Seriously—where can I move to not deal with mosquitos?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What regions of the U.S. are the least likely to have mosquitos in backyards? What type of site? I don’t care about anything else.

New York City
the Southwest
Places with lots of spiders, snakes and frogs

But I've been and lived all over the country and DC has the worst mosquitos of anywhere outside of Alaska.

You’ve obviously never lived in florida or the Deep South then. Much worse than DC.

I was born and raised in the DC area, lived there most of my adult life as well, but have now also lived in two different areas of Florida, east coast for six years and SW Gulf coast for three years.

There are mosquitos in Florida but they are much worse in the DC area than anything I have experienced in Florida.

You probably lived in Orlando or Miami where they nuke mosquitos from helicopter spraying.

[Anonymous]

Get mosquito dunks. Once we started using them, we could go outside again!

You also have to eliminate ALL standing water. I get rid of any water on a lawn chair or anywhere else after a rain.

[Anonymous]

Lived in Arizona for 7 years . Don't remember mosquitos or gnats.

[Anonymous]

I feel you OP, I grew up out West and DC mosquitos are truly something else. I could not step outside unless I was drenched in OFF repellant. Bites would get so bad I’d have to take a Benadryl to relieve the itching. The worst was when a mosquito actually made its way into the house - we were like a buffet for those bloodsuckers. I really thought mosquitos were just part of life on the East coast, but we live in the Philly suburbs now and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve been bitten in the last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Pacific Northwest

Nope. We have plenty.

[Anonymous]

I’m the poster who mentioned Montana - I also lived a decade in Arizona and no mosquitoes there either.

But I’m back in Massachusetts now where I grew up 50 years ago - in those days we got chewed up by mosquitoes every time we went outdoors but these days not so much. A lot of folks spray for mosquitoes but also we have drier conditions than we used to when I was a kid. That said we have had some deaths in recents years from equine encephalitis spread by mosquito bite and every year we have West Nile cases as well so we definitely have mosquitoes just not as many as we used to.

The other night I was in the yard - ours is very natural, no pesticides and plenty of wet places - and I noticed a couple of dozen lightning bugs flickering on and off and it reminded me how in my childhood we would walk out into the yard at night and see hundreds of them. It’s sad what we’re doing to the biodiversity of the planet.

[Anonymous]

Coastal Maine. There are a handful if you are very close to water, but overall minimal.

[Anonymous]

You want dry areas. Areas without much precipitation and with be far away from standing water or still bodies of water. The southwest is better than most regions of the US for mosquitoes due to how dry it is in most of the SW. however, there are a lot of other problems in the southwest such as they are running out of natural water sources, it gets extremely unbearably hot for long stretches of time, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Pacific Northwest

Depends where but on the Oregon Coast I basically never see them. Willamette Valley I run into them rarely but not never.

[Anonymous]

The worst I’ve been around is southern FL, with the north woods of MN 2nd. DC barely registers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recently moved and our new yard doesn't have much mosquitoes. It was a pleasant surprise. I think you can look for land with few trees, good drainage and put a bat house close by. Now if only someone could rid of the gnats.

Ha ha. Previous owner sprayed, PP. Maybe your neighbors sprayed this year. Otherwise the mosquitoes own this area.I refuse to spray, which means I don't use my backyard for recreation between June and September.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What regions of the U.S. are the least likely to have mosquitos in backyards? What type of site? I don’t care about anything else.

New York City
the Southwest
Places with lots of spiders, snakes and frogs

But I've been and lived all over the country and DC has the worst mosquitos of anywhere outside of Alaska.

You’ve obviously never lived in florida or the Deep South then. Much worse than DC.

The mosquitos in the south are insane. Nothing like what we get here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get mosquito dunks. Once we started using them, we could go outside again!

You also have to eliminate ALL standing water. I get rid of any water on a lawn chair or anywhere else after a rain.

Doesn’t really help in the city if your neighbors aren’t keeping up with it as well.

[Anonymous]

We moved into our house in nova 8 years ago. I just thought the horrific mosquitos that made the yard unusable were a way of life here. 3 years ago we ended up ripping out the entire yard, grading everything, doing an addition, removing a small pond and opening up the whole yard. It's still completely landscaped but much lower and kept more pruned. We have no mosquitoes, and now use the yard all of the time. My point is to check - you must have standing water somewhere or lots of shade or somethign that is giving them an area they like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Pacific Northwest

Depends where but on the Oregon Coast I basically never see them. Willamette Valley I run into them rarely but not never.

My sister in Portland says the spiders are something else though.

I once had a lovely chat with a friend from Scotland about how few bugs they had. (We were commiserating about the bug overload in the subtropical region we were living in but honestly he made Scotland sound a lot nicer than than Ontario where I grew up.)

I usually can deal with the mosquitoes (DEET ftw) but the explosion of ticks from here up to my parents place kind of freaks me out. One of my parents’ neighbours got Lyme disease from doing yard work a few years back.