Ok, so about 5 or 600 yards behind our house is a stream. From this stream come hordes of mosquitoes. It’s brutal. Every evening they swarm. Last night I was outside for half an hour attaching some things to my bike and I was stung (or bitten, or whatever), six times. Six times!
I need them to stop biting me. I use bug spray but it works for a bit, but not for long. My question: do any of the commercially available bug things really work…zappers, or candles, or anything? Any recommendations?
(Why can’t we just eradicate these fuckers? I got malaria from one of these in India! Twice! I don’t really believe I’m going to get that here, but I HATE SKEETERS!)
The blue bug zappers only kill bugs that are attracted to light, which doesn’t include mosquitoes.
The citronella candles only work if you are standing within their zone of fragrance, which is about 12" from the candle. Fine if you wanna spend your evening on the patio crouching over a candle.
The only thing that will eliminate mosquitoes on the global basis you’re envisioning is DDT or a similar insecticide sprayed lavishly around your yard, and even then, more will come in the next night from the unsprayed area next door. And of course, that’s about as un-Green as it’s possible to get.
DEET works. You just have to keep reapplying it; in my experience the Deep Woods Off will last marginally longer than the regular orange stuff.
Also screen porches totally rock.
And you could think about putting up a martin house, or a bat house, for next year.
Those ultrasonic mosquito repellers don’t work, either.
I don’t have a porch, and I don’t own, so I don’t know how well the landlord will take bats, though I positively love the idea! Martins, like the birds? Hmm, maybe I will try that.
Sigene, that’s crazy, and I sympathize, but it’s not a mosquito heavy area around here, so it’s just annoying.
It’s disgusting, I smacked one last night that was halfway through sucking my blood and managed to smear blood all over my leg. I ended up taking the bike indoors into the laundry room to work on it.
I’ll get some OFF, I have the orange stuff. And I don’t really want to use DDT; I know it’s bad stuff. I just want them magically gone.
DEET is the ingredient that repels the mosquitos. However, if you look at the labels of various insect repellants, you’ll note a HUGE variation in how much DEET is actually used. Anywhere from around 10% to as much as 100%.
DEET has a very chemical smell/feel to it, so it is not all that pleasant. So you trade off this “chemical-ness”/effectiveness with pleasant smell/feel.
I’ve used the 100% stuff, but after a couple days, it can irritate your skin.
Also, (if in high enough percentage) you don’t need to cover every square inch of your exposed skin. The DEET kind of evaporates or lets off fumes, and it is these fumes that repel the mosquitos. So as long as you cover enough to generate sufficient fumes, you’ll be in good shape.
You can buy large, free standing, room sized, tent like, structures made of mosquito screen for not too much money. They tend to get hot in the sun though.
I’m guessing that the flow in the stream is going down, leaving lots of standing water. When that water dries up, you should see less bugs.
You can also make yourself a bit less of a target.
DEET (Of course)
Green or brown clothing, avoid reds, yellows and bright whites
Avoid bananas, and fruit juices (They excrete substances in your sweat that acts like a magnet to skeeters and other biting insects
Got a propane BBQ? Light it and put it on VERY low (one burner at absolute minimum) at other end of yard - the warmth, moisture and CO2 coming from it will make it look like the worlds biggest warm blooded mammal, distracting the skeeters from your bod
A Fan, set up to blow across your work area will help keep them away.
hope this helps
FML
NOTE: Windex or other ammonia based window cleaner gently rubbed into the bites really seems to cut the itching.
The actual percentage of DEET in the product has little increased effect. Anything over 10-15% and the difference is very small. I never bother buying more then 15% anymore.
Alas, if you want to avoid all bites you need to cover up. Years of hiking, trailwork and construction in the bug zones have let me to wear long pants and shirts in bug season, with a head net if needed. On those days, I simply choose to do other things.
There are propane-powered mosquito killers on the market that apparently work very well. However, they work on the principle of attracting them first, so you would want to locate it in a far corner of your property.
I’ve used an Off Fogger in my backyard for a party and it was great.
I was at a friend’s party the other day and it was really bug-free, even though it had just rained and his lot is wooded. He had cans of that fogger all over and he says he also put lemon dish detergent all around the yard. I think that is a bit of an urban legend (based on the idea of planting Thai lemon grass) and what really helped him was all of the fogger.
Plus, even though my arms didn’t get bit I ended up with huge bites on my feet. Yay.
Whenever we’re having a party and entertaining outside, we always run to the grocery store and pick up some dry ice, and a cheap styrofoam cooler. Put a few inches of water in it, and stick it in the corner of the yard somewhere. The ice “melts,” and releases CO2, and the mosquitos swarm around it. Not sure what the radius of effectiveness is though, but it seems to work.
I don’t want to have to cover up for a half hour’s work in my backyard. Not with 94% humidity as apparently wunderground.com says we have been having.
I can’t eat less fruit in the summer. I could eat more, but it’s hard to eat more than daily. As you can see, I love fruit and I won’t let any damn mosquito deprive me of my watermelon.
I find hydrocortisone to work really well on my itches, but I will try the Windex.
Here is one of the major reasons I live in the northeast: everything DIES for half the year. I love summer, but this is ridiculous. If I wanted this many bugs I’d bugger off back to India, dammit.
I like the fogger idea, maybe I’ll go for that.
I have heard though that this township has a certain kind of sand that attracts mosquitoes like all get-out. Everybody around here complains about it. Could this be possible, and if so, how do I do some research? “sand that attracts mosquitoes?”
Thank you all for your help, but more, thanks for listening to my bitching. I hate them.
I live on a lot with woods on 3 sides, and the mosquitoes are totally intolerable (six bites in half an hour? I could manage that in a few minutes) until the city drives by with their spray truck.
I never thought I’d be so happy to see a vehicle driving around spraying poison in the air, but it’s worth it.
But I don’t live in a lot with woods everywhere. All I have is this one creek. Other than that, I live in town. I bike to work every day, I can walk/bus to the grocery store, it seems so weird to have to put up with this. If I moved out to the country, maybe that would be reasonable, but I LIVE IN THE CITY!
Put it in a spray applicator (the one that hooks to the hose, and has a hanging tank), and spray a light coating on your lawn, and those areas you want to work/play in. I generally do a medium speed sweep, as I walk backwards, then overlap slightly to get the next “row”. Use a pattern similar to one that you’d use to spread fertilizer on your lawn.
Mosquitoes are territorial (somewhat) in that they tend to stay near where they were born, eat, and breed, and die there. Once you’ve killed off the initial population, it’s easier to kill off the “recent immigrants.”
The first application will last a day or two, subsequent applications last longer. Rain tends to reduce how long it lasts.
My SO swears that taking thiamine supplements keeps the mosquitos off of her, but research says mosquitoes don’t care. You can give it a shot if you’re desperate.
Since you do live in the city, you might try calling city government to see if they have a mosquito control program. There are larvicides they can apply to the water to control the population before they become actual mosquitoes, and some cities do aerial spraying, although trading mosquitoes for poison in the air may not be that great a deal. If your city is somewhat environmentally enlightened, they may have some less destructive or at least more targeted options.
I know that the risks from mosquito bites (like malaria and West Nile) can be very serious and that the government has, in its wisdom, decided that the risks DEET exposure poses to the human nervous system are not as bad. However, the fact that overexposure to DEET has had some pretty awful consequences for some people (mainly small children, infants, and fetuses) makes me very reluctant to use it myself.
on edit:
I forgot to include the handy link I found: EPA - Mosquitoes
