Advertisement

Norway woman catches a litre of mosquitos a day

The Local Norway
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Norway woman catches a litre of mosquitos a day
Irmeli Teppo photographed her catch on day three, day six and day 10. Photo: Private

The mosquito plague is back with a vengeance this year in eastern Norway, with one woman's mosquito catching machines sucking in a litre of the proboscis poking predators every day.

Advertisement

Irmeli Teppo, from Fetsund outside Lillestrøm, set up the two machines last week when the number of mosquitos started to increase rapidly and has decided to keep the dead ones over the season.
 
"We put the machines on at Sankt Han (Midsummer) that weekend, because we know that a lot of mosquitos come a lot after Midsummer, and then after three days we saw that the machine was completely full," she told The Local from her summer cottage back home in Finland. 
 
"We emptied it and put the mosquitos in a bag, and then after six days the net was full again, and the last picture we took was after ten days." 
 
Teppo's mosquito collection on day six. Photo: Private 
 
Teppo said that Fetsund, where she and her Finnish husband has lived for 14 years, always has a lot of mosquitos,  "But we have noticed that this year, there are a lot more than we experienced previously." 
 
She said that since her pictures were picked up in the local and national Norwegian media, she had had a lot of suggestions for what to do with the pile. 
 
"We still don’t know what we’re going to do with them. We just thought it was interesting to see how many we’ll get, but I have had a lot of good proposals, that fish can be fed with them, for example, but I don’t know actually." 
 
Teppo's mosquito collection on day ten. Photo: Private 
 
"It's primarily curiosity which is stopping me throwing away the mosquitos. How many will it get up to when this is supposed to be the mosquito summer season. I think that's interesting in itself," she told the VG newspaper.
 
She told the VG newspaper that it was still too early for the machines to make a noticeable difference to the amount on insects swarming around her property. 

Advertisement

 
"After they've been standing for four weeks, you do notice that it is possible to be out in the garden again, so we have seen that they have an effect," she said. "But I do not know if it is true that the mosquito is so local that it does not fly in from other areas." 
 
According to Norwegian mosquito expert Petter Bøckmann, this year has more mosquitos than normal but is not yet even approaching a record. 
 
 

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also