Not the slightest trace or smell… The Place du Hay has regained its usual calm this Tuesday morning. The night was however unprecedented in this pretty corner of Strasbourg, in the heart of the Krutenau district. Between two and four o’clock in the morning, a “treatment against the tiger mosquito” was scheduled. It is written on the posters of the Regional Health Agency (ARS). These are still plastered on the doors of the corner and of the adjacent streets.
“I saw a guy in a spacesuit spraying stuff on the sidewalk at six o’clock in the morning,” says Catherine, unloading her car. For the night, this resident of one of the buildings located right on the perimeter had preferred to “sleep at (her) mother’s”. “I said to myself that it was not the moment to stay there, we were not too informed of what was in their thing”.
Residents just knew that one of their neighbors had contracted dengue “on returning from a trip”. And that the elimination of the tiger mosquitoes present was therefore necessary in order to limit the transmission “of diseases such as chikungunya, dengue or Zika”. The notice also mentioned that “the insecticide used is authorized by the regulations: Aqua-K-Othrine – dose 0.5 g/ha – cold fog”.
Without forgetting the few precautionary measures to take, such as not going out, closing your windows and sheltering animals and plants… As was rightly made clear, in the process of bringing out his geraniums on the balcony. “They did not wake me up last night, assures this American “from North Carolina”, surprised to be concerned by such an operation. “I lived in Malaysia and Hawaii, I didn’t know diseases like this could come here. But it’s not a big problem, I hope it worked and the affected person is better. »
“We’ll see, it had to work! »
For the disappearance of the tiger mosquitoes, it may be necessary to come back later. “I still have plenty in my kitchen”, assures a local resident. A little further on, another is more positive when it comes to redeveloping her balcony. “We’ll see, it had to work! We had brought in everything that was edible, such as herbs. The rabbit too, with its hay. »
The instructions were clear: no one outside. “I saw several police patrols passing. They went to see people in the street, certainly to tell them to come back”; testifies Mrs. B., who has lived a more complicated night. Because she voluntarily watched, “curious to see what was going to happen”. Supporting photos on her phone, she retraces these “very long hours of going around in circles with (her) babes locked in an apartment at 27°C”. Until the sight of this white pick-up, visibly transporting the famous product. “That’s where I said to myself that I was going to be able to sleep,” laughs the forties, woken up this morning by other “cleaners”.
Consider a man with a spear connected to a tank truck. “When I saw them, I quickly closed my windows,” laughs Madame B. again, without hiding her relative concern. More fear than harm: they were in fact city cleaners. At 9:30 a.m., they were still shooting in the streets. “We didn’t know anything and we received the order this morning to sprinkle water on the poles, the bicycle hoops, the bins for glasses, the benches, the signs… Everything that the population can touch”, says Emeric in his white jumpsuit. “It makes it possible to remove the product which then flows into the gutter. We have all the Krutenau to do. »
The neighborhood will then be able to spend more peaceful nights. Not that long… The soon return of the students should animate it again. In a different style.