The only problem with nice weather is getting bit by mosquitos. Aside from covering my self in Off, does anyone have tips for getting rid f mosquitos? We have some of those smelly candles, but I’m always suspicious of them.
Someone told me the plastic bags with water in them thing works, but does it really?
I live in Canada, in an area that has a particularily ferocious mosquito problem during the spring & summer months. The most effective thing I’ve found for repelling mosquitos is unfortunetly to slather on the bug-repellent (anything with DEET). Of course, everyone and their brother has a different ‘you know what I heard works’ story about what to use…
You can make use of some of our benevolent Ministry of Health suggestions:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/pubhealth/west_nile/wnv_repellent.html
or another usefull-looking resource
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/128/11/931
You can also reduce your bugbites by not doing too much outside in the early morning and late evenings (when the wind has died down)…
the only real countermeasure that works is the traps like the mosquito magnet. they’re unbelievable, and kill the bastards by the thousands. and unlike bug zappers, they only kill bad insects – i.e. those that suck blood.
Anton and Steve: thanks for the suggestions…I’ll check out both of them. The $300 magnent appeals to my “buy a gadget to fix your problems” ways big time…
Up here in the Big D the drought seems to have had an adverse impact on those little bastard mosquitos. You might want to check into scheduling a dry spell down there.
I have a mosquito magnet. It works pretty well and like Stephen sez it only sucks up mosquitos. Its pretty amazing in that regard. But – it requires electricity to run, and you gotta keep replacing the damn propane tank and also you gotta keep feeding it some mosquito attracting cartridges. I’d say its about 20 bucks a month to run that sucker! So I retired mine. In fact I’ll sell it to you cheap! (or anyone else for that matter.)
I replaced the mosquito magnet with a purple martin house. There appears to be some controversy about whether or not Martins actually consume mosquitos. I would say that mosquitos have gone down since the Martins came around. But we also have the drought thing going on. And the martins hang around from March to July – then they split the scene. Anyway the martins are way cool whether or not they actually eat the mosquitos!
Sometimes the best solution is a good steady smack with the palm of your hand. Reapply as necessary.
How about this killer http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/mosquito-jihad-megacatch-ultra-trap-177957.php
Clothes, baby. When outside in the summer, I always wear sweatpants with high socks, and if I’m doing a lot of work, a sweatshirt , tucked in or a snug so no belly shows, gloves, and a hat. That gets rid of most of the mosquitoes.
The other way is to keep moving. When you’re outside, you bike, run, jog, walk quickly, do anything but sit still, because then you’re eaten alive.
Yet another approach is time-dependant. Going outdoors at night or high noon you’ll find much fewer biters to suck you. Night is best since it’s cooler, and, after all, you’re a coder (or ex-coder these days).
Or you can move to Southern California, the Ghobi Desert, or Greenland.
Ah, Greenland.
“Do you want me to put you back where I found you, unemployed, in Greenland?!?”
Wonder if Greenland needs some IT consulting about this time of year?
i have pesty problem of mosquito open coming the biting and icthing ness from mosquito bite i nedd rid this problem by the way we speak spanish send someone spanish or i speak english
I bought garlic juice, mixed it with water, sprayed my grass and
shrubs and havn’t seen any mosquitoes now for nearly 3 and a half weeks.
Phil Trout