By Liz Oakes
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Some on the west side of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky would rather see Brood X buzz off than buzz their lawn mowers.

That's been good news for lawn-care services and tree-trimmers.

That is, those companies that don't mind up to a few hundred of the 17-year cicadas descending every time a worker turns on a motor.

Derrick Baker, 24, of Westwood, said the insects didn't bother him - until last week, when he tried to mow.

After about a dozen landed on his face and clothes, he left the yard half-cut.

"I had to get a neighbor to take them off for me," Baker said. "They were crawling up my legs, up my arms."

He ended up putting on sweatpants, long johns, winter gloves, mosquito netting and a rain poncho to finish the job.

"So here I am, a grown man trying to be brave for my wife, scared of these cicadas," he added.

"Next time I will pay someone else to cut the grass."

Baker's got company.

Steve Hall, 37, who recently started his own business, Hall's Lawncare in Loveland, said he's picked up at least one customer who didn't want to cut the grass with the red-eyed creatures around.

Another lawn service in Fairfield, one of the harder-hit areas in Greater Cincinnati, has six new accounts, he added.

Romance is the reason for the insects' annoying habit, according to Gene Kritsky, a biology professor and cicada expert at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township.

String trimmers, leaf blowers, lawn mowers and other equipment vibrate at the same frequency that cicadas use to seek mates, he says.

When an unsuspecting homeowner yanks the cord on a weed eater, a cicada "hears what it thinks are a lot of male cicadas calling for mates," Kritsky said.

Tree-care firms may have it toughest.

"They hear the chainsaws, and they think we're one big male," said Pat Griffin, co-owner of Acme Tree Service in Mack, who said 20 to 30 at a time will crawl on workers.

The greatest danger of power tools in cicada zones is forgetting you're using one, landscapers and others warn.

If an insect - not to mention dozens of them - lands on you, "your natural instinct is to swat them away," Griffin said.

Kritsky said even the grounds crew at the college has struggled with cicada swarms.

"They'll get a half a dozen flying on them constantly," he said. "Enough that it takes away their attention from what they're doing, and that's the concern. That's when the accidents happen."

And the average homeowner who mows just once every week or so is "not going to be as mentally ready to deal with it as people who do it on a daily basis," Kritsky said.

Jeff Walsh, 40, of Latonia, said when he mows, cicadas in his yard "start screaming like they're trying to communicate. I'll have kamikaze bombers coming at me, because I'm on the move."

"It's a distraction," Walsh admitted. But "they're defenseless. If they weren't, I'd be dead."

Avoiding cicadas

If you're mowing or using power tools outside where cicadas are plentiful, here are some suggestions from Gene Kritsky, cicada expert at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township:

• Work early in the day, by noon if possible. The species attracted to lawnmowers and trimmers are less active when it's cooler, Kritsky says.

• Don't panic. Be prepared to have cicadas land on you. They don't bite.

• If all else fails, wait it out. They'll be gone by the end of June.

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E-mail loakes@enquirer.com