This is a true story.
About 70 miles east of here (Nome) there is a small hamlet
called Council. It is uninhabited in the winter, but has
about 40 or 60 residents in the summer months. When the
skitters swarm.
The hamlet is about a mile long. One resident, Art, put up
one of those propane things that attracts the females, and
it worked after a fashion, collecting bags of dead skitters.
Then, another resident --I think it was Dan-- put up a
similar unit at the other end of town.
Guess what? In two weeks all the mosquitoes were gone. The
females, attracted to the Propane thing, died off, leaving
the males with no mates. Therefore, no larvae, and no
next generation of skitters.
I was up there visiting Art, and he had a porch that
formely was wrapped with mosquito screening. He had taken
it all down, and indeed there were NO mosquitoes. Once in
a while you would see one buzz by, but they were males and
would wander off. Any unlucky female would just go
straight to the propane gizmo.
These were large units, using 100 pound tanks of propane,
and I think it took two tanks to go the season. Per unit.
These were third generation, no electric, no solar. The
propane heater itself generates the minute electricity
needed to turn a little fan, I think. There is also
another chemical that is put in, that, apparently, is the
cherry on top of the cake as far as female mosquitoes go.
But one device alone won't do it. Depending on your
neighborhood layout, you may need more than two.
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