Green mosquito repelling?
 

I love my house, but so do the mosquitoes. I went to the store and found some Cutter or something like that. You hook this bottle up to your hose and spray your yard with it. It is supposed to kill mosquitoes and their eggs and generally keep them out of your hair for about a month. So, I start reading the bottle as my wife had concerns about using it with a dog (which we are picking up today)! I'm reading and reading this thing and the warning label seems to be quite on the long side. Short end of the story is that I don't feel comfortable spraying this stuff on my lawn. But, I still really would like a way of keeping those pesky mosquitoes away from me. Ideas?

The mosquitoes here are terrible right now, they are even out at high noon. I was looking for some safe ideas a while back myself, as the foggers and sprays are a bit scary. Turns out, Chrysanthemums are a natural mosquito repellent. I found that out after researching pyrethrin, the active ingredient for the Thermacell unit. Pyrethrum is extrcted from the Chrysanthemum flower. I have been kicking around the idea of buying a jug of the stuff to try it out, but it is fairly pricey.

Mosquito Control - All Types of mosquito control solutions and equipment. Mosquito Control, Fly and Insect Control, Backpack Sprayers, Compression Sprayers, Automatic Sprayers, Foggers, Permethrin, PBO, pyrethrum, pesticides, insecticides.

The link at the bottom of my last reply is the first supplier I found, there are many others.

If you're open to ideas that may take a little longer to "grow" you may want to look into plants that will repel mosquitoes. Try Citronella Grass, Catnip, Rosemary, Lemongrass, Lavender, Basil, Thyme, Penny Royal, Garlic or Marigolds. Be careful of any plant labelled as a "Mosquito Plant" or "Citronella Geraniums". The mosquito plants are usually just marketing hype trying to make a sale, and usually don't work. Real Citronella comes from one of two different types of grasses, so the "Citronella Geraniums" smell like citronella, but have none of the bug-repellant advantages that real Citronella Grasses have. Not only will these plants repel 'skeeters' but they'll make your backyard look prettier, and will do Mother Nature a little good by having more plants around :D

While these plants do a great job at keeping mosquitoes away from your backyard, if you do need a little bit of a boost for lots of them try taking leaves from some of those plants I mentioned crush them and rub them on your skin, or on your puppy. You can also make your own repellant just like the more harsh chemical-laden ones from the store by crushing the leaves and letting them infuse into a small bottle of alcohol or vodka, and then applying it like any other bug repellent.

If you're looking for something of the store-shelf variety for personal repellent, I would HIGHLY recommend Cutter's Lemon Eucalyptus Insect Repellent. My fiance and I do a LOT of camping, hiking and canoeing, and it has worked wonders from The Smoky Mountains, to Illinois riverways, to the backwoods of Wisconsin, and the Northern woods of Minnesota. It says to only apply twice daily, but we find we're only applying it once, and it lasts the entire day. She may be cute and nice looking on our hikes, but I'm the kind of guy who sweats... and a lot, haha, and I've never had to apply it more than twice a day while out on the trails. The main ingredient is Lemon Eucalyptus oil, and it doesn't feel as oily or greasy as your typical bug sprays.

If you're looking for something a little more immediate for your entire backyard, you might want to try using a hose-end sprayer to spray the area with a mixture of 1 cup each of lemon-scented ammonia and lemon-sented dish soap. Spray three times a week early in the morning or late in the evening. Some people swear by this. I haven't tried it, so I can't say what kind of results I got, but it may be easier that using all those other chemicals. Or you can try and Google "mosquito dunks" and see what comes up. The mosquito dunks are a biological control agent, look for one with Bacillus Thurengiensis. They seem to work wonders, and aren't hazardous to animals or plants :) The way you use them is by placing them in pools of standing water (which is where Mosquitoes lay their eggs) and it will kill their eggs and larvae. Spraying your grass with a chemical to kill Mosquito eggs will do little to no good (unless your yard frequently floods) since, as I mentioned, they only lay their eggs in water. So make sure you get rid of any standing water on your property. Any old tires, bird baths, clogged gutters, ponds, etc. are all perfect breeding grounds for the little buggers, so make sure to get rid of anything they will take advantage of.

P.S.- If you're interested in reading more about how well Catnip Oil works, check out this link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgard...ovejoy10.shtml
P.P.S.- You may want to check out this website to get an idea of what kinds of products are out there:
www.CleanAirGardening.com

I was thinking about this over the weekend and I have to agree with Tree Hugger. One of the best ways to deal with this is with prevention - find and stop the source if possible. Drain standing water, add dunks, or add mosquito fish if they are available. Another option that I thought of is to build and install a bat box on the property. Bats will eat lots of mosquitos. They will also eat other flying insects.

It seems that a lot of the expensive mosquito traps use CO2 generated from Propane as an attractant. Although this is much safer than a lot of the sprays, it burns fossil fuels.

i've tried the cutter yard spray...... total bs. didn't do a thing. i live next to a bunch of rice fields, so no matter what water i get rid of around my own place, theres 50 acres of mosquito wh***house all around me.

i like the idea of planting catnip, and my cat does too :D . that and marigolds sound pretty good.

I too really like the idea of growing plants to naturally repel misquitoes. Sounds like the best way to me. My brother in law who was over this weekend just bought a house and even really liked the idea (he is not an ecofriendly guy either). Thanks guys, you just helped me green up his place too. :)

It's no problem :) I have a pond in my front yard, a swampy area on the other side of my driveway, the horse pasture behind my house has a pond, there's another marshy area across the road from my driveway, then there's about 4 or 5 more marshy areas around my neighbors' houses, so I know how deadly those little suckers can be! Best of luck, and when you do get the plants growing you should defiantly post back here to let us all know how it works! :D

Bumping this for more ideas. I've tried the mosquito repelling plants and they seem to do some good, but only if they're surrounding the area you're in.

Spray the yard with GARLIC. I'm really surprised that no one has posted that already.

bat's will eat an amazing amount of mosquito's if you can convince them to move in and there are any around to be coaxed. bat houses are an easy afternoon's wood working project and entirely worth the effort. There is a disease killing bat's off lately though so you may not have any around to help out.

The wife and I planned to make a bat house over the winter, but we kinda forgot. I read that there are different bat house designs for different species, so you should find out which are the most common in your area.

We have some lavender in front of our house and the only difference it made is that mosquitos don't land on it. I'll add that this is the second summer in a row with LOTS of rain (and flooding), so there are so many little buggers that they are desperate. They don't seem to care about the basil growing in our kitchen, either, nor the garlic that's laying around on the counters:rolleyes:

I decided that since I can't get keep them away, then maybe I could make a trap. I'm not too keen on traps which use gas, electricity and/or chemicals, so I found a DIY version. You put water, sugar and yeast into a soda bottle, the yeast produces CO2 to lure them in, after which they stick to the water and drown.


After a week there wasn't a single skeeter in the trap, but the fruitflies just love it:) So now it's in the kitchen luring the flies away from our fruits and veggies. The mosquitos in the kitchen don't seem to be interested. Maybe I got the water/sugar/yeast proportions wrong.

So, I'm still using the best working solution I know of:

Hmm, the bat idea is a good one. I know we do have bats around, I see them now and again at night. Just don't let the Mrs hear about it as she hates em.

I'll give the Piwoslaw trap a try too. I need all the help I can get.

There are also birds which eat mosquitos, swifts for example. They usually nest close to human settlements and I recent found out that they can eat hundreds of skeeters every evening! We don't have too many bats around here, but a whole army of swifts has gotten fat and still hasn't made a noticeable dent in the mosquito population;)

The main problem I have with the "bats and birds eating the mosquitoes" meme is that mosquitoes seem to spend most of their time near ground level in and around the bushes and other vegetation, whereas bats and birds spend most of their time at and above the treetops. How many mosquitoes are there to be found 50 feet above the treetops where they are unlikely to find a host for a blood meal. Dragon flies, damselflies, robber flies, and spiders would be more likely to put more of a dent in the mosquito population since they spend more time at the altitudes frequented by mosquitoes.

I have plantings of rosemary, basil and marigolds. I don't think they did anything. There were still mosquitoes everywhere.

At least, there were until our historic heat wave and drought removed them.

just saw this

How to Make Your Own DIY Mosquito Repellent Device | Apartment Therapy Unplggd

The other day I saw a simple device to not repel but trap mosquitoes see: Skeeter Bag. It seems simple enough to build one and eliminate some of the pests.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Did anyone else try the yeast solution this summer? I made a total of three batches, and none of them caught any skeeters, but this is the first time in a while that we don't have fruitflies in the kitchen. During the last few years they'd be hanging around well into December or January.

I meant to but never actually got around to it.