Considering spending time on Sanibel in Oct. Read an earlier post that they don't spray for mosquitoes. Has that changed? I have an allergy to most insect bites. Desperate for your input before we make reservations. If they don't spray, are the mosquitoes bad then? Would we be better off going to Siesta Key or Longboat Key, or are they just as bad? Please advise.

A lot of the time the number of mosquitos depends on rainfall and weather conditions so it would be impossible to tell you yes there are some or no there aren't. When we were in Sanibel there weren't any, but at dusk the noseeums drove you nuts. A little OFF took care of them.

We used to go to Sanibel for years, never had a problem with mosquitos.I suppose it depends on the time of the year, etc. We were there usually in Nov. "No-see'ums"can be a problem BEFORE Nov., I guess the night temps have to dip down to banish them. Take some repellent with you, just in case.

Eaten alive by noseeums in August. Monring, Noon, and Night. Tried OFF -- Guess they like the tast ofit. We're still itching.

We usually vacation at Sanibel each year in July and the no-see-ums and mosquitos are quite bad. Especially early morning & dusk, during the heat of the day they are not too bad. We also went during the month of September and the pesky insects were not as bad as July, but still a problem.

They don't spray for mosquitos or anything else on Sanibel because of the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge. You can't spray anywhere near a place like that, so that's unlikely to change.

We were there in April and didn't have problems with mosquitos at all, but as noted above the noseeums were vicious. We came to realize that the living room sofa in the ocean-front condo we'd rented (at Ocean's Reach Condominium) was INFESTED with noseeums. Any time you sat on it (and it didn't have to be at dusk) your legs would be immediately "attacked" by those little savages. We just used the other chairs in the room, but it was a real turn-off; we wouldn't stay there again because of that and a few other things that bothered us. They even sprayed all of the units while we were there, and it didn't do a bit of good.

But I think if you get a place right on the beach, the ocean breeze eliminates a lot of the mosquito problem, because we were fine that way. My husband is a real mosquito magnet, so we'd have known if the problem were all that bad.

Once we went to Sanibel in Oct. and had an unforgettable encounter with no-seeums. We found out, very quickly -and painfully- that they can come in thru the screen. We had the doors open to screened-in porch in the evening with lights on, and did we pay for it later ! Lesson learned.
As I said earlier on this post, they are gone later, and we never had them in November.

Lived in Ft. Myers area 15 years...no seeums are very tiny and prolific. Some screens do allow penetration (they're so darn small!)

Sanibel has very dense vegetation and is an island...so naturally there will be bugs, but then this is Florida! We haven't even discussed the delightful cockroaches!

but don't let the bug-life discourage you from visiting Sanibel.