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Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

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Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#161

Post by schiffern »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #129

One question - how does this prevent mosquitos from breeding in other bits of standing water that I can't locate? I have no idea where ours are coming from; I suspect they hatch somewhere, and then migrate to the shaded areas of my yard, which is where I typically get bit. Adding a bucket will prevent some mosquitoes from laying eggs elsewhere, but not all, right? Or is the bucket so attractive to mosquitoes that the…

After checking the obvious like old tires or stagnant ditches or tire tracks, the more hidden breeding sites include house gutters, French drains (under the gravel), buried yard drains, and garage floor drains.

The general rule is that mosquitos need a pool of water the size of a bottle cap, and it needs to be there for at least a week. Good luck, and good hunting.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#163

Post by NoGravitas »

dpassens wrote: post #105
badc0ffee wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going off-topic, but what's up with that font with the ugly square-bottomed lower-case g's? I've been seeing it everywhere. It's not good.

I thought it couldn't be that bad but wow, that's bad. The first font-family entry is Clas Ohlson Sans Web, so presumably a font developed for Clas Ohlson? Looking at samples online, J and to a lesser extend t are similarly hideous.

You might even say it's... Grotesk.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#164

Post by mgerdts »

Arainach wrote: post #146
dsr_ wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is public space and public roads.

These don't work because suburbs are a ponzi scheme that is collapsing. People are grudgingly willing to pay to put in a brand new sewer once. No one wants to fund maintenance or pay millions to replace it in 60 years and cities are literally going bankrupt because the population density isn't enough to maintain the infrastructure. Cities realized this decades ago which is why many are reluctant to add more unsustain…

My back yard neighbors live on a private street with an HOA. When the city water pressure went high for a brief period of time, they were one of the few places to have water lines burst. Their private supply lines were not of the same rating as the city lines that supply similar neighborhoods. Since this was private, this HOA was on the hook for ripping up the street, repairing water lines, and fixing their street. Being a customer that doesn’t normally need such services, the fix was done a couple months after the water lines break. They had a week or so with no water and many weeks of water being fed to their homes via hoses connecting a fire hydrant and the spigots they would normally use to get water outside.

They were so lucky this happened in the summer. In the winter, the hoses would have frozen solid.

These folks were very sad the city’s water utility couldn’t do the work. They fix water main breaks within a couple days, usually the same day.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#165

Post by devonbleak »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #129

One question - how does this prevent mosquitos from breeding in other bits of standing water that I can't locate? I have no idea where ours are coming from; I suspect they hatch somewhere, and then migrate to the shaded areas of my yard, which is where I typically get bit. Adding a bucket will prevent some mosquitoes from laying eggs elsewhere, but not all, right? Or is the bucket so attractive to mosquitoes that the…

Our pest control put in a bucket called In2Care that has a little net with some powder suspended above the water - mosquito lands on the net, gets the powder on 'em, carries it to the next site and that site gets neutralized. They're designed for commercial campuses but for ~$200/yr it's well worth it for residential also.

They do take a while to take effect, and they do take maintenance, but my experience so far is that they're super effective.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#166

Post by nkrisc »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #40
jmuguy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. We did these buckets, were very diligent about it. They appeared to work (at least in terms of attracting Mosquitos, which they're meant to do) but had no real effect generally. House next door is a rental, with a rotating cast of 20-somethings that do not keep up the yard and its filled with nice little habitats for Mosquitos. One thing that an HOA might actually be good for - I would love to see what happens…

> One thing that an HOA might actually be good for I've gotten nothing but benefits from living in neighborhoods with HOAs. Basic stuff like funding for landscapers to keep up the shared grassy areas along the streets, to plowing the access roads in winter time. But the main benefit has always been that it provides a legal mechanism to force everyone to maintain their yards and property. No need to drop passive-aggre…

HOAs can be good. Like many things, HOAs are not inherently bad or good. It’s the people who run them.

I lived in a four unit condo buildings before and the HOA was fine, because all residents were on the board.

I now live in a more typical suburban HOA development and the HOA is very unobtrusive and only comes down on the actual problem properties (overgrown, uninhabited houses) and doesn’t do much other than handle common area upkeep. Dues are only $150 per year.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#167

Post by zargon »

schiffern wrote: post #161
pavel_lishin wrote: post #129

One question - how does this prevent mosquitos from breeding in other bits of standing water that I can't locate? I have no idea where ours are coming from; I suspect they hatch somewhere, and then migrate to the shaded areas of my yard, which is where I typically get bit. Adding a bucket will prevent some mosquitoes from laying eggs elsewhere, but not all, right? Or is the bucket so attractive to mosquitoes that the…

After checking the obvious like old tires or stagnant ditches or tire tracks, the more hidden breeding sites include house gutters, French drains (under the gravel), buried yard drains, and garage floor drains. The general rule is that mosquitos need a pool of water the size of a bottle cap, and it needs to be there for at least a week. Good luck, and good hunting.

I didn’t even think of my rain gutters. I haven’t cleaned them this year. Thanks

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#168

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

beala wrote: post #158

A bit of a tangent, but BT is also great for getting rid of tomato hornworms. The bacteria is harmless to humans, but fatal to the hornworms. A single application saved my tomato plants last year. That said, the more I garden, the more I find the entire process a bit horrifying. Waging biological warfare on the critters is not what I thought I was signing up for.

Yep - it's not too difficult to coax a thing to grow. Life, uh, finds a way.

Gardening is often much more about preventing the stuff that you don't want to grow from growing, whether that's weeds, microbes, fungus, insects, critters, etc.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#169

Post by gcanyon »

axus wrote: post #128
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing that an HOA might actually be good for I've gotten nothing but benefits from living in neighborhoods with HOAs. Basic stuff like funding for landscapers to keep up the shared grassy areas along the streets, to plowing the access roads in winter time. But the main benefit has always been that it provides a legal mechanism to force everyone to maintain their yards and property. No need to drop passive-aggre…

A neighbor had a bus under renovation in their driveway for a few years. That really bothered one guy, the rest of us just rolled our eyes. HOA is another layer of local government, I think it's great that moving is a chance to choose the government (or anarchy) that you prefer.

I have a friend whose parents built a 48' sailboat in their yard over about a dozen years. "built" as in cast the lead keel, laid the fiberglass hull, etc. etc. This was in a traditional suburban neighborhood, but no HOA. So they had to be pretty good friends with their neighbors.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#170

Post by fwip »

rendaw wrote: post #13

I don't entirely get this. If you have more spots with water, doesn't that just mean mosquitoes will lay more eggs? Which will then die, but +/- 0. How effective is this, actually.

There are multiple limiting factors on mosquito egg-laying - availability of water is just one of them. The energy/nutrition required to produces eggs (which comes from blood) is also a factor, plus time, etc.

I'm sure there is some extra egg-laying, but there are also eggs laid there that would have otherwise been in suitable water.

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