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To eliminate mosquitoes which hover around the outsides of outside doors without having to worry about breathing or touching toxins, one could use a solution of dishsoap plus any of a number of disabling substances.
Normally, water won't adhere to a mosquito, but with dish soap to reduce its surface
tension, it can soak into the inner-most crevices of its exoskeleton. As the soap-solution enters those crevices, it can carry abrasives, glue, desicants or irritants, for example.
I personally would try a strong brine or maybe school glue. Clay and diatomaceous earth would be less safe, but okay if
used carefully.
Added Aug 31, 2016:
I envisioned the soapy solution to be put into common, hand-pumped spray bottles and sprayed directly at the mosquitoes as the hovered about. One might also try coaxing any resting mosquitoes into the air for the same treatment.
If you want "personal", you don't even need the spray
https://www.google....2MKHdiqA2AQ_AUICCgD
You just need to see them get within range. [Vernon, Aug 29 2016]
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Better than an unsafe personal flamethrower. |
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Crispy mosquito wings and the porch a blaze. |
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What makes this a halfbaked idea? |
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You mean apart from the fact that it won't work ? |
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If it won't work, then it's not halfbaked, it's bad science.
How about training a troop of commando spiders to lasso
mosquitos in mid air? This would require time and patience
but might just be possible. |
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Interesting sentence breaks. |
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There are already insecticides that use diatomaceous
earth. |
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Regarding the use of "glues", do you really want to
repeatedly spray a glue solution around outside your
doors? |
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What is needed, surely, is a bat in aerosol form. Or a
can full of dragonflies. Or even spray-on swifts. |
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Do you really need any toxins or other additives to your
dish soap? |
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Soapy water kills wasps quite well. I use a squirt gun to
deliver it to wasps crawling on their nests under the
eaves. They immediately loose the ability (or desire) to
fly, run in circles on their nest for a few seconds to a few
tens of seconds, then fall down to the ground and die. |
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I don't imagine that mosquitoes would be affected any
less. I guess someone should try it... |
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Yes, it might build up a visible film of residue over time. I'd expect that the mosquitoes wouldn't replenish their near-door populations very quickly, so it could be worth cleaning of the film now and then. Part of the design of the solution should be to minimize the amount of film-producing substances and focus on maximum performance per amount of active ingredients, while sticking to the non-toxic requirement. |
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Isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle works. But it's volatile
and a little bit toxic/malodorous. |
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We're all approaching this problem bass ackwards.
There are 213,000,000,000,000 mosquitoes in the
world, but only about 7,000,000,000 humans. If the
goal is to prevent mosquitoes biting humans, we
need to address the more tractable side of the
equation. |
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