To my knowledge there’s no stagnant water on my property, I’ve run water through all my ptraps, and I’m careful to not leave doors open. Yet at any given time there’s at least 3 in my house. I can’t sleep, i can’t sit on the couch, i can’t exist in the fear of being sucked dry.

The breaking point is when i watched my dog get bit on her head. I’m ready to do whatever it takes and then some. I will kill a man if it saves me from these demons. Any ideas?

  • Heldenhirn@feddit.de
    39·
    1 year ago
    • Fly screens (Unrealistic solution but I wanted to mention it)
    • Get a Pet Frog that eats them
    • Get lots of Spiders making Webs. Be aware that the Pet frog might eat the spiders
    • Flood one of your rooms and make a little swamp where you can plant canivourus plants. The issue is that the swamp will breed more mosquito than it kills but the frog will feel right at home
    • Make a small campfire in your bedroom before you go to sleep. It is known that smoke scares them away. Make sure to keep the windows and door closed so no new mosquito get inside. This is probably the most effective as you won’t get stung for the rest of you life
    • Catch some mosquitos and suck the blood out of them. The other mosquitos will see their wrongdoings and change their ways
    • Faresh@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Fly screens (Unrealistic solution but I wanted to mention it)

      Can I ask why you consider that an unrealistic solution? In my experience the plant based products (lotions/patches etc) are ineffective but I haven’t tried fly screens yet.

      • Heldenhirn@feddit.deEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        It more of a joke because its the only real solution in my list. They are limited to your house but from my experience there’s no way normal mosquitos can go through them. I think mosquitos don’t really give a fuck about smells (at least not enough) and the problem is that they dont spread that well.

  • Elw@lemmy.sdf.org
    271·
    1 year ago

    Get a couple of buckets of water and place them around your yard. Drop a “Misquote Dunks” tablet in each bucket. Follow the package instructions for refreshing the dunks every so often.

    Mosquito dunks work by “poisoning” what looks to the mosquito like an ideal spot to lay eggs; a pale of still water. But the mosquito dunk bacteria kills the mosquito larvae before they hatch.

    It’s a more “long term” solution as it doesn’t actively take care of the current mosquito population but it prevents them from breeding.

    There is also a type of fish called the misquitofish that you can put in a small pond, such as a wash basin or feeding trough. They feed on the mosquito larvae and are fairly self sufficient. I know people who use them to control mosquito populations in their gardens and they rarely have to do any kind of maintenance.

    • ezmack@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 year ago

      When I did Facilities stuff they’d have me go around and dunk all the storm drains too

  • Joe_0237@lemmy.ml
    171·
    1 year ago

    Get a bug zapper with a UV bulb, even if its branded for outdoor use it’ll work fine inside.

    • oatscoop@midwest.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      I left my bedroom window open a few times in the summer and came back to a bedroom full of lacewings.

      Put up a bug zapper, turned the lights off, and it was no longer a problem a couple hours later. Just had to vacuum up the dead bugs on the floor.

      • Joe_0237@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        I made this simulation to show how effective attraction to a bug light can be an emergent property of a mosquito’s navigation and confinement, even though they are not attracted to light innately.

        See my mastodon post.

        Thanks for sending me in this direction, its been fun!

      • Joe_0237@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        Maybe it depends on the kind, because when we let mosquitos in and use the bug zapper, we dont get bit. It would have to be quite the luck if it was not attracting them one way or another. It certainly works on almost everything that flies and harasses you at night. It sounds like a controlled experiment is in order.

  • fluffman86@lemmy.ml
    151·
    1 year ago

    Call an exterminator, preferably a small mom&pop shop and not a big Orkin or Terminex or whatever, and have them come and and do a mosquito treatment. They’ll spray a chemical on the outside of your house, under the leaves of your trees/bushes, etc. Then they’ll spray inside, but just the corners for other bugs. You’ll need to keep your dog out of the chemical inside for about 10-20 minutes, and out of the chemical outside for probably an hour. After that it’s dry and non-toxic to mammals but will get soaked up by insects. Be sure to double check that with the exterminator, times vary depending on the chemical used.

    Good treatments should last a solid 2-3 months, which ought to be enough to get you through the worst of mosquito season, unless you’re in Florida or something.

    • ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’ve heard that those treatments are fairly indiscriminate and will kill most insects, not just mosquitoes. I worry about the effect on the local ecosystem such as birds that would eat them.

      • fluffman86@lemmy.ml
        3·
        1 year ago

        You’re not wrong, it’s kind of like nuking from orbit. But there are definitely things you can do to help, like only spraying the house and immediately surrounding areas. Focus on spraying thick, decorative shrubs and not flowers where bees are likely to congregate. Spray at times bees aren’t out looking for food and mosquitoes are most likely hiding in shrubs during the heat of the day.

        There are lots of other great suggestions in this thread, and I’d recommend the bait and zappers if OP only had the occasional mosquito in the house, or DEET if OP is temporarily outside, but bait doesn’t work on a large scale and deet is really bad for synthetic clothing/fabrics and wearing it all day in the house is a terrible idea.

        The biggest thing everyone can do is clear out any standing water (buckets, tools, etc… mosquitoes will even lay eggs in a teaspoon of water given a chance), but op has already done that.

  • Doctormurder@lemm.ee
    131·
    1 year ago

    Imo the easiest option: fly screens everywhere. Especially in bedroom and keep this door closed so they won’t get in (in case they come through other doors)

    I no longer have issues with them and if I ever see one, I just use my electric fly swatter. I also can’t sleep when there’s one in the room.

    Fly screens are totally worth it. Self made might be cheaper, but I’m not cerrain since I didn’t do them myself.

  • ours@lemmy.film
    12·
    1 year ago

    Capture 1000 mosquitoes, torture them and rip their heads. Mount these heads on needles and display them near windows and entrances as a warning to the others.

  • niva@discuss.tchncs.de
    10·
    1 year ago

    A lot of good suggestions already here. Try to eliminate the mosquitoes in your house as much as possible. I installed mosquito nets on my windows a few years ago. This helped a lot. I am now asking myself why I haven’t done this before.

    But I do still get bites like one or two a day, because I also like to be outside in my garden and sometimes a mosquito still finds a way into the house.

    So there is no way you can prevent all bites. But the good thing is, you can treat them really well really easy with heat! I do this when I have a cup of tea. I just press the hot tea cup on the bite for a short while. But there are also special pen like devices called electronic insect bite healer or something similar. They are about 10-20 euros. They work as well and are probably safer and easier to handle.

    Heat does disintegrate the anticoagulant that mosquitos inject and that makes the bites so itchy. The bites I get itch only ones. Then I treat them with heat and they are basically gone. Try to not scratch because you might spread the anticoagulant more. Just treat them right away!

  • DeJaVu@lemmy.one
    10·
    1 year ago

    I’m missing a solution in the replies. Create a last line of defence by using a mosquito net over your bed. They are available in quite large sizes so it shouldn’t be cramped inside.

    Mosquitoes get in you house anyway. Use screens and so you keep the numbers down as low as possible. The chemicals are a possibility but sometimes also toxic for pets or even humans. The mosquito net over the bed keeps the last ones away while you sleep. I have mayby one mosquito a year that gets in.

  • oessessnex@programming.dev
    10·
    1 year ago

    I usually kill them with my phone with the screen turned on (the background needs to be blueish and the room needs to be completely dark). For some reason they don’t see it, they just sit there until they get squashed.

    This doesn’t work for tiger mosquitoes.