That's exactly what I am worried about actually. I have a lot of mosquitos hanging around in my backyard. Is there any way to get rid of them?
My next door neighbor has a bat house...what they don't have is bats. Apparently they're difficult to attract. In the neighborhood I grew up in, there was a field nearby. Bats would swoop through neighborhood at dusk. I remember riding on my bike and watching them fly over me during the summer...great childhood memory! Always been fascinated by bats. I live near the first area they found the dead bird with WNV. They mosquito spraying truck has been by about 3 times in the last week. Cutter is a good solution...it helps.
Go to your local REI or other store that carries camping supplies. Get the insect repellant that is 100% DETE. It's the ingrdient that soem insect repellants use in small percentages, but the stuff that is 100% DETE is bullet proof. If you have standing water, and cannot actually get rid of the water itself, they make tablets you can drop into the water that will kill mosquito larvae. It supposedly is ok for the environment too. Other than that, you have to watch out for your pets too.
The virus uses not only mosquitoes, but is now using Microsoft Outlook so be careful as you type it will jump right up through your keyboard.
Hey, I live close to the border...hell I live on the border!!! I'll ship them to you guys cheap... I'm gonna make a killing selling this stuff!
What the heck can one do to prevent their pets from getting West Nile Virus? Seems almost impossible. Spray them with DETE and they lick it off themselves and get sick or die probably. I don't think there is much one can do unless you just don't let your dog go out during dusk and dawn hours when mosquitos are prevalent.
Surf, the only possible thing to protect the pets are natural type remedies, otherwise, like you said, limit them being outside... there's not much you can do... You right, you can't go spraying them with DEET...
Silly silly surf dude. Of course you don't apply repellant to your pets. But yes, I've been keeping my pups in the house during dusk and early dawn for that reason...at least as much as possible.
Hey, I'm not silly. I guarantee you there are some fools out there who are probably spraying DEET on their pets. The reason I said it was so noone would get any ideas from this thread about protecting their pets using DEET. Billy Bob and Bubba are probably washing the DEET off their pets after reading this just now.
How about a vanilla dip? i can go across and buy some...c'mon guys...new house, money's tight, I just bought two tires for the old stang ($300)...DIP YOUR PETS!!!
SNOPED! home remedies for mosquitoes If we had a frog, we'd be tempted to drop it down the back of whoever wrote this. Once again inboxes have been flooded with yet another "here are easy ways to protect your loved ones" mailing. Concern about the danger of attack from mosquitoes bearing the dreaded West Nile Virus has made combating the pesky critters an even greater priority than in earlier years (when only annoyance and itchiness were at stake), making this 2002 e-mail more popular than ever. Many of these mailings indeed make that point openly, claiming the various proffered solutions will help "fight West Nile Virus." The truth is although many homeopathic remedies and oddball uses of everyday products do serve to repel mosquitoes somewhat, they don't work very effectively for very long. If you're worried about West Nile, douse yourself in a product that contains DEET rather than entrust your safety to used dryer sheets, VapoRub, vanilla, frogs, marigolds, or any other item touted by even your closest friends. DEET is a chemical compound that effectively repels mosquitoes. It does not kill the critters; it just makes them unable to locate those wreathed in its essence. (Most mosquito repellants, despite the nomenclature, don't technically "repel" mosquitoes; they block the receptors on mosquitoes' antennae for the aspects of human beings -- moisture, warmth, body odor, exhalation of carbon dioxide -- which attract mosquitoes.) DEET has been used by many millions of people worldwide for decades, and it's considered safe when used according to directions. Some concerns have been raised about how safe it might be to use on children, so follow directions carefully when applying DEET-laced products to tykes. According to the first study to scientifically compare a wide range of products for their effectiveness in repelling mosquitoes, most insect repellents containing herbal oils proved far less effective than those containing DEET. This study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2002. Mark Fradin and Jonathan Day of the University of Florida tested 17 nationally marketed mosquito repelling products under laboratory conditions. They asked 15 volunteers to stick a forearm coated with repellent into a cage containing 10 mosquitoes and observed how much time elapsed before the first bite. Products containing DEET repelled best, and the more DEET they contained, the better they worked. Off! Deep Woods, which contains 23.8 percent DEET, provided the longest-lasting protection: 302 minutes on average. By contrast, Avon Skin-So-Soft Bath Oil failed after 9.6 minutes, on average. For decades rumor has held that Skin-So-Soft Bath Oil is an effective counter to mosquitoes, yet a 1993 Consumer Reports analysis found it ineffective for that purpose. Because so many people were buying the product for its purported mosquito combating properties, in 1994 Avon added a non-DEET repellent and a sunscreen to the popular bath oil and began marketing the new concoction as Avon Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard Repellent. Avon disputes the 2002 results posted in the New England Journal of Medicine study, claiming its Bug Guard Repellent works for three hours, not the 10.3 minutes for its Bug Guard Repellent and the 22.9 minutes for its Bug Guard Repellent Plus the study found, but a 2003 Consumer Reports analysis found the Skin-So-Soft repellent deterred mosquitoes for only one hour. Folks delight in looking for homegrown solutions to various problems. Part of this urge is a need to feel in control, and part is a distrust of science, but part is also a recognition that kitchen wisdom has proved right on a number of past occasions. Besides, people love feeling they've been entrusted with or have stumbled upon valuable pieces of information unknown to others of their acquaintance. (We all want to feel special, after all.) Yet the desire to seek out folk remedies has at times caused folks to place their faith in the outlandish, such as the notion that burying a statuette of St. Joseph on their property will speed the sale of the land. Usually such forays into the realm of lore result in nothing worse than solutions which might not work all that well (if at all), but in the case of combating disease-bearing mosquitoes, a less-than-effective solution could prove a deadly choice. Perhaps in those halcyon days before West Nile Virus it might have seemed reasonable to take a chance on non-DEET solutions to the mosquito problem, when all that was being risked was the transient discomfort of a few bug bites, but no longer. In this instance, placing one's faith in lore over science is a dangerous error to make. In 2002 we saw another mosquito-related "wisdom of the inbox" piece, one which advised folks that placing bowls of water containing the dishwashing soap Lemon Joy around their yards would fell mosquitoes as they flew by. In a nutshell, no, it doesn't work either.
