If you are beset by hordes of chiggers, and are itching like mad, would grabbing a live spark plug wire on a lawn mower kill the suckers?
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Val123 (
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September 25th, 2009
Sadly, this is a true story! My husband, Rick, tells me that a long time ago his mother was camping with her husband (Rick’s dad) and her brother and his wife. She was beset by chiggers. The itching was driving her crazy, and her brother told her that grabbing a spark plug wire would kill them! —And she did it. But I never learned whether it worked or not! (She has since passed. Not from grabbing the spark plug wire, though.)
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16 Answers
Removed by my better judgement
I strongly doubt that this would work. The voltage and current is not high enough to kill, though it may stun. Besides that, the current will flow from the wire to ground, which means it will get divided between both legs equally (assuming they have equal resistance). The amount of current that actually reaches the skin where the chiggers are is likely to be a tiny fraction of the total current. Besides that (even), there is an interface between the chiggers and the skin that has a higher resistance than continuing through the leg, so it is unlikely that even the current that reaches the skin will ever go through the chiggers body.
It’s possible that you could ionize the chiggers and then capture them in a plasma trap and shoot them into space, if you have a large enough plasma trap. Note that you cannot use the same electrical source for ionization and plasma trapping, since it takes many millions of spark plugs to generate enough force for plasma trapping. ;)
@axemusica I don’t know what you might call it there….it’s a little red bug found in the woods. It burrows into your skin and causes you to itch like MAD!!
@patg7590 LOL!
@timothykinney Thank you so much! Nicely said. And I will certainly try the plasma trap next time! If we can shoot it fast enough, past the speed of light, the chiggers would have never happened in the first place, right?
Look up ‘Garlic as an insect repellent’.
HOLY S**T! Those a freaky!!
I dunno if it would work or not, but it’s a hilarious idea.
When I used to get chiggers we just painted over them with clear nail polish
@knitfroggy your not supposed to do that. Since they don’t actually go under your skin, they are easily removed by talkng a bath or shower.
@XOIIO Always seemed to work for me…but then again, I drank from a garden hose did all kinds of dangerous shit when I was a kid…
I think this might fall under the same thing as snorting salt to clear your sinus passages.
(I was told this once while having one hell of a sinus infection)
@XOIIO I guess you’re right that they don’t go under the skin. However, the itching and the rash are caused after they’ve dropped off. In other words, you don’t even know you got chigger attacked until it’s too late, and if you didn’t happen to take a shower earlier, you just have to suffer. They can make you miserable, fo sho.
@knitfroggy XO is right about that, too. They’re usually gone by the time you get the symptoms, but the finger nail polish might help with the itiching.
And what in the world is wrong with drinking from a garden hose??
@judochop Um…did you try the salt??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiggers
I have learned so many things I never wanted to know about chiggers,and obviously grabbing a spark plug wire might be good for a trip and a hilarious story on down the road, but useless for killing off chiggers!
@Val123 Beats me…I saw on the news or read in the paper a few years ago that it’s dangerous to drink from the garden hose. It probably causes cancer and infertility or something. I can’t remember.
@knitfroggy Darn! That must be why I only had 3 kids and not 10. Or…maybe the birth control pills had something to do with it. I guess we’ll never know!
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