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Real Estate
in Spring Lake NJ
Real Estate in Spring Lake New Jersey is a very valuable
commodity. It’s one of the
most exclusive New Jersey Communities and probably the most exclusive
community by the New Jersey
Shore. The proximity to the beach make this
small shore community a beautiful place to live or vacation.
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will find resources on real estate in Spring Lake
NJ and a tremendous
amount of information. We are interested
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Spring Lake
NJ News
From Press of Philly.com
The buzz at Jersey Shore: Silence
A solution for biting flies is being noticed.
By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer
HOLGATE, N.J. - Long Beach Township Commissioner Robert A. Palmer
remembers the Fourth of July weekend four years ago, when it seemed there
were more biting greenhead flies than tourists.
"People were calling up crying from getting bit.
Businesses were losing money. It was crazy - all because of the
greenheads," Palmer said. "That's when we knew we had to do
something fast."
Every western breeze sent a ravenous air force of Tabanus
nigrovittatus from the salt marshes to the humans vacationing on this
narrow patch of sand near Long
Beach Island's
southern tip. Anybody here that awful summer of 2002 has a greenhead story.
Palmer remembers talk of forming a greenhead support group.
The tipping point, he said, came when residents stopped
complaining and started demanding something be done.
But what?
The answer came in a box. Holgate's efforts have been so
successful, people are noticing. Since biting greenheads are a problem
elsewhere in the region, lawmakers in Trenton
are considering legislation that would provide $250,000 to build
anti-greenhead boxes in Ocean, Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland Counties.
Intrepid female greenheads, bent on fulfilling a mission to
reproduce, don't respond to conventional pesticides. And experts say the
common method of eradicating coastal mosquito populations - cutting canals
through the salt-marsh shallows where they breed - may expand greenhead
breeding areas.
"Finally, someone came up to me who had been up in Cape Cod and saw these boxes and suggested we try
them," Palmer said. "We really had nothing to lose, people were
so fed up."
Even four summers later - when there is nary a buzzing
greenhead even on a breezy day at what is the start of peak greenhead
season on Long Beach
Island - people
remember.
Heather Reynolds, 14, down for the summer from Glen Ridge,
Essex County, laughed when she recalled how everybody would get covered in
clothing from head to toe before going outside.
"It was totally ridiculous," she said.
Mary Marchionne, a former teacher from Fort Washington
who rents a house in Holgate every summer, shook her head in disbelief when
she talked about having to cancel a doctor's appointment because so many
greenheads had covered her black Saab that she refused to risk a fly bite
while getting into it.
"I took one look at the car and said forget about
it," Marchionne said. "I think they thought I was crazy when I
gave them the reason I was canceling the appointment."
Some people canceled their vacation reservations at motels or
rental homes.
Desk clerks at the Jolly Roger Motel remember the summer with
such disdain they won't even entertain a conversation about it.
"It got to the point where you just couldn't go
outside," said Maria Kelly, who has owned a duplex in Holgate for 14
years and rents out the half not occupied by her family. "You just
stayed in. My grandchildren refused to come for the Fourth of July that
year. My renters canceled left and right. It was horrible."
Greenheads - and mosquitoes - have long been among the most
pervasive pests from the salt marshes of southeastern New England down the
East Coast to the Mississippi River.
Before scientists developed methods to deal with the
bloodsuckers, coastal areas were veritable wastelands where few people were
willing to spend time, said Wayne J. Crans, associate research professor of
entomology at Rutgers
University.
Over the years, research and development of pesticides and
eradication practices have helped turn a biting New Jersey wasteland into some of the
most expensive real estate on earth, Crans said.
But the number of biting insects like greenheads and
mosquitoes found in populated areas very close to marshlands - areas such
as Holgate in Ocean County, the back bays of Atlantic
County near Brigantine, and along
the rivers that meander into rural Cumberland County
- is still an issue.
Prime greenhead breeding season in New Jersey - usually early June to
mid-September, with the peak in July - coincides with prime Shore vacation
season.
Biologists say female greenheads are blood-seeking creatures,
craving the protein in human or animal blood to help them lay their eggs.
Male greenheads, by contrast, feed on flower nectar.
So taking the cue from other areas along the East Coast with
notorious greenhead populations - namely Cape Cod - Palmer, who is also the
director of public works for the 51/2-square-mile township, came up with a
plan to build dozens of plywood boxes to trap and kill the female
greenheads that attack their prey with a ferocious scissor-like mouth that
tears the skin and leaves large, itchy welts.
At a cost of about $50 each, the township built the boxes that
proved the bunkerbusters of the war on greenheads. They're a simple,
tablelike design, with a screen on the top and an angled bottom that lures
the greenheads inside and traps and kills them there.
Rutgers University biologists have
noted that traps like this have collected as many as 1,000 greenheads per
hour.
Palmer said the town's early boxes were replicas of the Cape
Cod design - even copying the sapphire-blue color that attracts female
greenheads in New England.
But apparently the Jersey
greenheads have a style all their own, preferring a sleeker design and a
stylish matte-black color.
So Holgate's newer boxes, Palmer said, reflect the local
greenheads' taste.
Township workers, who place as many as 120 of the boxes
throughout Holgate each summer, have been instructed to add a dose of
octenol, a chemical that attracts biting insects, for good measure,
according to Palmer.
"We really don't have problems with them anywhere else on
the island - just here because it's such a narrow stretch that when you get
a west wind, it blows them out of the marshes where they breed and onto
whoever is on the beach or walking around outside," said Bob Muroff,
who owns a small trailer park nearby. "A few years back, it was like
something out of a horror movie here. People were leaving and swearing to
never come back to Long Beach
Island."
Muroff said people were "thrilled" when the saw the
dead bugs in the boxes.
The boxes seem to be doing the job - except for one weak link
in the chain: the state Department of Environmental Protection still
refuses to allow Long Beach
Township workers to
place the boxes inside the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge,
which is adjacent to the town. The DEP says the boxes could disturb nesting
populations of the threatened piping plover.
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Tip #19
Home Buying Tip, Online Searching:
Searching online is a very effective way to look for real estate in New Jersey, or
anywhere for that matter. Good websites
allow you to search through multiple MLS’s so you can cover a wide
range. For example here you can Search for NJ Real Estate.
After you find the house you are
interested in you can inquiry with the real estate agency to find out
more information or to arrange an appointment to view the house.
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Tip #18
Home Selling Tip, Targeting Out Of State:
When you sell your home you sometimes have to put yourself in the
potential buyers’ shoes. In New Jersey many home buyers are from the
surrounding area, like New York or Pennsylvania.
Knowing this can allow your agent to
market your house more effectively.
If he/she will advertise in a New York publication they can describe
the proximity to NY. This allows
your potential Buyer Base to expand.
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