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Health Department To Spray For Mosquitoes In Upper Saint Clair

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UPPER SAINT CLAIR (KDKA) – The Allegheny County Health Department will be spraying for mosquitoes in Upper Saint Clair Monday night.

"The mosquitoes are all over you. They cover you. You feel like you are in the Amazon," Chris Loeffler said.

Loeffler says he feels like he's running the gauntlet each night as he leaves his office in the Bursca Business Park.

The mosquitoes are coming from the Wingfield Pines Conservation Area, where a problem has slowed the flow of water and caused it go stagnant, providing the mosquitoes the perfect breeding ground.

Allegheny County Health Department entomologist Bill Todaro says the population has exploded with what are called flood mosquitoes.

"They just drive people crazy because instead of one coming at you one at a time, there will be 20 or 30 just flying into you at one time. That's how bad this problem is," Todaro said.

"Usually conversations that happen at the vehicles after work don't happen anymore. You literally run from the front door to your vehicle and then you probably spent the first 10 minutes driving down the road trying to kill the mosquitoes that are inside your car," Loeffler said.

On the hilltop across the conservation area valley, Anne Marie Shaw and her neighbors on Meteor Court get swarmed every evening.

"They are like swarming around over our parking pad in the back of the house. It's horrible, it's horrible," she said.

While it is small consolation, if the mosquitoes are making a colander out of you...

"This mosquito does not carry West Nile Virus, luckily," Todaro said. "This mosquito is just a major nuisance mosquito just because of their ferocious biting."

The ACHD's spray truck is blanketing the Upper Saint Clair area Monday evening in hopes of knocking down the population enough to get through to colder weather when mother nature will take care of the rest.

But Todaro warns the spray has limited reach and these mosquitoes have the range of up to 20 miles.

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