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The mosquito diaries.

Article Excerpt
I have killed two rattlesnakes, a tarantula, and three scorpions in my time, but in no case was I seized with the blind rage that overtakes me when a mosquito buzzes in my ear. For a while, I regarded this as just an anger-management problem. But it's one thing to lose sleep because of the pesky things, quite another to wind up in intensive care with the West Nile virus because you got bit while grilling a ribeye. Granted, your odds of acquiring West Nile from a skeeter bite are long (195 cases and 11 deaths in the state last year). But this still gives pause in Texas, which has more species of the critter (85, about half the total in the U.S.) and a longer mosquito-breeding season than most states. So now that they're not only an annoyance but also a health hazard reaching beyond New Orleans's post-Katrina sludge--Houston has reported a fourfold increase this year in infected mosquitoes--I decided to find out what works and what doesn't to keep the little bloodsuckers out of my...