5 Surprising Mosquito Repellants

5 Surprising Mosquito Repellants
Use these five lesser-known mosquito repellants to keep bloodsucking bugs from ruining your backyard bliss.
Leave the chemical sprays in the garage this Memorial Day, and recruit bats, bacteria, and pigs to help you out.
By Emily Main
05-22-09

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You have to admire a mosquito’s persistence. No matter how many times you shoo her away, she refuses to leave until she has enough food to incubate her babies. Unfortunately, that food is your blood. While only 50 percent of the mosquitoes flying around will actually bite you (the females who have to develop their young), that’s enough to turn an otherwise pleasant summer evening into an exercise in itching. But if you think you’ve tried everything to get rid of them, think again.

Here are five mosquito controls you may not know about:

1. Fans. According to entomologists, mosquitoes aren’t active when wind gusts exceed 10 miles per hour. Create your own windstorm with a rotating fan, which, set on “high,” should provide enough of a gust to keep bugs away. Plus, fans help dissipate the carbon dioxide you exhale, and reduce body heat, both of which have been found to attract mosquitoes.

2. Pigs. Speaking of body heat, an old Italian folktale claims that if you sleep with a pig in the room, you’re less likely to get bitten. Stick close to Babe and Wilbur, whose body temperatures run a few degrees higher than yours, and a mosquito is more likely to bite them than you. Perhaps not the most practical of strategies, but worth a try, if only to convince your landlord to put better screens in the windows.

3. Bats. Pigs not your thing? Try installing a bat house. While some scientists question the ability of bats to have a serious impact on mosquito populations, some species like the little brown bat can eat anywhere from 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour. Which can be satisfying to watch as you sip some iced tea on the back porch on a summer night. Plus, bats are important pollinators.

4. Marigolds. It has been scientifically proven that thiophenes, insecticidal compounds found in different species of marigolds, can kill mosquitoes. It’s hard to say if planting a bunch of marigolds around your backyard will expose the nasty critters to levels high enough to actually kill or deter them. Plant marigolds anyway, along with a variety of other native plants, herbs, and flowers; a biodiverse backyard will attract toads, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and other mosquito predators. And be sure to weed your garden and cut your grass frequently, so mosquitoes have less cover to hide in or rest on.

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