Mosquitoes
 

What is the best system or way to get rid of mosquitoes.Has anyone used the Mosquito Sentry
Natural Mosquito Repellent System

Torches and Bats
 

I have a swamp in my back yard, and definitely have much mosquito experience. Bats eat 1 million mosquitoes a night, and the kind in New England is not blood sucking vampires (probably not vampires where you live either). You can attract bats by putting up bat houses. They use sonar, so place them up high and away from branches or other obstacles that their sonar may direct them away from the bat house. You will know you are successful at attracting bats when you notice whitish ash below the bat house (from you-know-what).
For more immediate results, I bought two tiki torch lamps (from walmart, home depot, lowes, and such) with citronella lamp oil. Works better than I ever thought possible. I can be out at dusk rinsing dive gear, and not get bit once.
Hope this helps,
Linda

Yeah that's what I been using and it seems to be better but not great. Guess it's the price you pay for living in south Fla. Thanks
Linda[/quote]

What kind of tiki torches did you buy that do not get mold after it rains?

Assuming you do not live in or on swamp land, getting rid of any bodies of standing water will help. Mosquitoes will breed in just thimbles full.

I leave my chimney uncapped. Every year I get Chimney Swifts that nest there. They are very neat birds, build a small nest and keep it clean. I even belong to an org that tracks them.

There are other ways to attract Swifts as well.

Their benefit is much like a bat. They eat 1/3 their body weight a day in small insects. I don't have a mosquito problem when they are nesting. But, when the Indian Summer rolls around and they are gone, I can tell.

Plant marigolds. I get eaten every year. Someone told us to plant them and I haven't been sucked once this year. They r in pots about 5 feet off my deck. Pretty amazing results

mosquitos
 

:yes:I purchased a mosquito magnet about 7 years ago due to a severe mosquito problem. I live in the east texas piney woods and the mosquitos kept us from going outside. It took about 6 weeks, but we have 0 mosquitos. It does not use pesticides, is fairly inexpensive to run and has been doing a jam up job ever since. We spend every evening outside and are never bothered by mosquitos. June bugs are a different story.

Mosquitoes
 

Don - Citronella tiki torch fuel works well, and there's also fuel with Lemon Eucalyptus, which the Centers for Disease Control recommends for repelling mosquitoes. Also, if you have a lot of bromeliads in your yard, their water tanks are a great place for mosquitoes to breed, and can add to your problem!

Get the ones with metal canisters and flat bottoms (the metal doesn't mold and the flat bottoms make them much easier to refill). Tiki torches are a central part of my backyard anti-skeeter arsenal.

Read:
Comparative Efficacy of Insect Repellents against Mosquito Bites

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...articleResults
"Until a better repellent becomes available, DEET-based repellents remain the gold standard of protection under circumstances in which it is crucial to be protected against arthropod bites that might transmit disease."