Substitute for mosquito repellent
 

Hi all!

Yesterday I ran short of OFF repellent so I made my own.

I mixed a couple of tablespoons of canola oil with about a teaspoon of my husband's aftershave. It worked great!! :)

I mowed and raked for over two hours and didn't get bitten once, though the mosquitoes were swarming outside.

what was the name of the aftershave ... did it smell better than off ... http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/e...s/mosquito.gif

Stetson,

And yes it smelled lots better Deb. :) I stained a good shirt though. You should only use it if you're wearing work clothes.

Sounds 'oily' BUT if it works then wow! I get eaten alive when I'm out trying to garden. Drives me in pretty quickly.

Tootsie:)

Pretty cool! I'll have to try it!

Wiz, if you want to eliminate mosquitos, put a few bat houses in your yard. When I worked at a campground during college summers, we often talked about why the mosquitoes were so few there. After a trip to the library we knew that it was because of the dense bat population in the surrounding woods.

Several of my friends have them and swear by it.

http://www.eparks.org/wildlife_prote.../bat_house.asp

Thanks AMN, I might do that.

Another good thing is the bat guano (or doodoo) they produce. It's a good fertilizer. Our bird population is down in our yard because we have a hawk who has been thinning them out. Maybe that's why we've had so many mosquitos.

What a useful tip. Thanks.

I have noticed that spiders catch a lot of mosquitoes, too, so that's good.

West Nile makes mosquitoes more than an irritating itch.

I would love to get a bat house, I sure hope I can keep my home and garden so I can do that. :)

When we lived in the Midwest we had TONS of mosquitoes! :eek:

We used Avon Skin So Soft as a repellant and also smelled nice and fresh.

Here in this part of the country we don't even have mosquitoes as we are so far from water so we can sit on the patio in the evening and never worry about bites.

Believe me; I don't miss them at all!! :cool:

Putting Skin So Soft in those pot pouri style of oil burners work good when eating outside. The ones with the little tea lights. Smells nice too.

Yikes, bat doodoo where I live can carry deadly virus called Hendra virus which can jump from bats to humans. LOTS of bats here. We call them flying foxes if they're the same ones you mean. Fruit bats. I do not touch bat doodoo. :)

Neem oil is great for keeping mozzies away.

Neem trees or shrubs are even better if you can put a couple in the yard.

It's a natural repellant. I guess it depends on your climate. I think they originated in India so might not do well in some of your climates up and over there.

My trick is to take lots of B Vitamins. I swear it works. They don't like me much. LOL Seem to bite everyone else but me, but then again I grew up in the tropics and I'm probably pretty immune. Mozzies are shocking this year and we have Ross River Fever and Dengue Fever all over the state. It's really bad.

This is exactly what I was going to share. We have a big pond in our back yard. When we moved here, there were already bat boxes high atop the power poles. The bats are still here and I have NEVER seen a mosquito. The bats do not bother us at all.

Listerine?
 

Hello, everyone! I just received an interesting email about using LISTERINE to ward off mosquitoes. :winky:

Apparently one can spray outdoor areas with a bottle filled with the mouthwash to eliminate these pests. Another plus noted is the "repellent" lasts for a couple days.

One precaution was noted: do not spray on wood, like a door, but around the door jam.

May have to try it sometime.

Just be careful when using it and being in the sun, some ingredients are sun-sensitive, and may cause discoloration of the skin.

Our house is by the river, and even with a good bunch of bats, there are tons of skeeters. They spray, we spray, nothing stops them, not coils, listereen, SSS. And the biting flies, yikes. I grow feverfew, and you can crumple some leaves and flowers and rub that on you. Nothing seems to come near us when we use that, even after swimming.

I've heard but not tried olive oil with essence of rosemary is good too.