Related

Message board

• What are your tricks for warding off mosquitoes? Share them on our message board.

Test your knowledge

True

• Mosquitoes are more attracted to dark colors.

False

• Eating bananas makes you more attractive to mosquitoes.

True

• Some studies show that drinking beer can attract mosquitoes.

False

• Mosquitoes only breed in standing water. (Some species breed in foliage.)

True

• You can pop a mosquito that's biting you by squeezing the skin underneath and overloading it. (Disgusting, but true.)

False

• If mosquitoes are flying around you, your repellent isn't working.

- Andrew Kantor

Mosquitoes, like vampires, won't go near running water.

That's one thing to keep in mind as mosquito season gets in full swing.

There's nothing wrong with a good fly swatter, but there are better ways of dealing with mosquitoes. Not surprisingly, these days some of them are high-tech.

But you should start with the simple things.

Many mosquitoes -- but not all -- breed in standing water. To fight them you need to get rid of any water in your yard. And that means any.

Toys, tarpaulins, clogged gutters, even discarded bottle caps -- anything that will hold even a few teaspoons of water can serve as a mosquito breeding ground, said Joe Conlon, technical adviser for the American Mosquito Control Association.

Don't give the critters a place to rest, either, he suggests; keep vegetation trimmed back from the edges of any ponds.

Making your yard less mosquito-friendly can help, but unless your neighbors are as diligent as you are you'll still have bugs to deal with.

Some companies sell yard-spraying systems that disperse insecticides, but both Conlon and Dini Miller, associate professor of urban pest management at Virginia Tech, gave them a big thumbs down. Not only do they overuse pesticides, but they're also just not that effective, they said.

"Modern pest management isn't done willy-nilly," Conlon said. "You don't fill a sprayer with malathion and soak your yard."

Instead, you apply the right amount of the right chemical in the right place, he said. Otherwise, "You're taking us back 40 years in pest control."

The best thing to do is focus closer in: with repellents.

"If you don't want any bites at all, your best bet is traditional repellent with DEET," said Miller; it should last four to five hours.

Developed by the Army after World War II, DEET -- it's short for N,N-diethyl-m toluamide -- has become the most common ingredient in insect repellents. It's safe (as long as it isn't ingested), works well and recent formulations have removed the classic "bug-repellent" scent.

Conlon recommends a product with 25 percent DEET for an afternoon in the yard. Anything stronger may last longer but it won't be any more effective. (Children shouldn't use anything with more than 15 percent DEET.)

Two other repellent ingredients Conlon said were just as effective are Picaridin, which is popular outside the U.S. and sold here as Cutter Advanced; and Repel, which uses natural oil of lemon eucalyptus.

But Conlon's a DEET guy, thanks in large part to its long track record. "There are no mosquitoes that are not put off by DEET," he said.

He warned against home remedies that won't protect against mosquito bites and the diseases mosquitoes can carry.

Home remedies include juniper, clove, rose, peppermint and pennyroyal oils.

"All of these things have a mild level of repellency in their pure form," he explained, but what's sold is diluted. "If you put 100 percent oil of cloves on your skin, it will eat right through it," he said. "It's a repellent, but not in the concentration they're selling it at."

Contact with pennyroyal at a concentration high enough to repel mosquitoes is likely to cause skin irritation. And scratch garlic, brewer's yeast and vitamin B-12 off the list, Conlon said. They've all been proved ineffective.

If spraying yourself with even benign chemicals makes you uncomfortable, there's a recent alternative: high-tech traps that lure the little bloodsuckers to their doom.

The big name in the business is Mosquito Magnet. It uses a combination of carbon dioxide (generated via propane tank) and a chemical attractant to draw the mosquitoes in and trap them where they starve to death.

Mosquito control districts in places such as Florida use these traps to keep track of the local pest population to decide whether to spray an area.

Homeowners can take advantage of the technology, too, for about $300 to $600 depending on the model.

Jackie Delk, who lives on Read Mountain in Botetourt County, recently moved from Florida and brought her Mosquito Magnet with her.

"It does a pretty good job of trapping the female mosquitoes, which reduces the population quickly," she said. "It's designed to cover an acre, so it will probably not only take care of our problem but help our neighbors, too."

Miller isn't so sure.

"It will get rid of them in a very localized area. If you put them in the bushes you'll get rid of them in the bushes," she said.

Delk agrees that you can't just put it anywhere. "You need to take into consideration where your breeze comes from and where your outdoor seating area is, so you pull the mosquitoes toward the Mosquito Magnet and not toward where you're sitting."

Once they get the near it, she said, the end is quick: "It just sucks them up like a little vacuum."

It's not perfect, she said, but it's darned good. "It doesn't eliminate all the mosquitoes, but it definitely reduces the population," she said. And there's an unexpected upside: "People visiting find it fascinating, so it becomes a topic of conversation."

Carbon dioxide traps are examples of a technology that works -- "The science is solid," Conlon said. Others, though, aren't so hot, in his opinion.

The most common anti-skeeter technology is the light trap -- the infamous bug zapper. Sure you'll kill some mosquitoes, but the smell of your breath and the taste of your sweat is much more attractive than that purple glow, research shows

Besides, "they attract everything in the world," Miller said. "You'll get eight mosquitoes but you'll get pounds of other things that don't deserve to die that way."

Then there are ultrasonic repellents that promise to drive the mosquitoes away using sound waves humans can't hear, like a dog whistle. Don't bother, Miller said. There's no evidence they do a thing.

"We don't know if they work for mosquitoes," she said. "We don't know if they're even irritated by them."

There is one sonic device that does work, although at the moment it's priced more for municipalities than homeowners. Called the LarvaSonic, it was developed by the teenage son of a Navy submariner.

Just as an opera singer can shatter a glass with her voice, the LarvaSonic shatters the bodies of mosquito larvae. Dip the probe into some standing water, push the button, and the baby mosquitoes are, as Conlon put it, "Dancing with Elvis."

"It's a particularly gruesome way to go," he said, "but it's really gratifying, honestly, because they do suffer."