Mosquito problem - HELP!

This is why I love the Dope.

About the bats…

According to the Terminix guy, we have bats. I’ve never seen them but he insists we do. He also seems surprised that this doesn’t bother me. I love bats. They’re cute and the eat bugs. What’s not to love?
Anyway, the simple fact that my house and my yard are overrun with mosquitoes and many other monster sized bugs, leads me to believe the Terminix guy is full of shit.
I want bats dammit!! I have no problem putting up a bat house ever 2 feet if it will make the bats come and eat my mosquitoes. Is just putting up the houses good enough? How can I know that just putting them up will make the bats come?
I have one of those personal insect repellent fan things that I clip on when I take the dogs out or bring them in. I spray insect repellent on my feet, pants, and arms/hands twice a day. I use After Bite for the current bites. I take 2 antihistamines a day to attempt to keep the itching at bay.

I currently have about 30 bites, half of which are swollen, painful and itchy. The rest are just itchy. I get woken up by the itching every night.

My boyfriend doesn’t get bitten. My mom doesn’t get bitten when she comes to visit. My dogs seem oblivious to them. The little fuckers just want ME and it’s pissing me off.
So, if I put up bat houses, will the come? Definitely? Please say yes. How many is too many? Do bug zapper lights work for mosquitoes? How many is overkill?

So, according to a few websites I’ve read (including a Straight Dope column, mosquitoes prefer fat people to skinny people and type O blood.

My boyfriend and I are both overweight and he has type O blood. I have AB. If everyone is right, they should want him more than me but they don’t. Is there something I can do to make the little fuckers harass him instead of me for a while?

These things here REALLY work - it’s a small plastic tag with an electromagnetic strip that you wear. They work for 3 or 4 months, and they’re fantastic…no chemicals.

Also, if there are any accessible pools of water where the squitoes are breeding, a piece of copper wire in it keeps them away.

One word about Permethrin. It’s fairly toxic to felines so if you have a cat, beware.

Sorry. I have no doubt that you think these work, but in my opinion these are worthless - like magnetic bracelets or homeopathy. Here is how they are explained to work:

This is nonsense. If you want to use them, they won’t do any harm, but you are wasting your money.

Some people are more attractive to mosquitoes, but we don’t really know why - it something to do with variation in the volatile compounds that some off the skin, as well as variation in body heat, CO2 and sweat. There is no good research showing a consistent effect of blood type - a few papers, but the results are not consistent. Overweight people may be more attractive, but (frankly) its probably because they tend to be more sedentary and (sorry) sweat more - human sweat is an attractant.

Bat boxes are nice, and bats do eat lots of mosquitoes, but it is unlikely that they will be able to clear an area out. But they are cool!

I don’t really care for the explanation mozchron but they DO work, and in the 12 months I’ve used them I’m yet to find them a waste of money. The flea one also works for my dog, and she’s never read the explanation - though she DOES like homeopathy.

This is probably environmentally stupid, but a little motor oil on standing water supposedly suffocates mosquito larvae. At least it did when we used it in North Ga. when I was a kid.

Here are some bat houses on Amazon. I bought a couple from someone on eBay, they were much cheaper. If you have a farm store or feed store near you, they should have them. Or you can find plans and build your own very cheaply.

When hung in appropriate locations, they are attractive roosting sites for bats. We hung them and then ignored them. The following year we found they were occupied.

Hey, if it works for you, knock yourself out. But there is no scientific evidence that they work. In general, anytime a product talks about “earth energy” and “magnetic fields”, that is a pretty good signal of a quack product. If these really worked, we would know it. The military would be all over it. I would LOVE for these to work.

But they don’t. Any success you have is coincidence or in your head.

Yes, its environmentally stupid. They have biodegradable oil products to do this, without pollution. Golden bear oil is one such product. Mosquito larvae breath air, and oil products work by suffocating them.

Good to know! I will avoid it and stick with my can of Off.

I called 311 yesterday and complained about the standing water but I don’t know how much they are going to be able to do about it. They said they would come check it out and possibly lay down larvaecide if they thought it was necessary.

Of course it rained for about 15 minutes yesterday, so just long enough to keep everything damp but not long enough to effect the heat at all. Honestly, the mosquitos wouldn’t be such a problem if it would just stay dry for a few days!

OP, your situation sounds really miserable, I would HATE it.

It’s a nightmare that they’re getting into your apartment. Can you put up mozzy screens on all doors and windows, if you haven’t already? My place in Italy has loads of mozzies outside, but only the odd one ever penetrates the house as I have screens everywhere, plus those dangly beads at the (often open) back door, which seem really effective. Could you hang some over the door where you think they’re getting in?

Here’s looking forward to the end of your lease! Your landlord sounds criminal.

You need to go to IMHO, and post your apartment in the thread about godforsaken hell-holes. :smiley:
I feel sorry for you.

I was searching for iPad apps when I cam across a mosquito deterrent app. For only $0.99 it apparently emits a sound that drives them away but that most humans can’t hear. I went looking for cites but only managed to find references to it being used to drive teenagers away from some spots in the UK and adds for similar apps on phones and PDAs. If you have something that will run it under a buck seems like a cheap experiment.

This is going to sound goofy.

There are these body patches you can put on so that stuff gets absorbed into your skin. Then, apparently your body exudes something that mosquitos dont like.

I think its vitamin B1. I know a couple folks that swear by these patches. I also know a few folks that just take the vitamin supplement on a regular basis and claim it helps as well.

They actually don’t work and the dog doesn’t like homeopathy. The explanation of how the tags work is complete nonsense.

A friend of mine who knows my skeeter problems gave me some of these devices - not sure what they’re called but they were basically tubes, not much larger than the AA battery they took, and when you twisted the top to “on” it emitted a high frequency sound supposed to repel skeeters. I hung it off my headboard, but eventually stopped using it because I COULD hear the sound, it it bugged me (heh). I ain’t no teenager, either. Can’t say for sure it worked though, because at the time I was in California in an area without many mosquitoes anyway.

This same friend lives in northern VA and one day we were hanging out in her backyard, both wearing shorts and t-shirts, and decided to test out my whining about mosquitoes loving me. Sure as shit, after standing still for a bit, I had a swarm on me and only a couple went to her. Probably got lost on their way to me. Damn things. :mad:

I’m not tall or fat, but I do have type O. The bites also swell up a lot larger on me than other people.

Not much advice for the OP, but when I lived in Germany (window screens? Was ist das?) I hung a proper mosquito net over my bed and slept much more soundly.

Speaking of Germany, upthread someone asked for a cite about the EU banning of the plug-in mosquito killers and I can say I asked about them in Germany and a saleslady told me they were taken off the market for being toxic.

There is a product called “The Mosquito” the EU wants to ban, but that’s a high-frequency teenager repellent.

Love it! From those having never used the tags and whom no doubt probably never will, so adamant that they don’t work. **FFS, DON’T tell the mosquitoes…!!!

**At least mozchron doesn’t seem to object to the copper wire - phew.…and you’re right yoyodyne - the dog doesn’t like homeopathy. She thrives on it.

I had no objections because there IS scientific evidence that metallic copper can kill mosquito larvae, both in the lab and in field trials. A little piece of copper might not be enough, however - to completely kill all larvae, researchers needed 20 grams of copper metal per liter of water. But if your breeding habitat is small, some wire thrown in there might do the trick.

Here is a paper on this:

Laboratory and field evaluation of metallic copper on Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) larval development.

So adamant because anyone with any science knowledge knows for certain that the explanation is a steaming pile of bullshit designed to trick the gullible into throwing away their money.

The dog may thrive on drinking water or bathing in it, but it doesn’t thrive on homeopathy.