When Peter Dreyer looks next door, he sees an urban jungle.
The Charlottesville resident who lives in the Rugby neighborhood said the neglected rental property next to his house has ivy plants overtaking its trees. While the dense foliage generally doesn't pose a problem, Dreyer said things change around this time each year -- peak mosquito season.
"It's very bad right where I am," Dreyer said. "This heavy overgrowth does provide a mosquito habitat."
But when it comes to clearing vegetation or spraying to get rid of the pests on residents' properties, the Charlottesville government and local health department cannot do much, officials said. Neither entity has a mosquito control program, which are few and far between in Virginia.
City spokesman Ric Barrick said that problems between private property lines are not something the government can readily solve.
"When it comes to dead trees on properties, we are limited to only those near the public right of way that pose a potential hazard to the public," Barrick wrote in an e-mail. Because large breeding grounds are not typical in Charlottesville, the city also doesn't have the capability to spray because it has not invested in the equipment. Barrick said that it is up to the health department to deem that measure necessary and to fund the work.
"We have to make a valid case that it is posing a potential health hazard," said Gary Rice, the environmental health supervisor for the Thomas Jefferson Health District.
The culprits are Asian tiger mosquitoes. David Gaines, the state public health entomologist for the Virginia Department of Health, said that like all mosquitoes, the Asian tiger mosquitoes so prevalent in Virginia breed in water. But the pests will usually do so in stagnant pools and containers, and then sit in certain places -- such as shrubs and bushes in yards -- and wait for their prey, instead of flying around.
Earlier this decade -- with funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the state health department periodically surveyed mosquitoes in Charlottesville to detect West Nile virus, which Asian tiger mosquitoes are capable of carrying. Gaines said that between 2003 and 2005, four or five sites were trapped every few weeks in Charlottesville. The same was done in other localities, such as Fredericksburg, Lynchburg and Chesterfield and Henrico counties.
During that time, the state health department would receive around $400,000 each year from the CDC to trap mosquitoes for surveillance. Now, Gaines said, the funding has dropped to $99,000 for this year's mosquito season, meaning monitoring will occur far less frequently, especially in places such as Charlottesville, where West Nile is unlikely to be found.
Native to southeast Asia, the mosquitoes are thought to have appeared in the southern part of the U.S. in 1985 and have been spreading ever since. Gaines said that the presence of Asian tiger mosquitoes in the Charlottesville area is similar to their prevalence in other urban areas in Virginia, even though the biters did not appear in the state until 1992. But the severity of the problem can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.
"They're not so much of a problem in, say, a brand-new subdivision that was carved into a farm field," Gaines said. "But they love tree-lined neighborhoods. They love places with shade."
Rice said that the lack of surveillance funds may pose a slight problem for localities, but the health department would still tackle mosquito issues head-on. Should there be a complaint, Rice said the department would investigate, but property owners are responsible for taking care of any stagnant water and vegetation growth.
Barrick said the city also works to get rid of standing water on public property so that mosquitoes cannot proliferate as easily. But on residents' properties, the sources of standing water are not always obvious. Gaines and Rice said mosquitoes could breed anywhere from large plastic pots with drip trays to children's swimming pools and old tires.
Gaines said it's hard to say whether the Asian tiger mosquito population is growing, but it is definitely spreading. Some Virginia localities have passed ordinances giving officials the ability to treat or eliminate the source of mosquito problems around houses. Apart from that, there may not be very much local governments and residents can do, he said -- except for tossing out the water.
"The problem is not trees and shrubs," Gaines said. "If you don't have containers to breed them, then you won't have any mosquitoes sitting in those shrubs." To see more of The Daily Progress or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dailyprogress.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Va.