By Richard Chamberlain …
Reader’s Letter …
I live in Ozankoy on an estate of about 25 houses. Only about 6 of the houses are finished and occupied. The unfinished houses all have incomplete swimming pools which are full of dirty rainwater, ideal places for mosquitoes to breed.
The house next to us, which is unoccupied, has a pool which is covered with mosquito larvae, swimming around waiting to grow and become adult mosquitoes ready to bite us.
I got in touch with the Health Department in Girne to ask them to spray the pools. They said they would send someone. I met the men and spray vehicle on site and showed them the pools. While showing one of the men around his phone rang and it was the Health Department, they said that the pools were sprayed regularly every month and there was no need to do them. The men got in their vehicle and drove away without spraying the pools. I don’t know why they bothered to come!.
As the 3 pools nearest to us were covered with mosquito larvae ready to hatch out at any time soon, I decided to take the matter into my own hands and get a private pest controller in to spray these 3 pools. I phoned a pest controller and explained the situation and he arrived within one hour. I showed him the pools and he got out his spraying equipment and sprayed the pools. It cost me 300TL but I had the satisfaction of knowing that the millions of mosquitoes nearest to our house were less likely to bother us when summer arrives.
The Health Department said they routinely spray (the pools?) every month. I have been here for 3 years and I have never seen them spray the pools once.
If you have stagnant water anywhere near you I would suggest you either get the Health Department or a private pest controller to spray it. It may help to cut down the number of mosquitoes around in the future.
It could well be only a matter of time before we get malaria or other unpleasant diseases on the Island of Cyprus again.
Incidentally, I remember that when, as a national serviceman, I arrived in Cyprus on an aircraft in 1954, before opening the doors the stewards sprayed inside the aircraft in case any mosquitoes had entered when we had landed for refuelling in Malta. This also took place in the case of other mosquito ridden countries.
