Comment by tqwhite
7 days ago
Every time I have read science guys about things that you can do to kill mosquitos there is an analogy to putting a drain in the ocean. You can kill mosquitos at a fantastic rate but, unless you are also killing them in all your neighbor's yards for a mile around, they are just going to keep coming as fast as they die.
Mosquitos don't fly very fast or very far, and they breed extremely fast, so if you have nearby puddles you get a "local high density" zone. The inflow is so large that it never settles down to the expected steady state with uniform density.
It's the same reason you have a high density of sports fans when you stand near the exit of a stadium after a game. The people (mosquitos) are streaming out of the stadium (standing water) so fast that there's a local high-density zone.
I literally live in a swamp, so I reasoned "how much could one tire hurt?" Oh boy was I wrong! Eliminating that one single mosquito breeding site near the house made an enormous difference on the local mosquito density.
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 if our entire neighborhood did this.
I would love to live in a neighborhood full of meadow style gardens, where native plants are allowed to flower and feed bees, with bug habitats instead of neatly cut astroturf looking golf green lawns chock full of pesticides.
I can't understand the people that think the artificial look holds any beauty whatsoever.
The artificial look visibly demands a large amount of ongoing maintenance and thus acts as a convenient display of excess spending power. It's like the peacock's tail for capitalists.
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If you step on some of Florida's native plants you'll suddenly realize why St. Augustine grass is so popular down there.
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although meadow style gardens would increase bugs, i imagine they would decrease mosquitos?
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You might have some success with talking to them, or even dropping a leaflet or a print out in their mailbox explaining the problem and encouraging them to check their yard for breeding grounds. A lot of folks (especially young ones) just don't think about that kind of thing, but very few people actually like mosquitos, so a polite reminder every couple years or when someone new moves in might do some good.
I had a neighbor with a bunch of trash in his backyard that collected water causing mosquito breeding. It was impossible to be outside for more than a few minutes. Despite being friendly with him, he took offense when I pointed out his problem and even offered to help lug the trash to the curb with him. Some people are just too proud.
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> 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-aggressive notes in a mailbox about people parking their cars on their lawns.
10/10 highly recommend
edit: apparently you guys don't like HOAs haha. Well I love them. Keeps the neighborhood from looking like a dump.
> people parking their cars on their lawns.
Indeed, God forbid people would like to park their cars on their property!
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Over maintained yards are a leading reason for having no biodiversity around your home. First you lose the bugs, then the birds and over time this extends to everything.
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> 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.
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I think the next house I move to, I will look for an HOA that prohibits combustion-powered yard tools, and hires an all-electric crew for common maintenance, cost be damned.
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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.
"Keeps the neighborhood from looking like a dump."
The single highest priority in life. Completely reasonable to give up everything else to get that.
> Basic stuff
You like paying extra for stuff that is normally included in your property taxes? I'm dumbfounded.
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HOAs can be good. Like many things, HOAs are not inherently bad or good. It’s the people who run them.
I lived in a four unit condo buildings before and the HOA was fine, because all residents were on the board.
I now live in a more typical suburban HOA development and the HOA is very unobtrusive and only comes down on the actual problem properties (overgrown, uninhabited houses) and doesn’t do much other than handle common area upkeep. Dues are only $150 per year.
> edit: apparently you guys don't like HOAs haha. Well I love them. Keeps the neighborhood from looking like a dump.
This is so good, it can be used as a textbook definition of a strawman.
A neighbor had a bus under renovation in their driveway for a few years. That really bothered one guy, the rest of us just rolled our eyes.
HOA is another layer of local government, I think it's great that moving is a chance to choose the government (or anarchy) that you prefer.
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To each their own. I much prefer to live in the neighbourhood where each neighbour does what they feel like with their property, within reason. It ought not be any business of yours what I do with my yard, front or back, as long as it doesn't adversely affect your enjoyment of your own property - and this last part is key - as a reasonable person would interpret it. In other words, smells and health hazards - sure. Unexplainable hatred for wildflowers, uncut grass and the laughter of children - go ahead and send a passive aggressive note straight to /dev/null for all I care.
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HOAs are like any government. Some are run well and have good laws, others not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, how I’ve never wanted downvote power more.
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Mosquitos don't actually like to fly that far for their meal / breeding grounds, and yes you should absolutely be buying these for your neighbors. Make a little gift basket
I agree in the sense that if everyone did their part, the outcome would be meaningful.
This is not to say that traps don’t make your house more livable. Once, I lived in a house connected to a forest in Brazil—no real neighbors, and a shitload of mosquitoes.
I did buy some fancy traps with UV lights and fans, and oh boy, I killed a shitload of them. Not to say I fully solved the mosquito problem, but I significantly reduced the bites. My wife is allergic to them, so she’s a great sensor—if there’s even one mosquito in the room, she knows.
The UV light traps attract all sorts of insects that aren't female mosquitos looking for a blood meal. They can catch mosquitos too, but probably not super well. A trap focusing on the scents they follow from humans would do more with less collateral damage.
CO2 traps (using CO2 tank, yeast, decaying plant matter) are effective at attracting mosquitos but not other bugs (from experience)
I've been using a 20 lb CO2 tank to bait mosquitos into an enclosure with a fan which provides gentle suction, with a fair amount of success. This method does reduce numbers from areas that are not under your control, but the "dunks" are probably still the cheapest easiest treatment for local buggers
This. My old neighbor had a broken hot tub that would breed thousands of mosquitoes. Buying the fancy, $200, german made trap was satisfying because of how many it caught but it didn't keep you from being bit.
I have my doubts about this. I had my back/front yard sprayed for mosquitos and the population seems to have dropped by 90-95% while bbqing out back.
Fogging works for sure, and there’s lots of data to back it up, the issue is not efficacy but toxicity and environmental impact.
My closest neighbor is about 500 feet away
Rookie numbers!
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