Mosquitos

The mosquitoes were another surprise that came with this house. I've lost track of how many surprises we've had, so I won't give them a number. In any case, the mosquitoes are vicious and numerous here. We get attacked every time we venture into the back yard. The front yard isn't as bad. I soak myself in "Eau de OFF" and still get bitten. My poor little girl is covered in bites. It looks like she has some strange skin disease. I cover her arms and legs in OFF and they get her cheeks. I wiped some on her cheeks today and they went for the area around her eyes! They are terrible. And they don't just come around in the morning and evening. They are there all day. Waiting. Making our yard practically unusable. And we picked this house in part because of the nice yard.

I tried a mosquito fogger, despite not liking spraying poison on my yard, and it had no effect. We tried a concentrated garlic oil yesterday, which apparently is supposed to either kill or deter mosquitoes due to the sulfur compounds, but my daughter and I were still attacked this morning. But this evening we saw a ton of dragonflies hovering over our property. I suggested they might be eating mosquitoes, but wasn't sure dragonflies even eat mosquitoes. But we looked it up and apparently they are one of the natural mosquito predators. We think the garlic oil stirred up all of the mosquitoes and maybe gave them limited places to land and now the dragonflies are here for a garlic-flavored mosquito feast. Hooray! Go Dragonflies!!

For future years, I may invest in a bat box. But I'm not sure if my bats might eat my dragonflies. Which one will eat the mosquitoes faster?

Update: The garlic oil has not driven them off yet, but we tried a stronger concentration. I also think I discovered a major source of the mosquitoes, an overgrown garden bed back behind the garage. I'm smothering all of the weeds and ivy in that. I think once those plants are dead, the mosquito problem will improve (though it will probably always be a problem).