Mosquito madness

Mosquitoes are making us crazy.  We live in the middle of orchards, we always have mosquitoes. But this year is the worst ever!!!   I make sure there's no standing water, or if there is I put mosquito dunks in the water.  I even bought a bunch of black buckets, placed them around our property and put water in them for mosquitoes dunks hopping to decrease the population. It didn't  seem to make any difference. They swarm you in the evening and night, and are even present in the day.  We have an old drafty house, so  we have a lot in the house as well.  We have those racket electric swatters. My husband spends a lot of time every evening trying to kill them before they bite us. Still we are being eaten alive.  I didn't call mosquito abatement because I have a lot of vegetables gardens, and didn't want poison on my veggie.  I was feeling guilty about that because we are suffering so, but one person I talked to said she had them spray her place and it just seemed to make them mad. It didn't get better at all.  
I don't know what to do, but we are all at wits end. I have never wanted summer to end more in my life.  I'm open to any suggestions that might help. Thanks

have not tried this out yet , reading up on insect  control deterants , i found sources recomending  using shepards purse seeds in a saucer of water to attract and trap/kill mosquitos , i am going to try this for midges and horsefly when i am working inside my polytunnel.

meant to add this as well , a uv light electric mesh unit , these work for me inside the cottage for midges ---as the amount of times my lot come in and out and leave the door open ---i might as well take the door off the hinges over the summer. But not those small tiny plastic ones the size of milk cartons , those are useless as the light is too under powered and are only an annoyance , get the bigger types with a replaceable long tube bulb ,they are about the size of a laptop , or even better a commercial size one like those at the meat /butchers counters. Its  a very satisfying  as the little buggers hit the wire and a sound that can only be appreciated by those who have suffered the torment

- consider increasing sulphur intake (a la Mother Earth News sulphur protocol for ticks- I think it helps with mosquitos too. Google it)
- attract purple martens and bats
- raise ducks- they eat a lot of insects and are always in the water
- we bought a Thermacell but have never used it because of the warnings and chemicals. i'd use it if I had car repairs, construction, wood chopping, that sort of thing to do outdoors
- when the bites aggravate you, put a piece of tape over them (regular Scotch tape). This is especially relieving at night... though there's probably PFAS in the tape, sleep is more important for sanity IMO. Often if I leave tape on about 24 hrs the itch is gone when I remove it.
- be scrupulous in the early spring with water sitting anywhere- dump it to discourage breeding
- encourage spiders (love those garden orb spiders)

We had a legendary mosquito year about 5 years ago. Every trip to the chickens or pigs required full netting. It was MISERABLE. This year, I've seen ONE mosquito here. It will get better so try not to let it make you too miserable.

hang in there. we get like that sometimes when the weather shifts (right now, spring warming up, for example), and our mosquitoes have a lot of bad things (like dengue) that you don't want to acquire.
Those rackets are our go-to. I will occasionally put citronella oil on the windowsills and doors, even though the research isn't promising it makes me feel better, at least.
i agree that the smaller blue-light zappers are mostly ineffective. I have one for inside the house.

Another thing is that they're not great flyers. Inside the house and on my back porch (which is like a dark cave in the morning, they like to hang out there) I use fans, they'll make their way elsewhere if they can't fly. Just make sure you're not pushing them into a corner of a certain room or a place where they're all hanging out (or, get in that corner with that racket frequently) in fact in our sleeping space that is absolutely necessary.

Outside, I encourage house wrens to nest, they eat crazy amounts of bugs in the garden and on that back porch where the skeeters like to live. You surely know the drill about standing water; another thing I notice is that when i keep the brush down in the shady corners of my yard I'll have a swarm one day (the day I trim it, when they've been rousted out of their hiding place and are looking for someplace to go) and then nothing for a while, so if there is anything shady, wet and cool you can trim down that might help.

When I lived by a lake/wetland, I ended up putting a mosquito net over our bed indoors because got so many in the house!

Got tired of applying mosquito spray to myself so I took to spraying it on a dish towel that I draped over my shoulder and periodically wafted around like a horse does with it's tail.

Those loose-lightweight-long sleeved-synthetic-hooded shirts like they use for sun protection while fishing also help. If you get hot, just wet it down for evaporative cooling. The hood keeps them off your neck.

Thanks everyone.  With the exception of my wicking pools I am diligent about no standing water.  Even the cats water gets dumped and refilled daily in the summer.  I had duckweed in one wicking pool, and rock in the other, hopping to keep mosquito out.  When it started to become unbearable I added mosquito dunks.  That's when I tried the buckets for the dunks. I don't think it helped at all.

Amazingly the weather has changed. It actually rained a bit (it won't help the mosquitoes problem, but I'm not going to complain about rain, we need every drop). It's cool, they say a high of 75. I'm usually not a fan of the wind, but today it's lovely to be able to go outside and not get one bit.  I may actually get some stuff done today. Happy dance.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:Mosquitoes are making us crazy.  We live in the middle of orchards, we always have mosquitoes. But this year is the worst ever!!!  

Has there been more rainfall in your area? Are more neighbors using water barrels that they're not covering? Has something killed off your mosquito eating birds/bats/frogs?

There are short term and long term solutions, many of which are suggested above, but I'd also be looking at what changed and how you can support long term natural controls.

There's a fish referred to as a Mosquito Fish. One of our Hawai'i permies bought a bunch and "gave them" to the neighbor's water barrels, one year when they were carrying a disease which was of concern. However, some fish are invasive in some ecosystems.

I can't help but think there's got to be a water source breeding them - they breed fast and they don't need much water to do so!

We have had severe drought for several years. This year we finally got some rain.  Late winter, and early spring we got more rain then we have had for quite some time.  We have even had a few shower this summer.  
I'm trying to word this without getting on my soap box, because it's quiet upsetting to me.  The city keeps overriding the ordinance that orchards are removed and houses are built.(it's  not  supposed to happen) Across the street from us many acres of orchards have been removed so they can build mansions.  It's great for my property value, but at what cost. All the birds and critters have lost their home.  So many officials only see $$$, and don't take into consideration that so much more is lost then fruit or nuts. It makes me quite sad.  I'm sure it's the rain that's mostly to blame. Unfortunately I fear worse long term affects from removing so many orchards in our area.  Trees do so much more, and we need them.

i hear your soapbox, even if you're not on it!! my soapbox salutes yours. every few years when some mosquito borne illness (zika, dengue, chikungunya, take your pic) gets out of control the city sends around inspectors to come into our yards and make sure we're all dumping our dog water bowls every day and putting foam in our plant saucers. meanwhile, wetlands are being disturbed so natural predators are less common, large-scale construction sites are everywhere, and filled with stagnant puddles or worse. they try to keep us busy policing each other, but in the end it seems to make no difference, and the bigger culprits are somehow invisible.

Can you seal the house and fit screens?