I loathe mosquitos. One bite on me usually ends up as huge egg-sized lump that itches for DAYS.

I spray myself with Skintastic and some of the newer repellant products. I'm allergic to those products(and the chemicals in them) so I have wash it all off later.

I am a big fan of the mosquito product that comes in a lantern. I buy it at HomeDepot. It has a small tube of fuel and a place to put a repellent chip in place.

It actually works pretty well. I have several that I set up around the patio and you are fairly bug free.

Hmmm. I'll try that. I had given up on citronella candles as basically useless, they never seemed to do much, until I got some torch-sized candles from Crate and Barrel. Those worked really well, threw smoke a decent distance and really kept us bug-free. But we nearly burned the house down with one when a piece fell off and caught the deck on fire. Dear boyfriend was actually drafting water out of the pool while I was blithely cooking dinner, completely unaware of the six-foot flames. (the house ventilates, but has funny acoustics. I didn't hear him calling me.)

So we don't use them unless we're out there watching them. But maybe if I could find some lanterns that were self-contained, and wouldn't burn the place up, that would work.

Thanks

Hi Susannah
In Arizona they burned sacred sage for ceremonies in the Native American community.
One time I heard that is good repellent for mosquitoes, since then I always keep sage in the house.
If I don't have this sage, I use sage incense. I only use the incense made in India (higher quality), I buy it at World Market.

One of my neighbors, have installed a high tech system in his backyard. It is natural and he has no mosquitoes. The downsize, it is very expensive!

Silvia

I think the tikki torches/citronella provide nice ambience - but not a lot of mosquito deterent - unless you dab it behind your ears or something. Then again, if there is one mosquito in a room, it bites me 20 times. I'm always the only one with all the bites.

I've had a lot of success with the lanterns. I couldn't recall the name before, but have it now. It's called ThermaCell.

ThermaCell has an attachable version that hunters use by looping it thru their belt. But, they also put out a mini-lantern and a large lantern. I have all three versions and space them out around the patio when I want to sit outside.

I turn it on about 15 minutes before I want to head out to the patio which seems to eliminate most of the mosquitos. Each unit comes with a butane cartridge and repellant mat inserts. The heat from the butane activates the repellant. It lasts for 12-hours. There is no nasty smell or smoke issues like you deal with from citronella or loud sounds from the mosquito machines to deal with.

Honestly, it works great. OFF! copied this product so there must be something to it. I have not tried the OFF! version as I already have all the ThermaCell items. It works, so why try something else just to try something else?

The butane cartridges seem to be the main replacement items and cost impact. The repellant mats last for hours. So, I have a large cache of the repellant now as they come 3-per box with one butane cartridge. I wish you could just buy the butane seperately. Also, you cannot refill the cartridges.

By the way, Lowes does not carry it.

saintpfla- Oh my goodness! That sounds eerily like me... egg size bites and I always end up with tons of bites when no one else gets a single one! I think people worry I'm hallucinating tons of mosquitoes until they see the evidence. (yeah, folks are spared because they're all busy biting us apparently.) I'll also try the Thermacell in my garden- anything to relieve this and citronella doesn't work! I liked the idea of lemon balm leaves mushed but it doesn't work for me. Guess my bloods just too tempting. I hear my father was the same way with skeeters. My most common perfume is OFF Skintastic- I even have to wear it to sleep during the season. Lord only knows how mosquitoes get in the house, find their way to my bedroom and bite any inch of exposed skin! (Including eyelids and then it swells up so you can't open your eye and man they itch! grrr.) Great thread natives and veggies, and great advice saintpfla.
Death to mosquitoes!!
Sarah

What gets me isn't the bite! After being biten by thousands upon thousands playing in the Everglades it only hurts for about 10 minutes and then it's gone.

What

KILLS me is when you go to bed, and as you drift off to sleep, you hear that faint sound: Bzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz and then it get closer and closer and then it stops. So you move, and it starts again, Bzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzz.

I can not sleep in my bed if I hear a skeeter. Up I get, lights on, towel in hand to kill!

OMG - MizAdventure -we are definitely twins seperated at birth!!

I cannot TELL you how many people look at me like I'm crazy when I start with the 'Is anyone else getting bitten?...'. Until later when I have all the welts and bites. The No-See-Ums don't leave me alone either...for the record.

OFF, Skintastic, Deep Woods - all those work great, but for me, my skin turns red and I begin to swell up. I know, great visual, right?

I have had that eyelid mosquito bite also - NOT fun!

If you go the ThermaCell route, be sure to buy more than one and a refill pack as well. I put one in front of my chaise and one behnd the chaise and then another off to the side.

I hope it works for you. I have found it to be a good resource and enables you to use your outdoor living areas again!

Have you considered putting up bat boxes? Granted, the bats wouldn't give you immediate results, but if over the summer, they can at least keep the mosquito population down maybe you wouldn't have to fight them quite so hard.
cora

Well... a mosquito biting my nose woke me up this morning. It's not like we sleep with the doors open. But he found a way in somehow. Grrrr.

I'll have to try the Thermacell. And really, the torches I got from Crate and Barrel did work, first ones I've ever used that did. But they need to be planted in rocks, or something else that won't burn, because we've had more than one drop a burning piece off.

And Cora, I bought a bat house, but I've never figured out where to put it. Up in a tall tree? I could nail it to the sapodilla I suppose. How high should they be? My live oak isn't big enough yet I don't think.

Susannah

hope this site will work for you. It give details for where to locate bat houses, etc. cora

http://www.batconservation.org/content/How to put up a bat house.html

Thanks Cora. I may try it on the side of the house. It can't work any worse there than it does on the dining room floor.

I was going to say and someone beat me to it. Go to lowes, go buy the charqoal color steel tiki torches about $5 a piece. The 2-3 dollar tiki's that look like bamboo tend to look terrible within 3 months.

Buy some citrenella oil and light it up! It definately works. I have 5 spread around my yard. I actually bought 2 for close to the ground and the others are 6 foot tall. Try to get good spread. It definitely works. Sqeets will not bother you for long. Got to spread around the yard though, so it catches all wind currents.