing like nothing was different and the air wasn't filled with toxic gas. Actually...that explains a lot.

[Orsino]

19. Used to come through my granny's neighborhood in coastal South Carolina.

My brother and I went out to play in the fog a couple of times.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

20. It was part of the half-time entertainment

at the local drive-in theater.

Would you like some ddt with your popcorn?

:hi:

[cwydro]

21. We have them regularly through my neighborhood.

I usually can hear them at a distance when walking my dog and I get home as quickly as possible.

They also spray it from helicopters here, no warning.

[tigereye]

22. no, I don't think so

I don't remember anything like that, fortunately. :scared:

[Mimosa]

23. In Savannah and Hilton head, yes.

My grandparents had homes on Hope island and later on Hilton Head island. All the SC coastal islands used to use the trucks. Don't know about now.

[Demoiselle]

25. Yes. On Long Beach Island, in New Jersey.

We stayed at a friend's house there in the summer and the bug truck came by every evening. There was a time when kids would actually chase the truck and play in the cloud of chemicals.
Really. That tells you how old I am.

[nolabear]

26. Yep, we played hide and seek in the sweet, sweet DDT fog.

The fact that I'm still alive impresses the hell out of me sometimes.

[Brother Buzz]

27. I saw them operating in neighboring mosquito abatement districts. Ours was different....

we employed a skinny old man to treat standing water. He trekked EVERYWHERE armed with just an oil can to squirt the water (I think it was oil). He knew every vernal pool and pond around and visited them every month to give them a squirt of oil. I'd see him once or twice a season treating the ponds along the RR tracks. I once followed him for a mile, or so, just to watch him work; he was a fast walker. He told me the oil drowns the mosquito larvae.

[Old Troop]

28. We used to have it in MA during the sixties. We also had it at Ft Davis,

Panama during the mid-eighties. I don't think they were spraying DDT then though.

[WCIL]

29. We had them (still do) in Illinois

and I was one of the fools running after it. Sometimes, if he was in a good mood, the driver would slow down so we could catch up!