Hey everyone,

The mosquito problem by my house is worse than it has ever been - and it's not even warm out yet. Last night I had to sleep with my own bedroom door closed just to keep out the 20 or so skeeters that had seeped their way into the house. When I let the dog back in the house, she brings in a comet tail of skeeters back in with her. Enough is enough!

Anyone try one of those mosquito magnet traps? If you are unfamiliar with them, you can check their website at www.mosquitomagnet.com. I'm looking for some 'real person' reviews of the actual units. I'm looking at the mid level one - the Liberty I think, and it's priced around $400 so before I invest that kind of jack in something, I want to make sure it will work.

Thanks!

Dude I live in Houston, anything that breathes is a mosquito magnet.

My dad bought 2 of those things. had one on each side of his property. it caught some mosquitos... but by no means eliminated them. He sent them back after about 7 or 8 months for a refund. But, I live in East Texas where there are tons of mosquitos. I don't think my dad was impressed with it at all though. Never did what he thought it should. Oh yeah, and he had the pro model.

All I've read about these things is they attract even more mosquitos to your yard.

My understanding is that, like bug zappers, you need to leave them on 24-7, all season long, for them to make a dent in the population, since there is no pesticide involved nor anything that would prevent breeding. The one I've seen operated in that way in a back yard did seem to help--at least it trapped mosquitoes in unbelievable numbers.

Oh yeah, just remembered--there's some evidence that traps from different manufacturers have different levels of effectiveness for different mosquito species. They work very well with some, not as well with others. Not sure how you would get the information specific for your area but perhaps the company would know.

I just read the May consumer reports issue. They did a review of the Mosquito magnet compared to two other devices. They released a couple thousand mosquitoes in a tent and put one trap in there and measured the results. The mosquito magnet captured about 75% of the population. Not bad. Consumer Reports said that it worked, but it certainly won't eliminate every mosquito. I'd gladly pay $400 to eliminate 75% of the skeeters from my lawn. Nothing like trying to relax and watch TV in the family room while you watch (or worse yet hear) a skeeter close in on you.

I would think that the thing would attract more mosquitos to your yard. Since it isn't closed in like a tent, wouldn't it be a viscious cycle??? Kill all the ones in the general vacinity, but then attract more that would take there place and so on???

It does attract more mosquitoes, making it a vicious circle unless you let it run all the time. The claim is that the mossies don't travel very far from the water source where they bred, so that eventually you will knock down the population. Obviously, if you can take care of the breeding area as well it will help (standing water, etc.)Also, if you can locate the trap so that it attracts the mosquitoes somewhere away from where you want to be that would help as well.

For those of us that live near a forest perserve/wetland area, 'taking care of standing water' would be a big no-no.

I'm also into astronomy big time, so this device could help me out 24 hours a day. I'm seriously considering this thing now, especially with the weekly downpours we have been getting in Illinois. It's sad to have a natural, scenic backyard and not be able to appreciate it at all.

I posted this exact same question on an astronomy forum and the husband of one of the co-discoverers of West Nile said that his wife uses the Mosquito Magnet to collect samples and that he and his wife recommend the highest priced model you can afford. West Nile is no joke, and much more of a threat to us than SARS has ever been. The company I work for only has 150 people, but a young lady last year contracted it and was very sick for a while. I suspect that there are at least several cases of unreported contraction for every reported case.

A cheap but major pain in the ass way to keep skeeters at bay is to buy that spray stuff that you hook up to your hose and spray your yard. It only lasts like a day or two though. I put it down on Friday nights when I know we'll be out in the back yard for the upcoming weekend. Seems to work for about 48 hours or so.

Our neighbor has a the big mosquito magnet, but I don't think it has really made too much of a difference .It does trap them pretty well though.

I use Ag-grade Tempo, but I live on 20 acres.
It kills every bug out there, plus it is safe to use on food plants.

Yes, I agree about the wetlands, but what I meant was more like water standing in old tires or other containers (sometimes inapparent, like hollow logs) around the yard. When I was postdocking in Connecticut we had a LaCrosse encephalitis outbreak that was linked to mosquitoes that naturally only bred in hollow trees, but made do with tire swings! There are a LOT of inapparent infections with West Nile (outbreaks in other countries show infection rates well in excess of 60%), but only about 1/1000 infections are symptomatic. Of 4000 known symptomatic infections in the US last year, 284 were fatal. In endemic areas, about 1 mossie in 100 carries the virus, so if you have a lot of 'em around the chance of becoming infected is pretty good.

I'm an amateur astronomer too, and last year did manage to get infected with West Nile. I had no symptoms but wound up with antibodies. I suspect a lot of us do.

Can't say as I agree about West Nile being a bigger threat than SARS. Certainly West Nile infection is a lot more widespread than SARS right now in the US, but the SARS fatality rate is running in the neighborhood of 15% (depending on age) while that of West Nile is much less than 0.1% of all infections, about 7% of symptomatic infections (bearing in mind that because the symptoms are usually very nondescript, only the most severe cases are likely to get reported). There's little difference between West Nile and something like a dozen other mosquito-borne viruses, all of which circulate in various places in the US every year. But SARS and WNV are both nasty diseases, no question.