Anyone have one of these outdoor systems?
How do they work for you?
Thoughts?
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Replies
a synchronized 60 second blast of pyrethrin and permethrin 4 times per day in my backyard ?
if i had a system like this, i could stop worrying about buying organic produce for my kids to eat.
are the bugs THAT bad in Fla ?
carpenter in transition
There are other options.
Some companies use chrysthantemum oil
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"If you come to a fork in the road, take it"
Citronella garden torches work well. (So does citronella oil, soap, and shampoo for personal bug repelling.)
For working outside in really buggy areas, you might try switching to cigars for the duration of the bad bug season, LOL. That's what I do when I gotta clear brush in late spring.
Actually, mosquitoes are attracted by three things, in the following order:
Blood smell. Just like sharks, skeeters can smell blood from a long distance. They will home in on that first because for them it's like mamma calling, "It's on the table, kids!!"
Heat. They sense bodies radiating around 37ºC and zero in on those, because they know it means a warm-blooded animal, even if they can't yet smell the blood.
Carbon dioxide. They sense CO² emissions and home in on them because they know that means there's an air-breathing creature at the source. It might not be a warm-blooded mammel, but it's worth a shot for a thirsty skeeter....
If you can eliminate those three things, all your skeeters will go to your neighbour's place.
Of course, that means you'll have to stop exhaling, go hypothermic, and stay inside if you've got a scratch on ya anywhere. Might be easier just to smoke a lotta cigars....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I don't know what their "special" spray contains and they don't seem to want to reveal what it is. My response, don't buy it. If you don't know what it is then why would you want to expose you and your family to it on a daily basis. Second, if you've got a huge drum of unknown material in your basement, or wherever, what if it develops a leak?
Forget about it! In addition, the chemicals they do list will kill bees too and we don't need to have systematic release of these chemicals into the air, making a bad situation just that much worse.
Get one of those outdoor mosquito attractor gizmo's, you know the kind that has a propane tank attached, generates CO2 and then collects the mosquitoes in a trap of some sort. Just your own personal global warming accelerator.
Edited 5/23/2008 7:03 pm by woodway
Encourage bats. Invite some sacrificial friends over. Hey what do I know my parents made me sleep for years in a small bedroom with a Shell Pest Strip dangling over my head! Butt eye donut fink thare were eny syd affleks!
Dish detergent does what it does partly by being a really good surfactant... something that breaks the surface tension of water. When a mosquito transitions from pupa to adult it needs to rest for awhile on the surface to dry its wings and it depends on the surface tension of the water to do that. Just a little dish detergent will sink it to the bottom at that stage.
I’m working on a farm now and mosquitoes where breeding in the cow’s water troughs. It only took a few drops of detergent to kill the mosquitoes, and the cows never noticed. I did the same thing on a job in town with poor drainage and an enormous mosquito infested puddle.
It only takes a little detergent to fatally disrupt the surface tension for mosquitoes... far short of what you need to make suds. If you do it right you can kill them dead without bothering the other critters.
Edited 5/23/2008 9:58 pm ET by Huplescat
I used to work for American Biophysics (4 years), they made the mosquito magnet. CO2 producing units work great when they work, problem is many aren't very well designed, so they break down. I don't know much about the new misting systems so I have no info there. From our best entomologis, I have these tips:
don't wear black, they are attracted to the color
get rid of any standing water. The surfactant tip is good idea
use fans (box window type) in the sitting area. Mosquitos are weak flyers and will stay out of the area. $20 bucks for a fan beats 300 and up for co2 systems. Just my 2 cents. Good luck.
BB
Attractants are not what I want in my neighborhood, not at the intersection of two local watersheds, with eleventy-dozen inaccessible catchpoints and similar breeding points. No need to get more bugs in my yard.
Citronella andthe like work best as a fog, in still air--so my answer is fans. Air velocity does not haveto be that great to keep mosquitos from lighting on a person. It's also cooler while outside, too.
The reviews say that the propane-powered CO2 generators work pretty well. Most of the others (sprays, etc) are at best so-so, though.
No personal experience -- there aren't any mosquitos in Minnesota.
" there aren't any mosquitos in Minnesota."Exactly. In Minnesota they are called HELICOPTERS.
snortNew bird in the yard! New bird in the yard! Male Wilson's Warbler is a cutey.
I have seen mosquitos up in MI. THey are very large compared to ours.
The problem here is the mosquito is our state bird. What they lack in stature they make up in numbers.
They come out day or night, sunshine, heat, it doesn't matter.
We do not even have to have standing water nearby, they just are everywhere.
In the spring, summer fall and winter, you cannot walk out in the shade of a tree and not get bit. It's hard to enjoy an evening without throwing on bug spray.
We were hoping someone had input on the system that uses the natural plant oil too.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it"