To my knowledge there’s no stagnant water on my property, I’ve run water through all my ptraps, and I’m careful to not leave doors open. Yet at any given time there’s at least 3 in my house. I can’t sleep, i can’t sit on the couch, i can’t exist in the fear of being sucked dry.
The breaking point is when i watched my dog get bit on her head. I’m ready to do whatever it takes and then some. I will kill a man if it saves me from these demons. Any ideas?
Could a blue light trap work? Idk how mosquitoes work compared to flies.
I read somewhere that smelly cheese attracts the flying leeches. Maybe placing some bait, and swat them when they’ve fallen into your trap.
I better yet, zap them. Swatting mid-air is hard. I’ve begun catching them with my hands. Better success rate, as they then don’t get blown out the way by the fly swatter’s air current.
Ps. I’ve read about some people having invented an infrared light beam that will fry them mid air. Idk if it’s safe, or even something to purchase - just throwing ideas out there.
Pps. If you wanna go totally bananas, you could paint your entire room white, and decorate like a minimalist. They’d have nowhere to hide.
Bug zappers dont work too well. A fan can be more effective in some cases depending on your circumstances.
Please elaborate.
Are you referring to the handheld zapper or the blue light one?
The handheld surely must work? You just need a small enough mesh to create a contact between the two iron “wires”
My experience with a number of bug zappers was that, while they did zap some number of mosquitos, this was not enough to prevent other mosquitos from biting us. On the other hand a good strong fan can act as an area denial defense. Not always easy/possible to have a good strong fan going, so YMMV.
As someone who lives in a mosquito-ridden area, I’d usually spray the target room with mosquito repellant. However, this method is toxic so I’d usually stay outside the sprayed room for a while.
If you want to avoid toxic fumes I’d say blue light traps are pretty effective, though they won’t kill as many mosquitos as the repellant.
Look up how to make a carbon dioxide trap for mosquitoes. They are strongly attracted to CO2.
Ah that’s right! It is CO2. My mind remembered it as propane for some reason.
My memory was hazy. It’s actually a CO2 trap. Propane trap would be no bueno! 😹
There are traps which are called mosquito magnets and they hook up to a propane tank to burn a small pilot light which produces CO2 to attract mosquitos and pull them into a bag via a fan.
You want to place them at the edge of your property though not close to your deck because they attract mosquitos in order to kill them.
I have tried these. They are expensive to run as you need to burn through a tank of propane each month. They do catch some mosquitoes, but they make little overall difference.
Still looking for a working solution.
Watch out! Generating CO2 in enclosed spaces might turn into a health hazard without monitoring it.
CO2 is also “heavy” and tends to sink, so watch out for pets as it could be deadly for them - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Dogs
I found some simple traps which look promising to me here:
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/diy-mosquito-trap/
The first one is co2 based, using yeast.
I kinda like the idea of the last one, especially for indoors in the summer. It seems very simple and makes a lot of sense to me: secure some window screen mesh to the output side of a box fan. Let the fan run. The mosquitos get sucked in and trapped against the mesh until they dry out and die. Spray them with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water if you want to speed up their demise.
There is a product called Mavrik Perimeter that is a very effective mosquito control.
Call an exterminator, preferably a small mom&pop shop and not a big Orkin or Terminex or whatever, and have them come and and do a mosquito treatment. They’ll spray a chemical on the outside of your house, under the leaves of your trees/bushes, etc. Then they’ll spray inside, but just the corners for other bugs. You’ll need to keep your dog out of the chemical inside for about 10-20 minutes, and out of the chemical outside for probably an hour. After that it’s dry and non-toxic to mammals but will get soaked up by insects. Be sure to double check that with the exterminator, times vary depending on the chemical used.
Good treatments should last a solid 2-3 months, which ought to be enough to get you through the worst of mosquito season, unless you’re in Florida or something.
I’ve heard that those treatments are fairly indiscriminate and will kill most insects, not just mosquitoes. I worry about the effect on the local ecosystem such as birds that would eat them.
You’re not wrong, it’s kind of like nuking from orbit. But there are definitely things you can do to help, like only spraying the house and immediately surrounding areas. Focus on spraying thick, decorative shrubs and not flowers where bees are likely to congregate. Spray at times bees aren’t out looking for food and mosquitoes are most likely hiding in shrubs during the heat of the day.
There are lots of other great suggestions in this thread, and I’d recommend the bait and zappers if OP only had the occasional mosquito in the house, or DEET if OP is temporarily outside, but bait doesn’t work on a large scale and deet is really bad for synthetic clothing/fabrics and wearing it all day in the house is a terrible idea.
The biggest thing everyone can do is clear out any standing water (buckets, tools, etc… mosquitoes will even lay eggs in a teaspoon of water given a chance), but op has already done that.
