We accept all test referrals. Find a Collection Centre

Home Newsroom It’s warming up and mozzies are coming. Here’s how to mosquito-proof your backyard

It’s warming up and mozzies are coming. Here’s how to mosquito-proof your backyard

Media Contact
12th September, 2023

The weather is warming up and that means more time in the backyard. It also means more mosquitoes.

Here are five ways you can mos­qui­to-proof your back­yard that don’t rely on spray­ing insec­ti­cides.

1. Get rid of water

Mos­qui­toes need water to com­plete their life cycles. They need blood – but water and warmth are just as important.

Get­ting rid of water around your back­yard will go a long way to keep­ing mos­qui­toes away. Water trapped in blocked roof gut­ters, drains and tar­pau­lin cov­er­ing boats and trail­ers can be a great home for mosquitoes.

Mos­qui­toes can exploit the tini­est of water sources too. It may just be the upturned lid of a dis­card­ed plas­tic drink bot­tle. If it traps water, mos­qui­toes will find it and lay eggs in it.

Flush out your bird bath once a week to dis­rupt the mosquito’s life cycle.

If you have a pond, installing a foun­tain will dis­cour­age mos­qui­toes. If you can’t keep water clean and cir­cu­lat­ing, con­sid­er fill­ing it with sand and grav­el to cre­ate an inter­est­ing gar­den bed for suc­cu­lents or oth­er plants.

Mos­qui­toes will avoid clean and chlo­ri­nat­ed swim­ming pools but will quick­ly move into “green pools”. If you’re not using your pool, con­sid­er con­vert­ing it to a “pond” so that fish can help keep mos­qui­to num­bers down.

2. Screen up – windows, doors and rainwater tanks

If you can’t get rid of per­ma­nent water, at least stop mos­qui­toes get­ting to it (or you).

Ensure rain­wa­ter and sep­tic tanks have screens to stop mos­qui­toes entering.

Screen win­dows and doors to stop mos­qui­toes enter­ing the home. There are plen­ty of flex­i­ble screen­ing options for win­dows, doors and balconies.

If you live in a mos­qui­to-prone area, cre­at­ing a screened out­door area (such as a per­go­la, court­yard, or bal­cony) will give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend time out­doors with­out being has­sled by mozzies.

Mosquitoes on a window screen
Screen­ing win­dows and doors keeps mos­qui­toes out.

3. Choose your garden plants carefully

Some plants con­tain essen­tial oils and oth­er chem­i­cals that, when extract­ed and con­cen­trat­ed, pro­vide pro­tec­tion against bit­ing mos­qui­toes. But there isn’t a lot of evi­dence that the whole plant will keep mos­qui­toes away from your garden.

Some types of plants are even mar­ket­ed as “mozzie block­ers” or “mos­qui­to repelling”. But there isn’t any evi­dence of effec­tive­ness. In fact, some of these plants, such as melaleu­cas, also hap­pen to be asso­ci­at­ed with hot spots of mos­qui­to breed­ing in coastal Australia.

The plants to avoid around the home are those that help mos­qui­toes breed, such as bromeli­ads, which trap water.

An outdoor pot plant with water in the base tray.
Water pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for mos­qui­toes to breed.

4. Encourage the animals that eat mosquitoes

Mos­qui­toes are food for a range of ani­mals includ­ing birds, bats, fish, frogs, lizards, insects, spi­ders and drag­on­flies. But don’t expect them to eat enough to keep all mos­qui­toes away.

Bats are often pro­mot­ed as a good “bio­log­i­cal con­trol” options but stud­ies have shown mos­qui­toes are more like­ly to be a snack food for small bats, not an irre­sistible sta­ple of their diet.

For gar­den ponds, frogs will eat a few adult mos­qui­toes but tad­poles of Aus­tralian frogs gen­er­al­ly don’t eat many mos­qui­to “wrig­glers”.

Aus­tralian native fish will read­i­ly eat mos­qui­toes and may be use­ful for back­yard ponds.

But not all fish are good. While “mos­qui­tofish” (aka “plague min­now”) is dis­trib­uted over­seas to assist in mos­qui­to con­trol, it’s a dis­as­ter for local wildlife and, along with oth­er exot­ic fish species, should not be released into local waterways.

Health­i­er habi­tats pro­mote few­er mos­qui­toes so the best thing you can do is cre­ate habi­tats for the ani­mals that eat mosquitoes.

5. Avoid traps and other gadgets

There are lots of devices pur­port­ed to catch, kill, or repel mos­qui­toes from your gar­den. Some may catch a mos­qui­to or two but they’re not very effec­tive in knock­ing out big numbers.

“Bug zap­pers” with bright lights will col­lect lots of fly­ing insects. It’s just that mos­qui­toes make up a very small pro­por­tion of collections.

Elec­tro­cut­ing devices, again, don’t seem to attract a lot of mosquitoes.

Devices that emit high fre­quen­cy sounds won’t help either.

The best devices are typ­i­cal­ly those that are bait­ed with car­bon diox­ide. These are a main­stay of state and ter­ri­to­ry mos­qui­to and arbovirus sur­veil­lance pro­grams. For a mos­qui­to, the C0₂ tricks them into think­ing the trap is a warm-blood­ed ani­mal. The only prob­lem is these can be expen­sive to run and don’t seem quite as effec­tive for mos­qui­to con­trol unless used in large num­bers.

Yes, you’ll still need repellent

Per­haps the best way to avoid mos­qui­to bites is to pick an insect repel­lent rec­om­mend­ed by health author­i­ties and apply it to ensure all exposed areas of skin are cov­ered. These prod­ucts and safe, afford­able and effective.The Conversation

Cameron Webb, Clin­i­cal Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor and Prin­ci­pal Hos­pi­tal Sci­en­tist, NSW Health Pathology.

This arti­cle is repub­lished from The Con­ver­sa­tion under a Cre­ative Com­mons license. Read the orig­i­nal arti­cle.

Topics

Skip to content