How do you control mosquitoes in your yard?

[Augusto Orosco]

Once more, I have to rely in the collective wisdom and experience of the Creek.

My back yard is adjacent a woodsy area and nearby a small pond which is about 400 yards from my property line. Mosquitoes have become a problem, and I don't want to spray Deet on my little girl every time she wants to go out and play.

My back yard is about 1/4 acre and I don't want to use pesticides. I had a company come and spray some sort of Garlic Mixture that is supposed to kill the larvae, but so far I am not impressed (maybe I am too impatient!). I am contemplating getting some of those "mosquito traps" that use a propane tank to produce CO2 and then suck them in. I have also seen a unit called "Mega-catch Mosquito Trap", that apparently uses some sort of light to lure them in (I am not so sure about mosquitoes being attracted to light just like moths are, though).

They are not cheap: They costs between $250 and $900, so it would be very useful to hear creeker's opinions and recommendations before making a decision.

[Michael Poller]

As far as I know, those CO2 producing propane powered killers work. A friend has a similar home to yours and uses one for a few weeks early in the breeding season which he says drastically cuts down on the mosquito population.

I think they really do work well because my understanding is that mosquitos are attacted to our exhaled breath (being primarily CO2) thus they are attacted to and die in those propane powered devices.

Considering buying one for my own home (near a lake so can get bad - especially this season w/ how wet it has been) and am also interested in hearing other opinions and experiences.

[Jason Roehl]

I'm planning to put up a bat house when I get "a round tuit". Bats are harmless to humans and eat a LOT of mosquitoes.

Do an internet search for bat houses--plenty of good info out there.

[Greg Crawford]

Purple Martins are supposed to eat lots of mosquitoes. I've seen Purple Martin houses bigger than dog houses just to get a lot of them into the area. There's quite a bit of info on the web about them.

[Tom Godley]

I tried everything to control the little buggers - but I finally had to use the spray! I had absolutely no luck with the propane units. And the smoke bombs and foggers give very mixed results.

This year I used the product from Cutter - The kind that comes with a sprayer that attaches to a garden hose. I sprayed the evening before we had our first big party and covered everything as indicated. After the first application I do it lightly at the perimeter about once a week and this has worked very well for me even with this wet summer.

I am also up against a wooded area and without this I can not use my backyard.

[Jerome Hanby]

I've used the same stuff. Worked great on our side yard since I didn't figure out that I had the sprayer set for way too much concentration at first. It seemed to knock down the population pretty well...


I tried everything to control the little buggers - but I finally had to use the spray! I had absolutely no luck with the propane units. And the smoke bombs and foggers give very mixed results.

This year I used the product from Cutter - The kind that comes with a sprayer that attaches to a garden hose. I sprayed the evening before we had our first big party and covered everything as indicated. After the first application I do it lightly at the perimeter about once a week and this has worked very well for me even with this wet summer.

I am also up against a wooded area and without this I can not use my backyard.

[Dave Ogren]

I live in the woods and have two ponds close to the home and have very few mosquitos. Reason is, I have goldfish in the ponds and they eat the larvae. Good luck.

Dave

[David G Baker]

Number one, keep your lawn mowed. This has helped cut back the mosquitoes around my home. I have bats and plan on building a couple of bat houses. I live on 5 acres and a couple acres are swamp/swale and there is usually around 12 inches or so of water in it when it isn't frozen. In the water are a very large number of toads/frogs etc and they eat a lot of the mosquito larva. I have some mosquitoes at dusk but if I wear Deet or something similar I don't get any bites. I do not keep any standing water around where they can breed except for the swamp.
The water isn't deep enough for fish or I would stock it with fish.
I do have black flies and deer flies (they could be the same, not sure), those are the critters I want to get rid of.

[Joe Pelonio]

My parents have a pond with a lot of larvae and no problems because they keep 4-5 houses for swallows. Those guys fly around eating them before they ever get to a human. One pair is having their second hatch and the babies are now in on the action.

One other help is to disturb the water's surface. You can get a solar panel that will create enough power for a small pump, and have it spray the water from the pond over it's surface, and the skeeters won't lay eggs. My pond has both a waterfall and goldfish and this year once the drainage ditches dried up no mosquitoes around here at all.

[Jim Rimmer]

how do I control mosquitoes?? In Houston, with a whip and chair. :eek:

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Liberal applications of DDT. The problem is I have been forces to set up a lab in my cellar and produce the stuff myself.


For reasons I can't explain we have almost no mosquitoes. I have water on the property, there's a little brook, a pond, and a bog. I should have them but I don't.

Maybe it's the birds.

[Ben Hatcher]

I just light a few tiki torches and/or citronella candles when I'm out on the patio. I light one on each side of my 24x15 patio, one on the table and one small one under the table by our legs. That's worked fine for me over the past few years.

[Ed Labadie]

Malathion.

Ed

[David G Baker]

Ed,
Is Malathion still available to the public or do I have to build it in my basement like I do Chlordane and DDT? :D

[Rick Hutcheson]

Martin Houses help a lot. My neighbor sits on his deck all summer with no problems, as do I. He tells me he can tell you the day they leave, he can't sit on the deck anymore.

[Ed Labadie]

Ed,
Is Malathion still available to the public or do I have to build it in my basement like I do Chlordane and DDT? :D

Still available to the public. $40.00 per gallon at the local elevator/chemical supply.

It works great on ants also. Had a problem with them (little red buggers) around the shop. Not anymore.

Ed

[Ted Calver]

C-130 courtesy of the USAF and my municipality. Late in the evening so it dosen't harm the bees. They usually spray once or twice a season and it seems to work. Unfortunately I think it also impacts the Dragonfly population...which control mosquitos too.

[Jason Roehl]

Still available to the public. $40.00 per gallon at the local elevator/chemical supply.

It works great on ants also. Had a problem with them (little red buggers) around the shop. Not anymore.

Ed

How do you apply the malathion for the ants? Before rain? After rain? Just spray them liberally full strength? Inquiring minds want to know. The ants around here are legion! I even have a few 1-foot circles of yellow/dead grass where there are/were ant colonies underground. I won't go into how much they like the sand under the patio pavers. If I don't find a less drastic option soon, I will begin my own version of The Manhattan Project...

[Stephen Musial]

My wife and daughter can go outside and come in with 10 bites each. My son and I can go out with them and we won't have a single one. So, I just stick close to them and let them take the brunt.

Chivalry's not dead at our house but it is coughing up blood...

[Ed Labadie]

How do you apply the malathion for the ants? Before rain? After rain? Just spray them liberally full strength? Inquiring minds want to know. The ants around here are legion! I even have a few 1-foot circles of yellow/dead grass where there are/were ant colonies underground. I won't go into how much they like the sand under the patio pavers. If I don't find a less drastic option soon, I will begin my own version of The Manhattan Project...

The malathion is in a liquid form. Try to spray when you will have several days without rain.
Dad just drove around with the tractor & sprayer using a regular spray nozzle and hosed down the ground 10'-15' out from the buildings. Normally there would have been a spray bar on the tank, he didn't want to be bothered with it.
I never realized the stuff would kill the ants, just trying to keep the skeeters away. I can gaurantee you they probably got a 3x dose of what would have done the job.
Ants do like the sand, my shop is on ground built up with sand, everything else around is heavy clay, guess where they all go for easy mining......

Ed

[Dennis Peacock]

A 12ga shotgun works very well if you are so inclined. :rolleyes: :D :p

[Chris Kennedy]

My wife is prone to being bit. I got her one of these:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100617054

It works pretty well. It covers 15 by 15 feet it says, and I would believe it. Not perfect, but if you can get your little girl to place it near where she is playing, it may help.

By the way, I have looked into the big propane ones, and it seems like the really expensive ones work, but the others conk out after very little time. I have been contemplating one as well.

Cheers,

Chris

[Robert Parrish]

It helps to have the mosquito control officer live on your block!

[Alfred J Sevitski]

some liquid soap on the water will break the surface tension of the water and the mos
quito larve will drown. 4-5 tbl spoons on a swimming pool size pond.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,

How do you apply the malathion for the ants? Before rain? After rain? Just spray them liberally full strength?
Mix to the strength listed on the label.
Spray (as mentioned) when there's little to no chance of rain for several days.
The liquid will evaporate and leave a slight trace which the ants will walk through and carry into the colony. Once in the colony, other workers communicate with the scouts by grooming them (sensing traces the scouts bring back on the bodies).
The poison will spread through the colony that way.

For best results, repeat spraying every 30 days.

Dursban is slightly preferred to Malathion for ants.
Malithion is more effective on soft bodied pests (skeeters & spiders & grubs & fruit flies).

Don't mix too strong. A too strong solution may poison critters you don't want to harm - such as earthworms & spiders.

Always remember w/poisons, weaker is always better. There's no such thing a a "bigger hammer".
The flip side to that is that you don't want to go too weak. If you go too weak, then you risk creating a "super colony", where the offspring develop a natural immunity to the toxin.

- Above info is as I recall it from my brief stint w/a national pest control company some 20/25 years ago. Generally these days I go to the borg and get a couple of the gallon jugs of bug stuff that have a sprayer & spray around the house - inside and out - every month from Spring through Fall.

[Roger Newby]

OFF brand has a clip on repellent gizzy that is supposed to keep the skeeters at bay. Haven't used one myself...I stay in the shop.:D

[David G Baker]

Back when California had the Mediterranean Fruit Fly invasion I was given a lite shower of diluted Malathion when helicopters flew overhead. I was part of a two man camera crew that was covering the story. From the information we got at the time, diluted to the proper strength may actually be better than concentrated Malathion. I used it on my property in California and found it to work fine on the critters I sprayed for.
I would use soap on my swale water but don't want to harm the frogs. They sure sound neat when they sing at night along with all the other night noise makers.

[Jim O'Dell]

I have one of the Mosquito Magnet propane powered units. It's a small one but seems like it was still about 300.00+ bucks. Used it one summer. Wasn't impressed. Still had skeeters. I got to looking at the software that came with it, and it needs to be positioned where the prevailing wind drifts the CO2 across the area between their breeding ground and where you are. My problem is that with the trees we have on and around our property, there isn't much wind usually, unless it's a storm. The stockade fence doesn't help either. I've been meaning to set it up again out on the creek side of the shop (creek doesn't run much in the summer time unless there is a heavy rain, so it is a long narrow pond :( ), but I'm not convinced that it is a much better place that I had it at before.
Before buying one, go to the Mosquito Magnet web site and look at the info they have on placement. Then see if your property will work well with how it needs to be set up. Jim.

[Jim Rimmer]

I have one of the Mosquito Magnet propane powered units. It's a small one but seems like it was still about 300.00+ bucks. Used it one summer. Wasn't impressed. Still had skeeters. I got to looking at the software that came with it, and it needs to be positioned where the prevailing wind drifts the CO2 across the area between their breeding ground and where you are. My problem is that with the trees we have on and around our property, there isn't much wind usually, unless it's a storm. The stockade fence doesn't help either. I've been meaning to set it up again out on the creek side of the shop (creek doesn't run much in the summer time unless there is a heavy rain, so it is a long narrow pond :( ), but I'm not convinced that it is a much better place that I had it at before.
Before buying one, go to the Mosquito Magnet web site and look at the info they have on placement. Then see if your property will work well with how it needs to be set up. Jim.
Good advice, Jim. I don't have one of these but I would really be ticked about that little piece of fine print if I ponied up $300 for it and then found it wouldn't work in my topography. Gotta read the fine print before you buy but it's not always available.

[Rich Neighbarger]

Start a campaign to get rid of the stagnant water around your neighborhood; It only takes a tablespoon of water for them to breed. Frogs, fish, birds, and spiders should clean up the rest.

[Pat Germain]

A coworker in Virginia bought one of the high-end, propane-powered skeeter traps. That thing worked amazingly well! His biggest problem was constantly having to clean out the many pounds of dead mosquitos from the trap. According to the manufacturer, that device was actually capable of collapsing an entire mosquito population in an area. So, it would seem only the higher end traps work well.

I've heard you can also place dry ice in an area away from where you are. As the dry ice melts, it puts out a lot of CO2 and attracts the skeeters to that location.

I know you can buy cookies to put in standing water. The cookies kill the larvae. But I don't know if you can put those cookies in a pond with other wildlife.

Perhaps a multi-facted approach would work best. A propane-powered trap, bats and birds. The problem with chemicals is they can have an affect on other creatures that eat mosquitos; especially frogs. Although, the chemicals are pretty effective.

[Augusto Orosco]

A coworker in Virginia bought one of the high-end, propane-powered skeeter traps. That thing worked amazingly well! His biggest problem was constantly having to clean out the many pounds of dead mosquitos from the trap. According to the manufacturer, that device was actually capable of collapsing an entire mosquito population in an area. So, it would seem only the higher end traps work well.

I've heard you can also place dry ice in an area away from where you are. As the dry ice melts, it puts out a lot of CO2 and attracts the skeeters to that location.

I know you can buy cookies to put in standing water. The cookies kill the larvae. But I don't know if you can put those cookies in a pond with other wildlife.

Perhaps a multi-facted approach would work best. A propane-powered trap, bats and birds. The problem with chemicals is they can have an affect on other creatures that eat mosquitos; especially frogs. Although, the chemicals are pretty effective.

Thanks for all the replies, the information has been very helpful!

I have been doing some more research on those propane traps. In fact I had a chance to see one in action, since two of my neighbors (whose properties are even closer to the swampy area) have one. They do seem to work, particularly when you use the appropriate bait (which for the northern part of the US would be Octanol). They are certainly not cheap: The self sufficient units for the 'Mosquito Magnet' brand (no cord) go for about $700. Add to that a new propane tank (which is not included) and a few 'extras' that the machine needs and you get closer to $900. Then, the monthly operation costs are about $50/month, when you add the propare (one tank lasts you 21 days), the new bait, etc. It's expensive, but it would allow us to enjoy the backyard again... the big problem is that the units don't seem to be very sturdy. The first unit my neighbor bought died within 30 days, so he got a replacement that was covered by the warranty. My other neighbor had his died last year after 3 years (he is not replacing it, decided for spraying chemicals from now on). Most of the reviews I have read online claim that the units work great, but they seem to go bust between 1 and 4 years. For $700 plus the monthly extras, I would expect the unit to be better built, or the warranty to cover at least 5 years, which is not the case.

There is another cheaper propane unit made by Blue-Rhino, but seems a little less efficient and it also suffers from the same durability issues. Their customer service appears to be better, though.

Maybe people are not careful and don't mantain their units appropriately? I don't know... but I am hesitant to enter some sort of lottery, where I don't know if the machine will last me only one season if I am unlucky, or 4 if I am lucky :confused: