Comment by bjackman
7 days ago
FWIW, I have found that icaridin-based repellents also work. It's dramatically less unpleasant than DEET!
(If you find that a fan works, that's even better! But I never really find these environmental interventions are good enough, they always get me at some point regardless)
Icaridin generally doesn't last as long as DEET though.
For fans, I have seen people make mosquito traps by attaching a bug net to a fan, sometimes combined with a CO2 generator as bait. I don't know how effective it is in practice. What we do sometimes is to put a fan under the table, it helps a little against low flying mosquitoes, definitely not as effective as DEET though.
Fans work great as long as you’re in the path of the fan. Mosquitoes are not very strong flyers. I use them with my hot tub because when I’m in there I’m not moving around.
The problem, of course, is that the path of a fan is huge and how many fans are you really going to have around?
Yeah exactly. If I move elsewhere for like 30s I'll get bitten. Or my ankles will be exposed or something.
Same with incense-style repellents, I'm pretty convinced they reduce the number of mosquitoes but eventually one will be attracted to me via some path where the repellent isn't currently flowing and I'll get bitten regardless. (I think that smoke is also probably pretty bad for you if you use it a lot, too).
And since the difference between one bite and zero bites is a really big deal I usually just go for on-skin repellents.