It’s illegal and you breathe it in but who cares, right?
Screw The Ministry of Health, The Adjoshis Are Here!
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{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }
Does anybody pay those guys to do it? they must get the funds from somewhere to buy those chemicals and drive around spraying it. Maybe its a neighborhood project.
Worst thing is, the neighborhood kids love running after that truck and standing in the chemicals.
Look at this capture from someone on Flickr. You would relate, Psycho.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59928462@N00/4774292898/in/pool-632514@N21/
I don’t see why people get so worked up over this, most of them don’t even know what agent the trucks are spraying. Chocolate kills dogs but not humans, how do you know it’s not the insect equivalent thereof?
Probably because:
Suspecting that a broadly sprayed insecticide is innocuous to humans because cacaoo beans contain a chemical (theobromine) that can be harmful to dogs in large doses and not to humans is not very sound reasoning. Sure, there is a chance that the poison used to kill the mosquitos is perfectly safe for humans to inhale into their lungs, but it’s not very bright to take it.
R Elgin – I think you’ve made a similar post every summer now for the last 3 or so years.
cacao
and, I sure did come off as a cock in that last post. I almost gave myself a thumbs down instead of up. almost.
What I meant by that is that theobromine toxicity is based on slight differences in receptor activity. If whatever they are spraying with binds to a receptor in mosquitoes that has no close analog in humans there is no need to get worked up about it, as long as it’s biodegradable and doesn’t disturb other species. I get the impression that people think just because something kills one thing it is necessarily bad for another species.
Apologies for spruking my old blog again, but my sister took a picture of the 모기에 남자 in action a few years ago, which I thought was pretty funny.
I got caught by one last night with no where to run. Fortunately the street was wide and it quickly dissipated.
I wonder how many traffic accidents those things have caused?
re: #8 (pic)
He looks like the Pied Piper.
How many people have died because DDT was banned and disease-carrying mosquitos and tsetse flies regrouped and spread death? Probably millions…
“Silent Spring” indeed.. http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html
I tried to research the exact chemical the moggi chas use once but couldn’t find out. Anyone know?
@12
I think we actually talked about that during last year’s mosquito fogging thread but didn’t come up with anything.
dude you make it sound like there’s no negative effects of DDT. there are bro. besides even if it was completely harmless eventually the flies and mosquitoes would become resistant to DDT.
Someone over in The Land needs to do some field research, please, and find out what it is. Chances are it hasn’t changed in 30 years.
The antidote is to be drunk when you get fogged – the Frog can help you.
Actually, the answer is quite simple…. Diesel fuel.
This process is used all over the world and has been for ages and ages. The fog drives the adult mosquitoes away (for a short time) and, more importantly, it covers standing water with a thin film of diesel oil that suffocates the mosquito larva in the water.
Next time the truck passes, smell it. Diesel.
The diesel can also be mixed with permethrin or detalmethrin in minute amounts.
I’m glad these trucks fog the streets. They serve a purpose.
Also, a good number of people will bitch about the fog trucks driving around once a year, but they’ll gladly sit in a secondhand smoke infested bar/club/hoff/restaurant for hours a week and not bat an eye.
There are many larvicides sprayed (to kill mosquito larvae).
Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, Bacillus sphaericus, Methoprene, Temephos, Permethrin, Resmethrin, Sumithrin. Which ones korea uses beats me.
These chemicals do not pose unreasonable risks to human health when applied according to the label. However, they do pose slight risks of acute toxicity to humans, and at high doses, can affect the nervous system.
India, China, and North Korea are the only countries that still produce and export DDT.
Recently SK Telecom released a service that would let users download a special ringtone that when played, will fend off mosquitos from your person, up to 1 yard away to be precise!
re: # 16
Even the trucks that spray the Diesel fog – the mixture is not just Diesel. It is a Deltamethrin / diesel mixture.
While deltamethrin is easy to use and very effective, it should always be treated with respect. It should be applied according to the instructions that come with the insecticide. When care is not taken, deltamethrin poisoning can occur through ingesting large amounts, inhaling directly from the source or from direct skin contact.
Skin contact with deltamethrin can lead to tingling or reddening of the skin local to the application. If taken in through the eyes or mouth, a common symptom is facial paraesthesia, which can feel like many different abnormal sensations, including burning, partial numbness, “pins and needles”, skin crawling, etc.
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/DeltaGen.pdf
and apparently – the Samjin Trading Co., Ltd in Pusan make the FOGGER & SPRAYER and the pesticide used for the mosquitoes (for both domestic use and export).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fptcc2_tNtA&feature=player_embedded#!
There are some interesting comments herein. “Crassh” points out that there are larvacides and there are also chemicals used to fog for the adult. As in many other places, the government controls the application of pesticides since our neighborhood adjoshi is often not aware of health risks and could do anything.
They did fog at 6:50am which is an improvement because there were no kids outside and mosquitoes are out flying at night, thus the early dawn or twighlight is the right time. Fogging is a useless effort, in the long run because its effects only last for six hours at best and also kills off good insects.
The really important issue is should a bunch of neighborhood volunteers be doing this, on their own, without professional supervision? Secondly, these old women in the neighborhood leave out big containers of water that allow mosquitoes to freely breed. How many mosquitoes could we eliminate if we just educated people about the simple facts of mosquito control?
http://article.joins.com/article/article.asp?ctg=20&total_id=3252601
Just get rid of it. It’s for show, rather than effect, as everybody knows. But good luck in trying to convince old Korean ajossis that they should find some other livelihood because what they are doing is unnecessary and harmful.
Good, we’re back to the other side… Yuna, are there any peer-reviewed scientific studies that show a direct cause and effect between the spray and illness?
I mean, there is enough other stuff floating in the air (noticeably tobacco smoke) that is known to cause damage that this stuff may be good for folks…
Jashin Densetsu, the link answered your questions about overuse. Rachel Carson was wrong.
And I could be, too…
Korean mosquitoes.
Are the most cunning mosquitoes.
Surprised no one brought this up…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TS6fqwIR18&playnext_from=TL&videos=qncfFolZnGU
‘모기에 남자’
Can anyone explain to me why that particular postposition 에 is used in this context?
Thanks much.
I think that’s just bad spelling.
Hey, here’s something funny on daum agora. Married 40ish adjeoshi cracking jokes about his wife. So funny I almost laughed out loud.
http://bbs3.agora.media.daum.net/gaia/do/story/read?bbsId=S101&articleId=37293
Hoju Saram is not a native Korean speaker, Cactus. “모기에 남자” doesn’t sound right to me either, so he’s probably the only one who can answer your question.
I wish we had you over here in the U.S. to teach my neighbors and everyone else in the quad-state area a thing or two about larvae control!
It’s more than just bad spelling. “모기에 남자” is a made-up term. And an awkward one at that.
DLB
All you have to do is Google “모기에 남자” in quotations to see that it is wrong.
This is pretty amusing;
http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/world/201001/h2010012707153122450.htm.
KrZ,
Regarding your new avatar. Is that you, an English teaching child molester or… both?
That’s really mean WangKon.
Hey! Some people here use portraits of known English Teacher child molesters as avatars as a gag… I guess.
Well, that’s actually me, but I’m not a child molester or English teacher.
Not an English teacher, huh? I can see why you are offended now…
Actually, as Sonagi points out, I’m not a native speaker, and I’m not sure where I got 모기에 남자 from. I copied from an old blog post i made a few years ago. When I pasted it yesterday I noticed the 에 and wondered why it was there, but assumed I’d got the correct term from somewhere. Clearly I didn’t. Perhaps a native speaker can tell me whether just 모기 남자 is correct (slang) for the guy who runs the fogger? I remember kids yelling out 모기자! , so mogi-man doesn’t seem like a stretch.
They use “방역차 기사인” in this article – http://www.hani.co.kr/h21/data/L000508/1pa7580v.html
I imagine you were looking for something a little less formal though.
@Hoju_saram
Maybe they were yelling 모기차? which would translate to “mosquitoe Car”
I wondered if that was you. I’d hit it.
Thank you Sonagi, that’s very flattering.
hoju_saram: It is not a correct term. You heard the kids shouting “모기차” (Mosquito truck) not “모기자”.
But I like the non-native initiative to add new words to Korean, however incorrect, without those pesky Western influences muddling up le bon franca Coreana!
Actually, we learned about this in the first and second grades by films and lecture. Where I grew up, mosquito control was not a joke. It turns out this was a good way of spreading information because the kids would take the information back home with them and the parents and elders would get the news.
Correct information is king in any place.
Why don’t they just turn a fan on the mosquitoes overnight and let Fan Death™ take care of the bugs?
Sorry, 모기차 is what I meant.
This might sound weird, but my step-dad is actually on the Mosquito Abatement Taskforce back in my hometown. Basically, what these adjosshis are doing is NOT the way to get rid of mosquitoes. You educate people not to leave water sitting around (that’s a biggie), and you *target* places where mosquitoes breed like tree boles. Spraying a random fog around is just for fucking show, but no one buys it anymore.
Eliminate standing water, instead of leaving trash and rubble between houses and in alleys. Larvae gone.
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