What happens if Zika hits your area?

[Anonymous]

Bat houses are worthless, even if you could get bats they don't eat enough to make a dent. They also will shit everywhere and could infest your home or attic. Stick with mosquito spraying.

[Anonymous]

Already planning for it, getting a mosquito company to spray down the house every two weeks during late spring into late summer. Kill the suckers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually just put up bat houses. Each bat can eat 10k mosquitoes a night. We didn't do this because of Zika though, more because this area (NOVA) has horrible mosquitoes.

I'm a mosquito magnet and I honestly won't go out at night if it gets bad here. I'm pregnant too.

Bathouses are an awesome idea. Please tell me if you did it yourself or had a company do it for you? Also, can you share the cost of this project?

Thanks.

We did it ourselves. You buy the bat house (looks like a bird house) and then nail it on a tree?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dlawngarden&field-keywords=bat+house

The population of bats crashed in North American, not many left.

[Anonymous]

Apparently zika only show symptoms in 1 of 5 infections.

[Anonymous]

Just want to chime in that I love bats. I don't think I've seen any here, but we always had them in our yard at dusk in New York. A very peaceful thing to watch at the end of the day. I never had one in my attic or had any other problems with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bat houses are worthless, even if you could get bats they don't eat enough to make a dent. They also will shit everywhere and could infest your home or attic. Stick with mosquito spraying.

Thanks for chiming in, Mosquito Squad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be sad for childbearing women. Hope they understand the importance of mosquito control and controlling other vectors.

And you.

It is now causing paralysis in healthy children and adults at alarming rate: Guillain-Barre.

[Anonymous]

We don't know the percentages of any of these issues. The microcephaly rate in Brazil has been seriously questioned.

So we can hope that we're dealing with a rare effect of a rare disease.

In the meantime -- avoiding mosquito bites is already a good idea. West Nile still exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bat house person- No I'm not on any listserves and I haven't told others about my new bat houses. We already have lots of bats in the woods behind our house. I'm hoping to draw them closer to my house. Even one bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes an hour at night. I can report back this summer to update on whether this has been effective.

I can't empty the standing water because I think the main culprit is the stream behind our house. It often runs dry in the summer and breeds mosquitoes. It also has little pockets of water that breed them too.

I love bats, I'm from the countryside and we had MANY hundreds of bats in the evenings. They are great animals and should be protected/preserved in high-impact ways.

However, as I mentioned, from the Natural Resources Manager for Arlington (this was on my neighborhood listserv):

"...Now mosquitos of course are still a concern for various reasons anyways, especially with the main culprit being the Asian Tiger Mosquito and its ability to use man made dwellings. This mosquito does not really use our streams and moving water, but more so small trapped water containers such as pot holders, roof drains, and discarded trash receptacles. Mosquitos are indeed also eaten by bats, but to be honest, they are not the thing any of our 16 species prefer. These generally go for stuff with more meat to them, especially moths and with some species beetles. We definitely want bats around, and they do eat mosquitos, but just want to make that evident.

To continue being honest, bat boxes have an absolutely terrible occupancy rate in our region. Less than 2% actually attract or house bats from what I’ve heard. They work in other parts of the country and world better, and people are researching how to make them more productive for our region, but you very rarely ever get bats to use bat boxes around here. Part of this has to do with how small commercial ones are, their placement and dimensions, their exposure to the sun, the materials they’re made from, and a lot of other reasons. We have several in various places in the County and I do not think even one is home to any bats or ever has been. The bottom line is that they are almost a complete waste of effort and resources in our area. Again, just being brutally honest. Until they build a better bat box locally, I would not suggest to people falsely that they will work to provide bat habitat and help control mosquitos. Again, just being brutally honest.

The best method of mosquito control remains to combat their breeding locations. Have neighborhoods clear their gutters (a place where lots of breeding takes place), empty pot stands and regularly change bird baths/other water sources, clean the area of tires, cans, bottles, and such that can hold the water that mosquitos need to survive. This is the most effective way to deal with mosquitos. I doubt this is what you wanted to hear, but that’s my opinion on these things, though it is also shared by other people who are considered knowledgeable on these things as well. Thanks, and sorry I can’t give you a better answer."

Alonso Abugattas
Natural Resources Manager
Arlington County Parks, VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We actually just put up bat houses. Each bat can eat 10k mosquitoes a night. We didn't do this because of Zika though, more because this area (NOVA) has horrible mosquitoes.

I'm a mosquito magnet and I honestly won't go out at night if it gets bad here. I'm pregnant too.

problem is the zika mosquitos bite during the day....

[Anonymous]

If it hits the US, democrats will win every election with the new voters once they hit age of majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If it hits the US, democrats will win every election with the new voters once they hit age of majority.

You are a horrible human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If it hits the US, democrats will win every election with the new voters once they hit age of majority.

You are a horrible human being.

Sounds like a typical R to me. Probably voted for Trump.

[Anonymous]

What do you spray in the yard to get them to go away? We use that yard perimeter stuff from OFF that you can buy at Home Depot but I'm guessing that's not what you are referring to. We are going through infertility treatments and back up to a swamp. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Garlic spray - we found it at Merrifield garden center.