Massive mozzie misery
Infestation of mosquitoes makes life hell for long-suffering Missionvale residents
AMONSTER mosquito infestation caused by sewage leaks, stagnant water and mountains of dumped rubbish is plaguing Missionvale residents, who are suffering night after night.
But while authorities are looking at pesticide to address the issue, critics say the underlying problems will still need to be addressed and that pesticide harms the ecosystem, including killing the creatures that prey on mosquitoes.
Situated in one of Port Elizabeth’s poorest quarters on the east rim of the Bethelsdorp salt pans, the Mackay’s Ground shack settlement rings a vlei choked with refuse and sewage from blocked drains higher up the street.
On one side of the vlei, filthy water stands stagnant because the outlet is blocked by piles of refuse.
The municipal pest control unit is due to visit the besieged community this week to spray pesticide.
However, the Urban Raptor Project said yesterday the introduction of mosquito-guzzling bats could provide a much more efficient solution.
A visit to the area at the bottom of Congo Avenue on Thursday last week found residents battening down for another sleepless night as clouds of mosquitoes billowed out from the polluted vlei.
Resident Annie Prins, 61, said the mosquitoes plagued her every night.
“As soon as it gets dark, they come,” she said wearily.
“I close my windows and doors to try to keep them out, but they get into the house during the day and hide away, and bite me nonstop in the night.
“My skin is so itchy, but if you scratch too much you get a wound.”
Prins said she had sprayed Doom at one stage but could not afford to buy more.
Veronica Demaar, 32, showed where her toddler, Clintonia, 2, had been bitten on her cheeks and neck by the mosquitoes.
“For three nights, my daughter hasn’t slept,” Demaar said.
“She spent last month in hospital because she had such a bad rash from the mosquitoes.”
Demaar sprayed her shack walls with Doom and burnt a rag each evening and then burnt mosquito coils through the night.
“It’s not good for Clintonia’s chest, but what can we do?” she said.
Sammy Baartman, 59, said the dumping of rubbish was the main source of the problem.
“We put our rubbish into a bag to give to the municipality’s truck each Wednesday,” he said. “We ask the guys that are dumping to do the same, but there is no respect. They just say ‘you can’t tell us [what to do]’.”
Jennifer Visagie, 51, said that even in the hottest weather her family slept with the windows closed to try to keep the mosquitoes out.
“But they hide behind the curtains. We sleep in jackets to keep them off,” she said.
Provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo, responding on behalf of the Missionvale Clinic, confirmed the dire mosquito problem.
“People are complaining of many big mosquitoes,” he said.
Municipal spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki said he had alerted the sanitation sub-directorate to investigate the sewage leaks.
He said sewage leaks should be reported via the hotline on 0800-205-050.
Municipal littering and dumping bylaws allow for fines of between R1 000 and R2 000, and Mniki said the metro was working towards getting more funds to strengthen awareness and enforcement.
Ward 31 councillor Luyolo Nombola said he was aware of the mosquito problem.
“I have told our pest control unit and it is due to spray the mosquito breeding areas this week,” he said.
Nombola said the sewage leaks were occurring because sewerage infrastructure could not cope with the growing population in Missionvale and higher up the same sewer line.
He had called for the infrastructure to be expanded.
Zane van Reenen, of pest control company Rentokil, said mosquitoes bred best in dirty, stagnant water.
“In the situation you describe, we could come and spray chemicals on the breeding areas, but unless the underlying problem causing the dirty water is addressed, they will continue to breed and spraying will be no use,” he said.
Arnold Slabbert, director of zero-poisons pest control company Urban Raptor Project, said spraying pesticide in this instance was a primitive solution. “Poisons don’t work,” he said. “Why else is the globe increasingly overloaded with pesticides yet the pest plagues are getting worse?
“Pesticides also get into the whole ecosystem and destroy all other life there, including creatures that prey on mosquitoes like swallows, geckos, frogs and tiny crustaceans.”
Slabbert said bats could provide the solution to the Mackay’s Ground mosquito infestation.
Artificial bat roosts or bat boxes would have to be erected, but once this was done the bats would do the rest, he said.
“A single bat can eat 130 mozzies an hour – or the equivalent per night of one human being eating 50 pizzas.”
Slabbert and his team had already been established at a number
of sites around the metro, including the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, where the bats target moths whose larvae damage the field.
He said he would be interested in installing bat boxes at Mackay’s Ground, with the aim of attracting a species like the Egyptian free-tailed bat.
Bats are fussy about their roosts and the specially designed boxes are positioned on the top of poles – high enough to avoid disturbances.
“We would need a sponsor for the project and it would have to be undertaken in conjunction with a cleanup and programme to keep the area clean,” Slabbert said.
“But the situation is ripe for this kind of intervention.”
Mniki said the kind of community improvement initiative described by Slabbert was appreciated, but it needed to be approached through the municipality’s environment management sub-directorate to ensure legal compliance.
My skin is so itchy, but if you scratch too much you get a wound