West Nile Virus Caution

[kempert]

Quacks -
Hello from a fellow "mosquito magnet". When I was growing up, the whole family would sit on the front porch during hot summer nights (no AC). I would slap at mosquitoes and people would go inside before they got zapped. Several times I just slapped to see what would happen and sure enough, everyone assumed that the mosquitoes were coming so they all went inside. A lot of power for a small kid!

One thing I have *heard*, but never really tried is that mosquitos will home in on someone who takes in a lot of sugar, such as drinks a lot of soda's or whatnot. The same goes for perfume and cologne. Though I never tried it, a lot of guys in the Army with me swore up and down taking garlic pills handled their problem really good. They say that as your body sweats, it releases the garlic in your sweat, and the mosquito's don't like it one bit. But, it doesn't make ya a walking clove of garlic at the same time. Just enough to keep the mosquito's off. BTW, these guys usually started taking them a couple days in advance to build it up in their system before going out to the field. Wondering if anyone else has heard this or has tried it before? (A good test for the mosquito magnets of the room perhaps?) I probably would have tried it, but at the time living on a military post, coming by garlic pills, much less remembering to pick them up were not easy things to do, but several guys absolutely swore by them. I had forgot all about that till just now. So anyone else ever heard/tried this before I wonder?

[glow=red,2,300]Happytrails........[/glow]

[kempert]

I tried the garlic pills to no avail. The scientists are now saying that they think that mosquitoes are drawn to the CO2 that you expell. That's what seems to draw them to other animals as well. I tried not breathing but that didn't work either.

Yes, it's CO2 and heat as well. I know those big expensive machines you can buy for your backyard both expell CO2 and heat to draw them in and kill them.

[glow=red,2,300]Happytrails........[/glow]

OK, let me summerize -- stand in a bucket of ice, after having rubbed your body with copious amounts of crushed garlic, and don't breathe, smack yourself to get rid of the family members that are driving you nuts, and... voila'... no mosquitos.

Then, write up this camping adventure and post it in the Off Topic area as the "Camping Trip from He__."

Ed

[kempert]

Don't breathe and you've taken care of all the other things. :-\

Or, you can stand in a bucket of ice, have a friend cover you with garlic and buzz like a mosquito eater.

ColoradoCop

Heard on the news tonight that we (Colorado) had three more deaths today. They keep saying that the prime season is just about over, but that the mosquitos will be going dormant and we can expect to see them again in the Spring . Also heard that there is a new virus starting in the East parts of the US (also spread by mosquitos) and that it is worse than the West Nile virus.

Again, if you are going camping, take any and all preventive measures that you can. Would hate to hear of anyone from the gang getting the virus.

ColoradoCop 8)

An RV Today show said that mosquitos could not bite in any wind over 5mph, also said that window cleaner killed them instantly.

Well I've been trying that for the past two weeks and guess what, they are right, kind of. The window cleaner knocks them out but then you have to stomp them dead.

So if you are just running in and out a lot take a bottle of window cleaner with you and when they start their approch runs, blast 'em! Works great.

I was reading through some older posts and came upon this one. I was interested in HappyTrail's information about the military repellent (see #2 in this thread) and found the following link that I think describes this even further. It mentions a commercially available equivalent called Ultrathon by 3M.
http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/docu...ent_System.pdf

Looks like its readily available on amazon.com for around $9. I'll look around locally this weekend too.

Sharon