Question:
Does anyone here have (or know anyone that has) a propane
powered Moquito Killer?
I have found choices in 2 or 3 brands locally at
Walmart, Lowes, Home-Depot, Ace Hardware, etc. and I'm trying
to figure out which is the better brand.
Choices:
---------
Mosquito Magnet Defender - $295 @ Home Depot and Ace Hardware
Coleman Mosquito Deleto™ System $185 @ Lowes
Lentek Propane-Powered Mosquito Trap - $218 @ Walmart.
The store manager at Ace said that the Moquito Magnet brand
was much better than the Coleman brand, but of course that
is also the unit his store sells.. The Mosquito Magnet
is also endorsed by "Paul Harvey". The person at the
local Propane shop says that his customers tell him how much they
seem to love the units when they get propane refills, but
he doesn't know which brands they have.
Consumer Reports tested them May 2003, but they did a quick
20 hour test and only tested two models. (for that short
of a test I'm not sure why they even bothered).
So... Does anyone have one or know anyone that has one?
how do you/they like it and what brand is it?
anything they didn't like about it?
Answer:
I was excited when these things came on the market, because I live
in a mosquito megalopolis. If I sit on my deck after sunset, I am
bitten every 30 seconds, and I'm not exaggerating one bit. If I stayed
on my deck for 15 minutes without repellent I'd have 30 new mosquito
bites. If I use an exterior door after sunset, mosquitoes come in about
75% of the time. Every night before we go to bed, I police the walls
and ceiling in every room, looking for mosquitoes. Maybe one night a
week I *don't* find at least one. I frequently find four or five.
(They reliably roost below 60 degrees and therefore aren't a problem
then, but we're not likely to see evening temperatures that low for at
least three months.)
Anyway, my enthusiasm for the CO2 traps faded a lot when I did some
research. I used Google Groups to follow up with some folks who had
tried them. Apparently they work poorly to not at all on tiger
mosquitoes, and that's what at least half the ones I see are.
Nevertheless, if you do get one, I'd love to know how it works for you.
It's so bad at my house that I've thought about trying one anyway just
to have a decent chance at the ones that aren't tiger mosquitoes. For
now we're just going with vigilant patrols indoors and DEET outdoors,
which is obviously less than optimum.
