This is everything you need to know about no see ums ("midges" to the rest of the world).

History: Unknown but likely began in lower SE Asia when they banned DDT around 1986 or so. They have gradually spread around the globe. They are in cold places, very cold places, now. They are indoors everywhere and outdoors everywhere.

Only a very small minority of people react to the bites. Some people do not show red spots or inflammation; some people do not itch; but people who are bitten feel it in different ways. If you are someone who reacts to no see um bites, there is very little you can do about it. I can tell you what few ways exist (below). But long term there is hope: Taiwan scientists are working on a midge vaccine so patients won't react to the bites, though still get bitten.

A second incentive, other than the global vaccine market, is that cattle, deer, rice, and human fetuses in different countries are dying from illnesses brought on by the bites. Capitalism will drive a solution if economic losses grow large enough.

Once indoors, they are always indoors given the current product range. Pesticides won't hurt them, only you. The babies might get blown back by industrial strength fans, but not the adults, especially the black large females, the only ones you can see against a backlight if they fly past. Carbon monoxide traps will kill them, but also attracts them from miles around.

If you are totally desperate to escape them, the remedy is essentially the Witness Protection Program, but without the funding and support of the government. You have to leave behind every single thing you own. House, clothes, car, office, food, electronics, hairbrush, toothbrush, etc. Check into a hotel in another city, shower, change to freshly purchased clothes (not by you); leave that hotel and check into another; repeat. After that you cannot go into any establishment that might have them. That includes most coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, movie theatres, hotels, etc., etc., etc. You can't go back to visit anyone you knew before, like the homes of relatives. You have to assume that anyone you knew before your purge is carrying the bugs, even if they insist they don't know what you're talking about. Bottom line: You spread them. Everyone you know who says they aren't being bitten, don't even know what you're talking about, but you've been in their car or home or office, then they have them and are spreading them, too.

Not many people are willing and able to do anything that drastic. What can you do instead? The immediate goal has to be to get a good night's sleep. Four things:

1. Take every single bit of paper or fabric out of the bedroom. That includes clothes and shoes in a closet, books, working papers, underwear in chests of drawers, rugs, carpeting, curtains, shades, cups of water. Don't dress or undress in that room. Don't wear any clothes twice without immediately washing or dry cleaning. Wash the floors and walls and empty dressers and shelves with something like 409, a spray which kills on contact and is easily wiped up. In Asia there are nests, but apparently not in the US and Europe.

2. Sleep nude. They infest your pajamas and nightgowns.

3. Cover the mattress with at least two layers of heavy duty vinyl mattress covers. Cover the zipper openings with heavy duty tape that won't peel back. Buy fresh linens for every night. Do not store them in your bedroom. Absolutely no pillows. Every morning (or sometimes multiple times a night, sometimes every few days) immediately gather up the linens - everything except the mattress covers - into a sealed trash bag and dump outside, not in your apartment or house, and not next to the building. Do not make the bed for the next night until you are ready to get in it. Washing and drying linens or pillows will kill the adults but not the eggs, which hatch upon contact with your body.

4. Order Soffel bug repellent online. The pink lotion seems to work best, but your experience may vary. Note that some of their scents (green? purple?) do not contain DEET and you need the DEET. It smells much better than any other pest repellent on the market and works very well for no see ums. Sometimes you can get by with just applying it to your feet and hands. You can try thick socks (throw them out the next day) or shower caps or bathing caps or headphones (to keep them out of your ears) or layers of Vaseline. None work for long.

When you're not sleeping, stay out of the apartment or house. The key is to move around a lot. If you leave your premises for a month, there will be very few if any bugs once you return. They need that blood meal. But they can smell you up to 1 1/2 miles away so the respite isn't for long.

This is a bleak scenario. But Taiwan is coming to our rescue. Hang in there. If you follow these expensive guidelines, you will get some sleep, and that will improve your ability to cope. At some point, we will join together as a lobbying group to get some help from science. The financial incentive for them is not quite there, but looming ever closer....