Are mosquitos in the U.K. a newish thing?

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

I get bitten really badly. Bites currently the size of small plates and itching like crazy.

But l never remember getting this in Britain prior to 1996. I remember that was quite a hot year and that’s when they seemed to move in on me. I was 32 then.

Or have l become more tasty as I’ve got older?

I've had gnat bites all my life! And I swear us girlie's get targeted all the more. I've had times where I've been bitten almost to death (yes, slight exaggeration) and felt so unwell after as if I had been poisoned.

Born in the 80s and remember being bitten to death as a child. We had cans of WaspEze and tubes of Anthesan in the bathroom cabinet that I helped myself to

I feel the same, I don't remember mosquitos being a problem at all when I was growing up (South East UK) but one of my children sleeps under a mosquito net in the summer because she gets so badly bitten.

I hate mozzies. I want to rip my leg off. I have a really bad over reaction to them!

they are vampires.

I have several very itchy bites that have bruised badly! I'd never seen anything like it. I did nothing. the bruise just formed on its own😱

I remember midges and gnats but as a child I never saw an actual mosquito. Now you see (and hear) them indoors all the time, like little evil drones.

I find you get a couple in the winter who seem to wake up with the heating, and just randomly in November or whatnot you’ll be going to sleep and then hear that unmistakable whine go past your ear….aargh

I never remember them growing up in Ireland.
I’d always be bitten all over every summer when we’d go to France.
Now they’re just as bad here.. or is my memory wrong? I need to ask what others remember. 🤔

Yes, I used to go abroad in my twenties and get eaten alive.

Buy them if come back to UK and nothing. Until the mid 90’s

OP, I've wondered about posting this! I first encountered a mozzie in Italy on my late teens, never in the UK. Now am sick of turning off the night and hearing that high pitched whine past my ear.

I too remember being bitten to death by gnats but never by mozzies. Had presumed it was because I grew up in the cooler, less humid NE, but seeing your OP, this may not be the case.

I have exactly the same reaction as you and it drives me mad!

I remember them from when I was a teen in the 90s (lived in the South East). I hate that noise they make so I remember spending ages at night tracking them down if I heard that tell-tale whine ready to bash them with something. I couldn't go to sleep unless I had caught the little bugger.

Poor DD reacts very badly. I hadn't considered a mosquito net. I might get one.

I never used to be bothered by them but the last two years Ive been eaten alive by them.

I'm currently sporting several large bites on my arms which look like extra nipples.

There have been mosquitos in the UK for years, I was born in the 1950s and got bitten alive as a child and onwards.
You've clearly gotten tastier as you've aged!!

I can remember being eaten alive in the 1970s.

I think they’re a lot more common in some areas - I lived in one flat with water features close by outside that was plagued by them in summer but where I live now there aren’t that many (I also react badly so would notice!). I also don’t remember them from when I was growing up.

It’s horseflies that get me. Bastards.

I only remember them in my parents country in Eastern Europe, never in the UK. I’m 46 btw, but I’ve only in the last three years been bitten in the UK. Though, we live in land in the Uk, I got bitten by the coast.

I read once that the ‘sweating sickness’ mentioned frequently in historical sources was malaria, in which case mozzies have been chomping on Brits for centuries.

Mine are normally horse flies, lovely.

Definitely used to get midge bites as a kid, but they never came up in huge reactions like I get with mosquito ones. I started getting those in the late 90s, but to be fair I moved from the north to the SE.

No. Plenty when I was young. I'm nearly 50.

In the South East

I get loads in this house - for the past 3 years. I think they breed in stagnant water in my plants pots. Massively irritating when you are just about to nod off and hear one. I end up getting the fly spray out, which I hate but it does the trick.

Smidge has worked a treat for me this year. Only 1 bite since I got it in March and usually I’m covered especially as we live close to a river.

I'm not exactly sure of the timings but I think there were big eradication programmes of mossies on how fifties, lots of spraying etc

So they have always been here and I believe any body of still water (even a bucket in the garden) and they will multiply

You get bitten more if you release pheromones the mozzies like.

Ive always got bitten badly in the UK and I think there is probably an increase in mozzies as more people have ponds and long term paddling/swimming pools so there is more standing water for them to lay their eggs into and female mozzies only take a blood feed prior to laying b their eggs.