This has become a big mental health issue for me. My neighbors hire commercial pest control companies that use pressure washers and gas-powered backpacks to broadcast their chemicals as a cloud of aerosol droplets that drift in the air and fill the surrounding neighborhood.
For the fourth year, My bad neighbors are back at it for another year, and now the circle is complete. all four sides, all four neighbors now use one of these commercial companies. Never at the same time or day, so I never know when it is safe to have the window of my HOME open. My 90 year old mother can't use the Air Condition because of the blood thinners and she gets cold easily so her window is open most of the time in the summer. I do understand and empathize with my neighbors. They want to protect their pets and children, but there are topical bug repellants and other commonsense practices that don't involve spraying chemicals on other people without their consent. 57 years we have lived here and I am literally sickened by this selfishness, I have spoken with 3 of them and they arrogantly refuse to stop. I have spoken with the board of health in my town and the EPA of Massachusetts and they say can't, and will not do anything because the product these companies use is "Unregulated". These companies don't have to follow any guidelines or even have to be licensed to spray these chemicals. My neighbors and these companies keep repeating to me that what they are spraying is "All Natural". They have found that they can bypass all the commonsense facts that all their active ingredients are chemical compounds. All they have to do is use clever wording like "All-natural plant extracts and oils".
Ask yourself if is it morally correct to spray something, Natural or not, that enters someone's home and their lungs, while they are sleeping, without their consent.
Sure we have to check for ticks when we come in from the yard but the odds of getting sick on average are very low as one of the 7 million people living in Massachusetts and even lower for mosquito-borne diseases! For the most part, bugs are just an annoyance and no reason to pepper spray the entire neighborhood sever dozens of times a year between March 1st and November 30.
I try and convince myself to accept it as something that can't be changed, like trying to stop the rain or the noise of commercial airplanes flying over my head. But every time I hear and smell the bug sprayers my mind starts to run wild, one of the compounds they use is a deer repellant, I'm I not a Mammal with a nose? My brain goes completely off the deep end, knowing it is out of my control to do anything about it. Talking with them, writing letters, and making phone calls have not changed anything. My agoraphobia has been over the top, knowing that I can't even go for a car ride or use my bicycle because this spray is everywhere. I'm not safe anywhere I go, I'm not even safe in my own bed. What's more, it doesn't even work. I was over at my neighbor Joe's house asking him to stop, the chemicals were filling the air around us, and the entire time we were both being pestered by a bunch of gnats landing on us. I am a peaceful passive man by nature but my mind keeps going to dark places wanting to take revenge. Stink bombs, and other crazy thoughts fill my head. But I know that anything I do like that will open the door for their retribution on me.