A few years ago I have purchased some permethrin treated pants from ex-officio for a trip to costa rica, but between all the sunlight they see and the multiple runs through the washing machine I'm sure they've lost most of their effectiveness.
Yeah it's fine (perhaps a little expensive...) to buy permethrin-treated clothing. But you can take ANY clothing and treat it yourself - by all means including stuff that originally came that way.
Yes, I don't rely on a treatment to endure more than about 2 months of light use & weekly (max...ha ha "what's that smell?!?!?") washings. Back when I was a "woods monkey" full-time field biologist, working in bug-intense regions, I'd re-treat monthly. Soooo worth it! Nowadays I just do a set of clothes for May-June, take July off, and re-apply for Aug-Sept. That's about all the domestic play-time I get where I live. We have a few ticks but no chiggers; sometimes the skeeters are insane but mostly they don't even exist.
I did notice that permethrin is a neurotoxin in high concentrations and gloves/outdoor ventilation/common sense are all required so I wouldn't take this lightly.
Right. Common sense starts with RTFM. R-T-F-M. Then FFTM (follow the f*cking manual).
Tick-borne diseases can be debilitating or fatal; some have no treatment and are with you until you die. So -
I wouldn't take this lightly
either!
It can sometimes take my body 3-4 months to heal from chigger bites (longer if I itch them).
For me it's about a month. Of hell. Chiggers are - along with no-see-ums IMO - the WORST.
Permethrin keeps chiggers - and seed ticks - off you too. DEET on the skin and permethrin on your clothes, and you can roll around in the tall wet grass and not worry a bit about the damn chiggers or ticks. I mean this literally - not hyperbolically. The no-see-ums will still hammer your exposed skin (they seem to laugh at DEET), but nothing else is getting through. No see ums in some parts of the world carry nasty stuff, but in the USA they are harmless (unless you count going out of your mind as harmful).
https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publi ... midge.html
I don't own stock in permethrin, but if I could find some, I would buy it!