"Skeeter" Repellant

[SARGE]

I can't remember the last day we in this part of Texas haven't had rain - someone said 44 days and counting. We had a drought and now are flooded, literally. As the saying goes - careful what you wish for. Anyways, was wondering how you guys feel about spraying chemicals on your body for a defense against mosquitoes. I don't like the idea. However, the past week I and the gal bud feel as though we're in a warzone, along with others. We go out each morning and we see them swarming, and they're even inside our cars. I went to get the newspaper off the lawn and before I got back inside my legs felt weird. I looked down and I literally couldn't see my own bare legs from all the dark objects. I swung the newspaper and created a bloody mess on my legs, then had to treat all the bites. Weird thing about these Culex skeeters - I don't believe they need standing water to breed as the older types did when I was a kid and the black ones only came out at night. Even when it wasn't raining so much, just going around high vegetation stirs these creatures up - simple moisture on the leaves and groundcover seems all they need to make a family.

[EzyStvy]

I just posted this in the How's your weather thread:

Average Annual Rainfall in North Texas = 34"
2005 Total = 18"
2006 Total = 29"
2007 to date = 36"
We're in the process of redefining "wet."

Home Depot has some stuff called CUTTER that you hook your garden hose to and spay your yards and bushes....It works real well provided you can do it during a dry spell so that it won't wash away...

[mbossman2]

Unfortunately Sarge, DEET is the only really effective insect repellent.

There is good news: mosquitos don't travel far so the biting is being done by a source close (10 yards or so) to you. Finding and treating standing water (where they breed) is highly effective. In THIS case, there is a highly effective method: they are called mosquito cakes, they have a bacteria that breaks up the growth cycle of eggs, no hatching eggs = no mosquitos.

I can attest to them working, I have them in the 3 rain barrells I have around my house and I have cakes in each one and no mosquitos.

You can also try to entice bats onto your property with bat houses...they can really do a number on the insect population in a hurry. That, however, can take several years to be effective.

[EzyStvy]

Speaking of Unfortunately......Dallas and all of North Texas is one big pool of standing water...

[Brad the best]

Originally Posted by mbossman2 You can also try to entice bats onto your property with bat houses...they can really do a number on the insect population in a hurry. That, however, can take several years to be effective.

if you could convince bats to live at your house , you could be mosquito free . they eat something like 1 1/2 times there weight a night .

the only things that work a deet , or the more harmful diesel fuel . you use that in extreme cases were you have to go outside .

[tigstah]

i was somewhere and someone mentioned dry ice. i dont know if that works to ward of mosquitos or not. probably an old myth.

[David M]

If you are considering diesel then use something much less harmful to the environment like cooking oil first. The idea with putting oil on the surface is to drop the oxygen level in the water which essentially suffocates the larvae.

[mbossman2]

mosquitoes are drawn by C02 sources so dry ice would bring them to you in droves.

[HAL9000]

Exactly, that's how mosquito traps work by creating a CO2 source then sucking them in to dehydrate and die.

[TwoRails]

And I believe that's how "repellents" work: masking the C02 so you are not detected in the first place. Just the opposite of repellent, eh!?

[glfredrick]

Up until the past couple of years, I've lived most of my life in Wisconsin. Mosquitoes are a huge problem up there. They are out in droves -- sometimes so thick that you cannot see out of your screens for all the ones hanging there trying to get inside the house to their supply of fresh meat...

We used a bug zapper -- and the key is to place it AWAY from where you want to be. I laugh when I see people putting those things on their decks... Draws every hairy bug from miles around right into your back yard.

The odor of bugs frying is what actually attracts the mosquitoes to the zapper. In the morning after a good night of zapping, we'd have a pile under the unit several inches deep. After a while, you could actually go outside.

Otherwise as far as spray is concerned, 100% deet is the only way to go. Everything else is an also-ran.

[SonicVanguard]

Avon's Skin-So-Soft works wonders against Mosquito's. And you don't smell like you have bug spray on. It's not quite as good as the DEET products on the market, but I'm not a huge fan of the DEET products - and Skin-So-Soft has always worked well for me. And this is coming from someone very allergic to Mosquito bites.

[juppy]

I generally use a DEET spray, like the others already mentioned, too, but another thing that works is that pain relieving rub, Absorbine Jr. You want the old regular strength stuff though, that comes with the sponge pad on the top of the bottle. I got some maximum strength spray this year, thinking it would be better, and it doesn't work as good. Smells stronger of menthol, whereas the other old stuff was mild menthol and some other not-so-whoopee smell.

[mbossman2]

Skin so soft is effective, but only for very short times. 2 comparison articles:

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20021101/tips/1.html

http://www.bug-spray.org/4Comparison.html

(both use data drawn from the New England Journal of Medicine)

DEET is the longest effective solution. interestingly enough, a product with soy bean oil isn't too bad either if you want a non-chemical solution but it requires more frequent applications.

[glfredrick]

The sad thing is that we were close to eradicating problem mosquitoes in the 1960s until someone decided that DDT was bad for the world... Since then, there have been millions more deaths from disease carrying mosquitoes than ANY problem with DDT.

Most of what was cooked up about DDT was bogus science -- with no more evidence behind it than some of the other bogus science stuck on us these days such as human-caused global warming, ozone holes, etc.

[Brad the best]

i think i will die from something aside from deet , so i slab it on . or wear long sleeves and pants and stay in my jeep or move really fast .

[David M]

Originally Posted by glfredrick The sad thing is that we were close to eradicating problem mosquitoes in the 1960s until someone decided that DDT was bad for the world... Since then, there have been millions more deaths from disease carrying mosquitoes than ANY problem with DDT. Most of what was cooked up about DDT was bogus science -- with no more evidence behind it than some of the other bogus science stuck on us these days such as human-caused global warming, ozone holes, etc.

Fact is we almost lost the California Brown Pelican and the White Pelican as a result of DDT. The bird almost went extinct because the shells were too soft for the chick to survive. I think if DDT is to be used it should be used with great caution and not used as a common insecticide on a daily basis nor sold to the general public. For wiping out malaria..sure, use it, but not if you are killing everything else in its path. It all comes back to moderation.

[glfredrick]

The thinning of the eggs of certain birds is one of the "myths" of DDT use. There is no direct correlation between DDT and thinning egg shells, but it was widely published (or should I say propagandized) as such.

Here are a couple links to articles:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202447,00.html

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html#ref6

http://www.cgfi.org/materials/speeches/nine_myths.htm


And in particular Brown Pelicans...

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html#ref9

[arthur666]

Up your garlic intake. Mosquitos and every other organism will find you completely repellent. At least it tastes good.
Also, I was told by someone to place one block of dry ice CO2 at each of the four corners of your property. This would distract and attract any skeeters coming from any direction.

[juppy]

Another report on our local tv news tonight said vitamin B1 helps repel them too, but it takes like 3 weeks to get enough built up in your system to affect them. They also showed a patch thing that you stick on yourself like one of those heated pain patches that's supposed to have the same B1 in it and is supposed to repel mosquitos for up to 36 hours.

[glfredrick]

Some of those things may work, but I'd greatly prefer putting stuff on me versus putting stuff in me.

I figure that what repels mosquitoes would also probably repel my wife, grandkid, etc. Not quite ready for that yet...

[XenaWP]

http://www.homs.com/