Jun
7
2006
 7

Mosquito Disco Death


The Mega Catch arrived on Monday. It was a much needed pick-me-up after a very bad day of breaking cabinets. I immediately assembled it and put it in the backyard. I noticed a few details that were not available online.
First is the liquid trap. I had assumed this was some special stuff that was sold separately. In fact it is a deadly cocktail of tap water, dish soap, and soda pop. The soap is to break surface tension, but the only thing I know about the pop is that it must not be diet. If this thing was made by an American company, the liquid would be packaged and sold for $10 a gallon.
The net is an inferior catch but is provided for easier identification of species. Indeed, they don’t look much like mosquitoes after soaking for a while. I tried fishing them out with a plastic knife at the dinner table. This is one of those times when it’s nice to have a wife around to point out when I’m acting like a crazy person. I’m pretty sure we caught an albino mosquito (which replaced the Trammps song that was stuck in my head with a Nirvana song).
IMG_7122
Second is the attracting lights. When I switched it on, red, green, and blue lights started flashing like the encore at a Duran Duran show (yes I’m that old). I checked inside for a disco ball. Nope, but it is lined with foil for a similar effect. A pattern of colored lights danced on the nearby fence and I wondered if I had just been hoodwinked out of 200 bucks. I chose a shady location near the source, where the lights won’t wake the neighbors.
IMG_7113
Third is the timer. Why would a mosquito trap have a 7-day programmable timer? Maybe some people don’t want to kill mosquitoes on Sunday? Or maybe they want to save energy on Tuesday, when mosquitoes typically stay home for dinner.
Twelve hours later we had about 40 dead mosquitoes floating in the trap. After 12 more hours we had about the same number. And at 36 hours, maybe 10 more were added to the tub. I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong or maybe we only had 50 or so mosquitoes. Three is a swarm as far as I’m concerned so 50 is a lot. Or maybe we just killed the 50 dumbest ones and the smart ones hang out by the trap to bite me on the ankles while I’m checking the tub for carcasses.

7 Comments for Mosquito Disco Death


Amy
June 8, 2006, 7:59 am

I’m hoping and praying that it works for you! Please, let there be some cockamamey thing that kills those damn bugs!


Katharina
June 8, 2006, 9:56 am

I hope there’s a similar device that’ll kill chiggers! My husband and our two young children came home with chigger bites after visiting our future home site in the city. Paul spent a good amount of time researching how to get rid off them chiggers. The 3-year old didn’t like the nail polish or the hot shower and the 6-year old was concerned about having chiggers living under the skin. Someone suggested Granny’s Oil, which is sold in 8 oz. bottles and costs about $25 each. After years of being the number one on my “most wanted dead list”, mosquitoes now moved to the second spot, after the chiggers.


Kevin
June 8, 2006, 12:16 pm

Thanks for the follow-up post. Have you tried using the Lurex attractant (available at Home Depot)? I think it’s supposed to do a better job of attracting Asian tigers.

Maybe the timer is left over from the model that uses CO2? I thought I read that the timer lets you control the CO2 output, so that if you have weekly Saturday night cookouts (for example), you can go crazy with the CO2 just on that one night.

Incidentally, Boing-Boing posted about this model a few days after you did. In response, there was some back-and-forth about the effectiveness of bat houses, plus a link to an interesting DIY mosquito trap that uses yeast, sugar, and a soda bottle. (Personally, I still think the high-tech gizmo is the way to go.)

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/02/antimosquito_device_.html


Scott
June 8, 2006, 8:21 pm

I’m buying one of these contraptions. We just moved to Austin and had let ourselves believe that the large bat colony would help with the mosquito population, but alas.


Katharina
June 9, 2006, 10:29 am

Here’s the link to the original “environmental mosquito killer” science project:
http://tw.class.urlifelinks.com/class/?csid=css000000001173&id=model7&cl=1124673157-7108-3766&mode=con&m7k=1137419052-6633-7888&_ulinktreeid=
and its English translation:
http://www.diyhappy.com/quick-and-dirty-mosquito-trap/
I think it’s so cool. I saw that the kids had won at least one award for their project (from City of Taipei). Their teacher posted that the trap has limitations as their experiment caught just one species of mosquitoes. The concoction will have to be tweaked, through trial and error, to attract mosquitoes that live in Austin. I’m going to try to make one and conduct my own experiment.


David E.
June 12, 2006, 12:04 pm

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m pitting the DIY against the mega catch. Not scientific, but I will publish results shortly.


Steve W
June 13, 2006, 4:17 pm

I just bought one of these too. I got a kick out of you smart vs dumb mosquitos comment…funny stuff :) I too got bitten working on the Mega Catch to see if it had caught anything. After the first night I peeked in and see about 5-10 mosquitos hanging out on the OUTSIDE of the net! You heard correctly. The outside!?! I’m still not sure why this is since I put the black skirt on as recommended. I got swarmed trying to switch out the catch net for the wet catch system which they recommended. Will let you know if I get better results. Hopefully, or this beast is going back…pronto.