Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death • Hacker News Board

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#171

Post by fwip » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #151

diggan wrote: post #8

> The dunks contain an unhealthy—for the mosquito larvae—dose of the bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT. Don’t worry about your dog, Moonpie, or your cat, French Fry. They can drink straight from the bucket and be perfectly fine. Hey, it’s probably better than when they drink from your toilet, right? Here I was under the impression that the water in the toilet is the same water as go into the taps, potable wate…

Porcelain isn't zero percent porous. It's just the least porous material that can also support the weight of two people when fashioned into the shape of a toilet. There's a reason toilet cleaners still contain bleach.

Two people - what are people doing on their toilet? (Or do you just mean 2x normal weight, as a safety factor?)

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#172

Post by johnkizer » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

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…

From what I can tell, HOA experiences - like politics - are highly dependent on the folks who would make good decision-makers actually being interested in, and attaining, the level of power in the association to make those decisions.

I've seen both - folks who are good stewards of the community's money and add to its energy, and folks who can't manage money and exhaust the community's energy on trivialities.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#173

Post by arcticfox » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

shakow wrote: post #45

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…

> people parking their cars on their lawns. Indeed, God forbid people would like to park their cars on their property!

Yes indeed! One of the reasons I'm personally happy to live in an HOA after having lived in an area where lawn junkyards were common.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#174

Post by arcticfox » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #134

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the motivation of people choosing to live in a place where they are constantly at odds with the agreed-upon standards of the community. They should leave if it is really that stressful and onerous.

The problem is that those standards can change based on who's elected or chosen to run the HOA.

they can, but in my experience rule changes are approximately zero. All of the HOAs I've lived in have been very reasonable. When I was on the receiving end of notices - they were well-deserved as much as they were embarrassing.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#175

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

adamgordonbell wrote: post #82

Ok, now what is the solution for hornets?

High pressure poison spray. There is an organic kind that IME works about as well as the synthetic ones: https://www.groworganic.com/products/ecosmart-wasp-hornet-ki...

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#176

Post by nick__m » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

owlstuffing wrote: post #122

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…

Oh, how I’ve never wanted downvote power more.

Submit interesting unique links and post more substantive comments (maybe add a paragraph or two your previous comment) and you will be able to downvote soon enough. But I don't understand the appeal, when I do it is usually accidental (really easy to do on a tablet)...

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#177

Post by IncreasePosts » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

beala wrote: post #143

lantry wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen a similar thing at https://us.biogents.com/ Haven't used it so I can't comment on its effectiveness

My in-laws use a system like this, maybe the same one. It uses a CO2 tank rather than burning propane. He runs it 24/7 and he needs to refill the CO2 tank every 1-2 weeks iirc so it's definitely more expensive to run than the death bucket. I think it's a 20 pound tank like you'd see on a homebrew keg system. When he showed it to me, it had caught an absolutely nightmarish number of mosquitoes over the course of a cou…

Don't worry, when you press them into a party and fry em up, they're quite moreish

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#178

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #86

JohnFen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've gotten nothing but benefits from living in neighborhoods with HOAs. I'm happy somebody has. Except for you, I have never heard anything but nightmares from the people I know who suffer under HOAs.

I question the motivation of people choosing to live in a place where they are constantly at odds with the agreed-upon standards of the community. They should leave if it is really that stressful and onerous.

It's not a question of being at odds with the agreed-upon standards. They aren't.

> They should leave if it is really that stressful and onerous.

Easier said than done. A few people I know found that it was difficult to sell their home because the existence of an HOA scares off buyers.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#179

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

bjackman wrote: post #34

siliconc0w wrote: post #10

You can also try a simple fan blowing over the sitting areas, mosquitos (and other bugs) have difficulty flying in the breeze. I sometimes bring a small fan camping since the breeze is nice and I hate applying deet.

FWIW, I have found that icaridin-based repellents also work. It's dramatically less unpleasant than DEET! (If you find that a fan works, that's even better! But I never really find these environmental interventions are good enough, they always get me at some point regardless)

Icaridin generally doesn't last as long as DEET though.

For fans, I have seen people make mosquito traps by attaching a bug net to a fan, sometimes combined with a CO2 generator as bait. I don't know how effective it is in practice. What we do sometimes is to put a fan under the table, it helps a little against low flying mosquitoes, definitely not as effective as DEET though.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#180

Post by johnthedebs » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

The comments saying that other sources of water need to be removed are spot on.

Another technique I've tried which works (observably) well is described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BhV-o77RqQ

tl;dw: Get a big drum fan with a screen on the back, attached with small/powerful magnets. Mosquitos are such poor flyers that they get pulled against the screen and can't escape, and they pretty quickly desiccate and die. Most other flying insects don't get caught, although there is a bit of collateral (some moths and lacewings, unfortunately). Another benefit of the fan is that you can hang out in front of it and mosquitos mostly won't bother you there either.

I did this in our shared backyard space in Brooklyn and would catch hundreds/thousands of mosquitos per week. Despite that, there were still a ton of mosquitos in the area so it's best combined with other methods of control.

edit: better/updated video link