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Best recommended Mosquito repellents for indoors and outdoors

Samcirrus

Samcirrus

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2020
Messages
2,205
Location
Duluth, MN
With our new property comes alot of outdoors work, and this year the mosquitoes are nasty!
Plus many seem to slip in the house when entering and exiting......so before I go buy some gizmos...I thought I'd turn to the folks whose opinions I trust the most.....what works for you?
For what it's worth, ive heard you all talk about Thermacell, but I always thought they were battery powered and just learned they have little fuel canisters....so do you go through a ton of those in your long summers?
 
There's some plants that help repel mosquitos that you could plant around your entry and exit points. Dragonflies do a great job of eating mosquitoes but need perches to attack from, 5-6' tall bamboo stakes around the perimeter of your yard seems to work pretty well. For a long term solution adding a bathouse to the edge of your property is an option also. Also look for any standing water in low spots or in kids toys that are left laying about and dump them routinely. If you have a lagoon or pond on the property than there are some products that yo can add to them as well to reduce mosquito numbers.
 
Frogs. 4 years ago we forgot about a kiddie pool under the deck. Came home from a week vacation and found hundreds of tadpoles in it. Wife refused to just dump the pool and kill them, so we basically made an artificial frog pond....a few months later and we will find frogs at random places in the yard and dozens of them croaking all night long. But mosquito basically disappears from our yard. They are harmless overall and just want to be left alone to eat bugs and bootie call at night. Good trade off IMHO, too bad they don't eat all those lantern flies....
 
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Samcirrus said:
With our new property comes alot of outdoors work, and this year the mosquitoes are nasty!
Plus many seem to slip in the house when entering and exiting......so before I go buy some gizmos...I thought I'd turn to the folks whose opinions I trust the most.....what works for you?
For what it's worth, ive heard you all talk about Thermacell, but I always thought they were battery powered and just learned they have little fuel canisters....so do you go through a ton of those in your long summers?
Click to expand...
In the south you generally toughen up, cover yourself in deet, run a thermacell, or stay inside. They all have their place. Citronella candles and the like are meh. Not worth the money in my experience. If you want to go that route then the citronella incense coils do better than the candles in my experience.

As far as getting them inside you learn at an early age in the south about entering and exiting the house quickly. You better do it fast, but you better not slam the door, either one will result in a butt chewing and possibly a whipping. I find myself doing the same to my kid now that he can open doors and my west coast in-laws, “IN OR OUT! YOURE LETTING THE COLD AIR OUT AND THE MOSQUITOS IN!!” So basically you need to get the whole family on the same page, quickly go out and close the door to limit mosquitos inside.

I think you’ll be out some money if you’re constantly running thermacells, but that may be worth it if you can’t stand deet. I think a single butane bottle is 12 hour and the patches that they burn are about 4 hours a piece. If there is a fair breeze it won’t do a whole lot of good.

My recommendation, I’ll do long a sleeve cotton shirt and wear pants that the mosquitos can’t get through then I’ll spray my neck and dedicated deet hat and that does really well. I just try to not die of a heat stroke then if I’m working midday.

Grandma got the kids some plant based fragrance type mosquito spray, I think it is off brand and it is very very strong smelling e.g. citronella, rosemary, lemon, bunch of other scents, but it actually seems to do a decent job at limiting mosquitos.

Experience: 32 years in Alabama haha
 
gcr0003 said:
In the south you generally toughen up, cover yourself in deet, run a thermacell, or stay inside. They all have their place. Citronella candles and the like are meh. Not worth the money in my experience. If you want to go that route then the citronella incense coils do better than the candles in my experience.

As far as getting them inside you learn at an early age in the south about entering and exiting the house quickly. You better do it fast, but you better not slam the door, either one will result in a butt chewing and possibly a whipping. I find myself doing the same to my kid now that he can open doors and my west coast in-laws, “IN OR OUT! YOURE LETTING THE COLD AIR OUT AND THE MOSQUITOS IN!!” So basically you need to get the whole family on the same page, quickly go out and close the door to limit mosquitos inside.

I think you’ll be out some money if you’re constantly running thermacells, but that may be worth it if you can’t stand deet. I think a single butane bottle is 12 hour and the patches that they burn are about 4 hours a piece. If there is a fair breeze it won’t do a whole lot of good.

My recommendation, I’ll do long a sleeve cotton shirt and wear pants that the mosquitos can’t get through then I’ll spray my neck and dedicated deet hat and that does really well. I just try to not die of a heat stroke then if I’m working midday.

Grandma got the kids some plant based fragrance type mosquito spray, I think it is off brand and it is very very strong smelling e.g. citronella, rosemary, lemon, bunch of other scents, but it actually seems to do a decent job at limiting mosquitos.

Experience: 32 years in Alabama haha
Click to expand...
I was on a field trip with one of my kids at a local wildlife center and a few of the moms were putting anti-bug stickers on their kids. BugMD something. I'm considering using them instead of Thermocells next hunting season. Now just need to convince the wife to buy some 'for the kids' so I can steal some instead of using my hunting budget.
 
Bug zapper and spray with talstar outside. Inside… and glostick flying insect traps indoors.
 
Deet and thermacells if you are outside much. I dump all stagnant water around the outside but leave one 5 gallon bucket with water. I put mosquito dunks in it. Basically the idea is to give the nasty little things a great place to lay eggs and for larvae to hatch. The dunks stop the larvae from reaching adulthood, so it breaks the lifecycle. I've had 1000's of dead larvae at the bottom of the bucket before. The adults just keep using it until they die. It doesn't get them all but it helps a lot.


I put 6 foot bamboo stakes in my flower beds. These serve as natural perches for dragonfly's. Dragonfly eat a huge quantity of mosquitos.

I also keep a bug zapper on the back porch all summer. It kills so many the screens get caked up and I have to use a keyboard duster bottle to clear it.

We have a lot of toads in the yard. I haven't really considered them until one of the posts above, but they are welcome anyway so I hope the are eating the mosquitos.

We have a few mosquitos here in MS.
 
HuumanCreed said:
I was on a field trip with one of my kids at a local wildlife center and a few of the moms were putting anti-bug stickers on their kids. BugMD something. I'm considering using them instead of Thermocells next hunting season. Now just need to convince the wife to buy some 'for the kids' so I can steal some instead of using my hunting budget.
Click to expand...
Don't convince the wife, just buy them "for the children" and slip a sheet out for your own use. You'll get brownie points for taking initiative and can save your sweet talking skills for more hunting related endeavors
 
If they get bad at my place, I spray it. Usually they aren't to bad. But when they start carrying my kids away I get a bottle. Supposed to kill the tics as well. Screenshot_20260602-172727.png
 
Helps to have a fan above or pointed across doorways. Skeeters and flys dont seem to care much for a good breeze. Make sure you have your outside chores finished so you can go inside at sunset when they start really coming out. Tried some brand of spray that is eucalyptus based and it seems to work just fine if the skeeters are not at their worst. There are times when nothing spray wise works. Hard to be outside during those spells. Thermacell works for being stationary. If you have good sunlight around the outside doors, I would add a planter or two of marigolds, lemongrass and bee balm.
 
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