Dumping water is a little difficult right now with all the rain we're getting. I try to keep things that will hold water in the shed, but I'm sure there are things I don't notice, like the pvc pipe in the garden and bird feeders. I keep mosquito dunks to put in standing water in the yard and toss them into the neighbor's junk too.

What were some of the methods that worked in 1906?

Clerk at HD tried to sell me on citronella plants, but I bought one once and couldn't tell it made any difference.

I live by a bayou, basically in a marsh, so there's not much I can really do. Hardcore chemicals are the way to go around here - malathion or permethrin in a fogger is pretty good.

Some nights, they'll carry you away and it has nothing to do with them breeding in your yard. We've been unaffected by the drought though.

Trbrmc, that's unfortunate. In cases like that I know there is not much you can do. I throw mosquito dunks in the ditches I can reach, but of course there are many that I can't. Now I hear the calling of frogs ... yea!

Marti, you're right. Dumping water when it rains everyday like it's been doing here is impossible. However, it does take a few days for mosquito larva to develop, so I've been going out every clear day and emptying things like bucket lids, etc. I use a lot of plant saucers so I put a few drops of dish detergent in each one. In summer the plant takes up what's in the saucers after watering, but not now. I also check my next door neighbors yards since they let me garden in them.

As for Panama in 1905 they didn't even know mosquitoes carried disease, but one doctor in Panama, Dr. Gorgas, suspected they did and asked Teddy Roosevelt's personal physician to speak to him about the allocation a million dollars toward erradication, because congress had scoffed at the idea believing that tropical diseases were carried by 'bad air'.

"President Roosevelt granted the funding, and Gorgas unleashed one of the
most extensive sanitary campaigns in history. In the summer and fall of
1905, more than 4,000 people worked for Gorgas on his 'mosquito
brigades' in what would become a year long effort to prevent the insects
from depositing their eggs. An army of fumigators visited every private
home in Panama repeatedly, armed with cleaning agents, insecticide
powder, and wire mesh for screen windows and doors. Teams sprayed drains
and cesspools with oil and filled in pools of standing water. In all,
Gorgas' group used 120 tons of pyrethrum powder, 300 tons of sulfur,
600,000 gallons of oil."

They also fined every home owner $5.00 for each and every mosquito larvae found on their property! By September there were just seven new cases of yellow fever where before there had been thousands.

An American Experience article about it is here. Their program that you can watch online about the building of the canal really is very good.

I bought mosquito fish yesterday for my ponds as I don't have moving water in them, mosquito dunks for my rain water collection.

I bought two different types of mosquito dunks for my rainwater collection tanks, but haven't put them in yet. I'm afraid the rain will just wash them out. Besides, the rain has to keep the mosquitoes from breeding in them... Right??? I mean, it keeps adding new water and washing the old water out... Right???

I use this stuff. Works great, isn't toxic, and I don't have to worry about mosquitoes breeding.

http://thehennerytraditionals.blogspot.com/p/liquid-swat.html

Not a big fan of chemicals and poisons. I don't live in a wet area so mosquitoes are only ever a short term problem. Even the big Asian Tiger ones that hurt and when you squish them it looks like you just crushed a plum against your arm. For about a week after the rains we'll get bitten and then that's the end of it.

Dumping water (from rain) every day is still useful because the eggs still take a few days to hatch. However, the other thing to be concerned with is that there shouldn't be so many containers or objects with water that it should make this tedious. If there are, try to think about how else to use the containers or objects so that there isn't as much standing water.

Yes you may miss the little places like bottle caps full of water, but you probably shouldn't have so many large containers around at least.

Do you guys have a problem with West Nile where you are? We do.

I live in an area where I don't think my County is spraying. We have roadside ditches and ponding areas that collect and store water all summer. Not to mention the Rio Grande which is . . . okay, about 5 miles from my house.

That's why I have my screen porch (must remember to patch screens soon!) and keep lots of bug off spray and citronella candles handy.

Do frogs eat mosquitos? They hibernate under the ground, come out in summer and live in the ditches and ponds, singing for their ladies.

Violet, frogs don't eat mosquitoes, but their immature form, tadpoles, eat 'wiggle tails', the common name for mosquito larvae. That's why I'm happy when I hear frogs singing for their ladies. That means there will soon be tadpoles ... :-)

There have been reports of birds with West Nile virus being found in San Antonio. Also dengue fever is a threat as it's been popping up in various Texas counties.

Incidentally, some people think because their rainwater catchment systems are covered it keeps the mosquitoes out. It doesn't. But Mosquito Dunks to put in them are available just about anywhere. According to the link some cities even give them away. Lynn Marie, I'm not sure how diluted they can get before being inaffective. Anybody know?

Agree keeping on top of the ever appearing water collectors is the most effective thing I do. Second is using a good repellant whenever working in the yard.

Cedar oil/citronella torches only seem to help when conditions are
perfect or you can remain right next to them on the downwind side. Still, they're another tool

Replacing much of the dense evergreen cover (Indian hawthorn, abelia, loropetalum, pampas grass, etc) with deciduous and/or more open plants around the pool seemed to reduce the mosquito population there. Wasn't a motive for the change, but an unexpected benefit. Edit: A lot of the new more drought tolerant plants, especially sages, give off a noticeable odor, but don't know if that is also a factor in reducing the mosquito presence.

A bunch of mosquitoes still seem to spend the hottest parts of the days among the nearby Turk's cap and vegetation along the shady north side of the house. I have occasionally brought the fogger out of retirement for these hiding spaces once West Nile has been confirmed in our neighborhood since the fogging truck will soon be on our street anyway.

I bought some Cutter Natural Outdoor Fogger. The can says it kills mosquitoes on contact. Not sure yet how effective it is, but it smells good and has a few good reviews. The active ingredient is Lemongrass oil.

Incidentally, last year I discovered that pinning a scented dryer sheet to my shoulder and one at waist level worked very well as a repellant. Apparently they mask the carbon dioxide we exhale which is what they use to hone onto us.

I also hang a couple of them around the back door so they aren't hanging around there waiting to follow me inside.

Will have to meet the new neighbors before trying these out, though imagine someone covered in a glaze of repellant, dryer sheets pinned to the top and bottom of their yard clothes, fog spewing out of one hand, and a torch in the other would make a memorable first impression. :-)

Seriously though, appreciate the ideas on the lemongrass fogger and dryer sheet at the door. Mosquitoes that accumulate on our screened porch while we're in and out using the pool or working in the yard often find their way into the house. Looking forward to trying these to eliminate (or block) them on the porch.

Giggling out loud!!!! << I get the picture, but you forgot the halo of sage coming out your ears! You might find those men in blue and white following you around too ...:-)

I have used a Gulf Coast Bug Biter for many years to fry bazillions of mosquitos, and lately it has killed several hundred per night (by my estimate). In the morning there are lots of ants hauling away the fried bugs on the ground. However, all the rain has made the whole area a mega factory that produces an unending supply of replacements. When things eventually dry out somewhat, I will go back to leaving a couple large water-holding containers outside with some leaves thrown in to get it smelling. I empty it every now and then when I see the water wigglers and start over. I'd rather get some of them to lay eggs in my containers where I can easily wipe them out than for them to find some other spot and never get stopped. They are suckers for laying eggs in wide (but shallow) water spots. I wish that I could fight against the blood sucking gnats that are also on a rampage right now.

I have a new pest control company that sprays a chemical that doesn't harm my plants but it does keep the mosquitos away. I am not one for much use for chemicals but after getting West Nile about three years ago, I want to be careful. Sometime in June I will not be able to work in my yard for the summer. Foot surgery is and has to happen. And I will be wearing a boot. :(

Here is a story about Dr. Robert Campbell, San Antonio's first director of health and winner of the Nobel Prize for his work with bats to control mosquitoes as malaria vectors. Dr. Campbell also discovered that smallpox was transmitted by cone-nosed bugs and not directly contagious or air-born. Dr. Campbell became internationally known and called upon to build his bat-houses in several U.S. states and in Europe. The first successful bat house was built at Mitchell Lake in San Antonio. Another soon followed in Alamo Heights. Most were destroyed in the 1950's with the overblown "bats carry rabies" scare. Only three survive to this day and one can be viewed in Comfort, Tx. It's a fascinating story. No one understood bat ecology when Dr. Campbell began his work. Malaria was a severe problem in Central Texas with an estimated 90%+ infection rate around Mitchell Lake. To attract bats to his houses Dr. Campbell began by placing items such as cured hams and fruit in the houses. Didn't work! After a year long sabatical to study bats he built his first successful bat house at Mitchell Lake. This one he baited with bat guano. He then positioned himself in a hunter's shack that had a large colony of bats (Mexican free-tail are the common bat of the area). He had with him a phonograph and a recording of the Mexico City Police Band. As the bats began to return to the hunter's shack the following morning, he played the recording as loud as possible. The bats were not music lovers, or at least not appreciative of that particular selection, and departed to find other quarters. Dr. Campbell's new Hotel de Bat was conveniently nearby and so the story of malaria eradication in Bexar County began.


http://www.batcon.org/resources/media-education/bats-magazine/bat_article/386

Years ago I installed at about 15 foot on big tree trunks 2 bat houses made of cedar wood and sold by a local company with good success housing bats. After a few years with no takers, I got rid of them. This forested area with giant trees obviously offers a lot of acceptable tree holes that work well enough for the local bats. I have seen only a few flying around at dusk, and I wish that lots of them would.

Thanks Eric for linking the fascinating article. Three cheers for Dr. Campbell! Hurray -- hurray -- hurray!

Coping, several years ago I purchased a little book about how to build and place bat houses. It's quite a science. I had a small bat house built and hung high on the side of the store room facing East where it seemed would be a good spot, but to this day there are no takers.

Has anyone here had luck with their bat houses being occupied?

Unfortunately, I've read that purple martins eat very few mosquitoes which is not what's advertised by the makers of martin houses. So for air borne natural predation bat houses bats seem the way to go -- IF we can figure out what abodes bats like.

The swampy east Texas coast including Houston is a migratory path for 75% of the birds in North America. If we want to eliminate all of our North American birds, all we need to do is pave over all of Houston and its surrounding counties. We could all watch pictures of Brazilian birds on television from our mosquito-free islands of concrete.

Birds like bugs. In fact, 95% of birds raise their young on insects, not berries (source: Doug Tallamy). No insects...no baby birds. No baby birds...no adult birds.

Lizards like bugs, too. That's their primary diet. No bugs...no lizards.

Bats like bugs, too. No bugs...no bats.

Pretty much the entire food chain depends on bugs. Big bugs eat little bugs. Animals eat bugs. Big animals eat little animals.

The Houston Toad is almost extinct. That's happened within many of our lifetimes. Its last remaining survivors aren't even in the Houston area any more. We could call it the Formerly Houston Toad. Soon we may call it nothing at all.

But humans will keep on spraying, fogging, paving, chopping, mowing, raking, and clearing to keep the bugs away.

As for me, I got bit by mosquitoes about 50 times this week, working in my garden. I tried to count the welts on my back but there were too many. West Nile Virus is regularly detected in my community. So I wear long pants, long shirt, gloves, socks, shoes, and a hat when I garden. I use bug spray, too. But unless I hide in the house or move up north, there will always be a risk.

In line with that point, I'm not for paving the world over, sterilizing it, and leaving only pocket gardens that require the hand of man.

Given my choice, I prefer to make myself less palatable to blood-suckers by consuming garlic or spraying distillate of lemongrass and such on me rather than apply poisons to the largest organ on my body.

How many times have we either eliminated something in an area or added something new and then discovered later what a mistake we'd made?

Does anybody have Mother Nature's email address? I have a few choice words for her about all this mosquito population explosion. Was this intentional, or was she just too busy playing around with her 8 track player to notice???

Mother Nature prefers acoustic guitar, I'm pretty sure. :)

When I cut sugar and lots of carbohydrates out of my diet, I noticed the mosquito population didn't like me quite as much. And perhaps that was understandable once I stopped sweating out 5,000 PPM of Dr. Pepper.

In Venezuela we use a lotion made of baby shampoo (8 oz), water (1 lt) and 50 wholes cloves. You boil the cloves with water for a while and add the shampoo later. The lotion is applied on the skin.

Omar

8 track??? are you insinuating that Mother Nature is an Old Lady.

She strums a harp and plays the flutes.

No that is Pan that plays the flutes

True.

Last night we got home after dark and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of mosquitoes on the door by the porch light. This morning I went to HD to get a fan I could mount to the soffit or wall by the back door and it appears that one like that doesn't exist. Looks like I'm going to have to improvise.

I just tied on a some of Ragna's dryer sheets to my sandals and bra and went out to clean out my mosquito ridden pot ghetto that had been blown apart and was collecting little pieces of water. I have entirely too many 4", 1 gallon and broken cracked undamaged things.. Things were out of control. I was rousted out by another storm , but most are bagged and ready for a trip to the nursery or the recycling. We had a small tornado come through last summer and I have found pots a 100yds away. Embarrassing.

Did it work mara? I tucked a dryer sheet into the neck of dh's shirt last night when we was working in the driveway, but I forgot to ask him if it worked for him.

I bought some of the fogger roselee mentioned, but since it's been raining every day, I didn't think it would do anything but waste it to spray right now.

I am not much of a mosquito magnet as some but I was not bothered much and I did see them flying around as aI disturbed their nesting spots.... I have a fabric softener bow on my eyeglasses. It made my husband give me a quizzical expression. I was never a hair bow kind a girly girl.

Made me laugh, Mara, thinking about you with a jaunty bow at your temple ... :-)

...and two on my sandal strap. I had accessorized .

LOL, I can just imagine him looking at you. I asked dh if it worked for him and he said he didn't know because at some point it fell off and he didn't know when.

I tried the dryer sheets this afternoon, and while I think it helped, I still got bit twice that I know of - right beside and under the dryer sheets pinned to my shirt sleeves.