Q: Bill,

I have chiggers….HELP!  My yard has several large beds and recently when I have gone out to weed or prune in these areas, I came back with chiggers.  What is the best way to get rid of these pests?  

A: Chiggers and redbugs are in the Trombiculidae family.  They are a mite and not an insect so not all insecticides work on them.  They can be easily controlled with products that contain Carbaryl (Sevin) or Bifenthrin (Bug Blaster, Bifen). Carbaryl and Bifenthrin will also kill ticks, fleas and many other insects as a bonus.  Always read, understand and follow product labels.
The larva of the chigger is what bothers most people.  The larva will inject a fluid into the skin which breaks down cells of a person, and then the chigger ingests these cells.  Most people think chiggers burrow into the skin; however, this is an “old wives tale”.  
When I was young, and doing landscape jobs that started with clearing the lots, I would regularly be the dinner of this insect.  Back then, people would treat chiggers with nail polish thinking the insect was burrowed into the skin and this would suffocate the chiggers.  I later found out that I didn’t need to be walking around with pink and red nail polish all over me.  
Chigger larva can crawl around on you for several hours before attaching to your body. While crawling around on you, if they hit a waist band or the elastic area of your socks, instead of going under or around this barrier, they will usually latch on right there.  They also like warm moist areas. Using repellants that contain DEET on your clothing and exposed skin will prevent the chiggers from attaching to you. There is an organic product called Liquid Net that is DEET free and all natural that might be worth trying. It does not list chiggers on the label; however, it does list mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, no-see-ums, other biting insects. If Liquid Net works against chiggers, it would be a good all-natural chemical-free alternative to DEET.   
Chiggers, like mole crickets, over-winter as adults in the soil. Once it warms up, the adults lay eggs which hatch out into the larva.  The larva crawl around looking for about anything to feed on including rodents, birds, snakes, rabbits, toads and humans. The larva then turns into a big red adult that can be seen on driveways or in the lawn. The adults do not attack people.  
Believe it or not, it is getting time to pre-emerge for winter weeds.  The time to prevent the weeds that you will see growing in your brown grass in March/April ’09 is now.

Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum’s Landscape and Pest Control Supply, 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600), or 606 Dupont Rd, in Charleston (766-1511).  Fax your questions to 406-2700 or e-mail them to your newspaper’s editors.  You can also call in your questions to the Garden Clinic, Saturdays 11 a.m.-noon, on News Radio 94.3 FM (721-TALK).