Mosquito/Gnat Solution???

You asked about natural solutions. Everyone else has given you the external. As a holistic practitioner, I tend to get to the source. That would be your diet. Look @ how much sugar you eat, and soda. Cutting back helps immmensely. The biggest help is a good B complex. Food based is best. That would be for your whole family. I have had that work in all cases in conjunction with eliminating or decreasing the amount of sugar in the diet.
Hope you can work this into your lifestyle
L.

I just received an email from a friend of mine and she told me to put red cedar chips around the yard. They stop ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, and flies from coming around. We are going to try to place them in our flower beds next to our patio to see if it really works. She also said to put a little sachet of chips around your pets beds and it will chase the fleas away if they have any on them or in their beds. Definitely gonna give it a try. Good Luck!!

I have the same problem, the bugs love me. I have used the can foggers for when we are having events in the yard. They have to be sprayed about an hour before people go outside and last a few hours, but work well. There is also a solution that you can attach to your hose and spray on the grass which lasts longer than the foggers. I guess this kills any eggs and maybe temporarily prevents new one for awhile. I would cut grass before using so you get the most bang for your buck with this one and of cours get rid of all standing water. Good Luck.

R.:

We use the Raid YARD GUARD - it has worked for us. We use it when we go out to play ball in our yard and we use it for our block parties!

I also spray my boys with Skin So Soft by Avon - as both my boys are soooo sweet that mosquitos just love them!

I know that there are some new products out there - however, we've used these and Cutter Deep Woods OFF! as well as (no in addition to - just depends on my mood) the Avon Skin So Soft. The Off! I spray on their clothing - to include hats they will be wearing.

Ensure you have no standing water in your yard - that is a breeding ground for mosquitos.

Ensure your hose is OFF after every use - where there is water - there are mosquitos.

Hope this helps!

R.,
I am mosquito bait as well, and I have found that lemon joy works for us. When we get bitten we dab a little lemon joy on the bite. If there are a lot of bites on the children, we use it for bubbles in the tub. My youngest is very fair, and seems to really attract them, if we know that we are going to be out where we can't control our surroundings, I have him use lemon joy as soap in the shower.
A.

p.s. This will not keep them out of your yard, but it will help, if the bites happen.

My day care provider has had great success with the skeeter vac.

went to a dog show about a month ago, and a guy had marigold in a spray.... he swore by it. he didn't seem to be swatting anything.... also heard about the dryer sheets like another reader said...
i have the same issues, so am looking into the marigold stuff myself... would rather have the natural then all the chemicals....
good luck

I've got the same problem. I've found that those Coleman's coils work very well, but you may need to light several of them if your yard is large. They work sort of like incense and they smell like campfire. I light two coils about 5 minutes before I plan on being outside. I also used to use tiki-torches filled with citronella oil. They were amazing. I felt like they fogged the entire block for several hours, but now that I have a 2 year old, I'm afraid that he'd knock them over and burn the house down, so I haven't lit them in a long time.

My MIL just sent me an email. Listerine kills them on the spot. Put in a bottle, and spray them when you walk out the door. Consider leaving it in a jar outside of your door to repel them.

Now, makes you wonder why we should be using the stuff for fresher breath.

Be REALLY cautious about purchasing a Skeeter Vac or other mosquito "trap". We spent a lot of money on one a few years back and realized that w/o a big enough yard (like 2+ acres) you will do nothing more than ATTRACT mosquitoes to your yard with one, as they work by attracting the mosquitoes in and killing them in the trap. The problem with this is that your yard becomes even MORE infested with mosquitoes in the process because you're drawing them from everyone else's yard around you.

What we have finally settled on is a company called Mosquito Squad. They come once ever three weeks and fog your yard. We have used them two summers in a row now and gone from having an unbearable mosquito problem to seeing almost none. We live in a woods and near a lake, so we had BAD mosquito issues. The spray they use also controls ticks.

Our contact is Mike Nevarr, the company owner of the local NoVA Mosquito Squad, and his number is ###-###-####. If you are interested in their service, you can call him for rates, etc. And if you don't mind, tell them I referred you (My name is M. Romano)--as I think I get a little credit or something for referring new customers. :)

~M.

After seeing a few commercials for the new Off Clip On, we decided to give it a try. No spraying or stuff to lather on your skin. It's a device that you clip on to your belt or place ont he table/chair/etc near you. It totally works! We used it all weekend and the only time I got bit was prior to using it. No bites all weekend.

here's a link for the website - http://www.offprotects.com/clip-on-mosquito-repellent/

The best mosquito killer is bats. If you install a bat house in your yard and are lucky enough to get bats to come they are extremely efficient at ridding your yard and the neighborhood of the pesky blood suckers. Look online for more info if you are interested. Lots of cities are doing just that to help with mosquito problems. Good luck!

In response to the Listerine solution. It doesn't work. I looked on Snopes. Of course this was after I bought and sprayed it around.

I am as severely allergic to mosquito bites as it gets. I have a prescription steroid cream I have to use for bites and yes, sometimes I have to go to the hospital to get shots because my face swells up. And of course, those of us with the worst allergies to them attract them all the more.

The SkeeterVac is useless for someone like me. I haven't tried the Flowtron, but it's looks similar to the Mosquito Magnet, which I do have. I can tell you that the Mosquito Magnet works wonders! We have a couple acres of wooded property with a creek running through the woods, so we have our fair share of skeeters. The mosquito magnet covers a 500 yard radius (depending on the model you get) and in the 5 years since we've had it I've seen maybe 3 mosquitoes. The darn thing was expensive but for me it was probably just as good an investment as our house! It uses a propane tank which needs replacing about once a month (only during the summer though) and also uses bait which is easily found at Lowes or Home Depot or even WalMart and is inexpensive and doesn't need to be replaced very often at all (I think we've replaced it maybe 2 or 3 times in 5 years). Also, we haven't had any problems with attracting more mosquitoes from our neighbors' yards, but it even seems to have helped our neighbors out some. It said it has a 500 yard radius, but I think it works well beyond that.

So, if you're really willing to make an investment, the Mosquito Magnet is well worth it. I normally would never set foot out in our yard, but the mosquito magnet works so well we decided to build a huge deck onto the house and I spend most of my day on it everyday. I feel like I got my life back because of it.

Purple Martins east mosquito's so you could put up some of their bird houses in your yard but it is probably too late in the season for this year to attract the birds.

You can also spray Skin-so-soft from Avon on you and your kids before you go outside.....My son swells from being bitten and it is the only product that stops the mosiquitos and other bugs.

Hope this helps....

K.

R.
Someone told me about Bounce dryer sheets, put them in your pocket w/ some hanging out or in the top of socks, around a belt loop anywhere you can stick one. It may notwork for everyone but it does help for me.
Good Luck
A.