In the United States, nine companies are selling containers filled with water, sugar, and yeast for mosquito control. The marketing pitch is that mosquitoes are attracted by carbon dioxide (produced by yeast consuming the sugar), enter the device through holes, crawl inside, ingest some of the fluid, crawl back up to the holes, exit the container, and then die (e.g., by exploding) due to the effects of a chemical (table salt, boric acid, garlic oil, etc.) dissolved in the fluid. Some of the companies claim their tubes will rid a yard of mosquitoes for three months. I summarize the devices below. You can skip to the end if you just want to know whether they work.
1. Spartan Mosquito Eradicator
First sold in 2016 as the Spartan Mosquito Bomb, the company says these tubes will eradicate up to 95% of mosquito population for up to 90 days. Ingredients are sugar, yeast, and salt (purchaser adds water). I reviewed it in 2019. Below is an infomercial featuring Spartan Mosquito’s Chief Chemist, Chris Bonner:
2. Sock-It Skeeter
It’s identical to the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator except it’s a bag instead of a tube. Contains sugar, yeast, and table salt. Made by Spartan Mosquito but listed under a shell company in Florida (details). Here’s one of the commercials:
3. Donaldson Farms Mosquito Eliminator
Like the Eradicator, the Eliminator is marketed to rid yard of mosquitoes for 90 days. Contains sugar, yeast, citric acid, calcium carbonate, salt, and sodium lauryl sulfate. This device doesn’t appear to registered in any of the states that require registration. Based in Chattanooga, TN.
4. Mosquito XT
The Mosquito XT contains sugar, yeast, baking soda, and salt. This device doesn’t appear to registered in any of the states that require registration. Based in Paragould, AR (details), the owners run an insurance agency. Here’s a pic from the website:
5. Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech
This device is uses boric acid instead of salt as active ingredient, but still contains sugar and yeast (both as unlisted, inactive ingredients). Company says tubes kill mosquitoes for up to 30 days. California banned it after reviewing efficacy data. I reviewed it in 2020. Here’s the inventor, Jeremy Hirsch, on a 25-min Q&A with one of the retailers (note that video glitches out several times):
6. Aion Mosquito Barrier
Company says the tubes “kill and repel” mosquitoes for 90 days. Contains sugar, yeast, and table salt. It was first marketed as The Mosquito Eradicator (picture below). Based in Memphis, TN. Website. Here’s an ad:
7. Skeeter Hawk Backyard Bait Station
Contains sugar, yeast, citric acid, calcium carbonate, and garlic oil. Based in Grand Prairie, TX (details). Below is an ad:
8. Grandpa Gus’s Mosquito Dynamiter
Company claims the device will eradicate up to 95% of mosquitoes for up to 90 days and asserts that mosquitoes “literally explode”. Contains sugar, yeast, and table salt. Made by Vic West Imports of Austin, TX. Here’s an ad that I found on Facebook:
9. Tougher Than Tom’s Mosquito TNT
Company claims that mosquitoes explode after drinking the fluid (sugar, yeast, salt). Owned by Simply Strive (Zachary Collins) of Austin, Texas. This device doesn’t appear to be registered in any of the states that require registration of minimum-risk pesticides. Below is an ad followed by a review.
10. Solution X
Per the box, “clears away 95% of mosquitoes.” Based in Memphis, TN (details). Parent company is EnviroChem, a distributor of cleaning compounds. I couldn’t find a commercial or a website but here’s the box layout that they send to state pesticide regulators:
11. Greenerways Mosquito-Bite FreeZone
Claims to lure mosquitoes and then jam their receptors, creating a mosquito-free area with 100-foot radius for seven days. Lists soybean oil as the active ingredient, but also has sucrose, yeast, and essential oils. Available on Amazon and many other online retailers. Greenerways LLC is based in Yardley, PA. Here’s a video ad (screenshot below).
Do they work?
To my knowledge, there’s no evidence that any of the above devices kill or repel mosquitoes when they are deployed outside. There’s evidence they don’t work, though. For example, scientists in Florida tested the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator and concluded it wasn’t effective. And scientists have also established that salt water doesn’t kill mosquitoes, so all the devices that list sodium chloride as the active ingredient (most of them) are not going to work at all. Finally, in my testing of the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech, mosquitoes are not even attracted to the containers, which, if generalizable to the other products, makes it unlikely these products would do anything even if they had an active ingredient (like boric acid) that is lethal mosquitoes.
Here are photographs showing what is inside a Spartan Mosquito Eradicator (left) and a Spartan Pro Tech (right) after several weeks. Plenty of picture-wing flies, fruit flies, ants, and molds. But no mosquitoes. I’ve never even seen a mosquito come near these tubes.
If you’d like to see the full array of insects and spiders that these tubes killed, I’ve collected them on iNaturalist.
Why are these companies still in business if their products don’t kill mosquitoes?
I think there are four reasons.
- Towns, municipalities, and regional health departments often spray adulticides from trucks and airplanes, in the middle of the night, without many residents being aware. And if some of those people have yeast-and-sugar tubes hanging in their yards, they might wrongly assume the lack of mosquitoes is related. This scenario is probably common because spraying happens pretty much at the exact time of the year that homeowners place the yeast-and-sugar containers around their yards. For those curious about Mosquito Abatement Districts, this article has a nice summary. You can also ask your local government for details on whether your house is being treated.
- Sometimes due to sudden and extended drought conditions, mosquito populations plummet. Again, people might not appreciate that the lack of water is preventing mosquitoes from completing their life cycle and will mistakenly attribute the drop to yeast-and-sugar devices they deployed around their yards.
- Many of the companies encourage homeowners to hang the tubes before the start of the mosquito season. It might seem to some that the tubes are keeping the mosquitoes at bay but in reality it’s because the mosquito season hasn’t started.
- Finally, some homeowners spray pyrethroid-based insecticides (like those used by Mosquito Shield and the like) in addition to deploying the yeast-and-sugar contraptions. I’ve seen comments on the internet suggesting that these people believe both are necessary even though in reality the tubes are merely decorative.
Once a person becomes convinced that the tubes work, they are unlikely to abandon that belief even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary. That’s probably especially true if a person tells multiple neighbors that the devices work. I.e., a person becomes personally invested in that belief. Indeed, when the tubes fail in future summers (or during gaps in municipal spraying), true fans of these tubes go to great lengths to blame themselves. For example, they might say, “I don’t think I used the correct temperature of water”, “I may have placed them too close to my house”, or “I should have used a few more tubes.” The companies use the same lines in response to consumer complaints, never acknowledging that the failure is with the tubes themselves.
It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of people who try these tubes conclude that they are ineffective and never buy them again. They lose $50 bucks, or whatever, and chalk it up as a mistake and get on with their lives. Some might pursue a refund but I think most people are too lazy to ask. One of the companies, Spartan Mosquito, even sets its return window to expire 30 days after product is delivered, not after 30 days of use — for a product that is supposed to kill mosquitoes for 30 days, that’s a pretty clever way to make sure nobody can get their money back. I.e., if people try it for 30 days and conclude it’s a garbage product, the return window is already over. And the companies still make a profit because the core subset of true believers (several million Americans in total) will keep spending hundreds of dollars each summer on new tubes. That’s enough to make the owners of these companies millionaires, and explains why more and more people are getting into the market.
People often mention that the reviews for these types of tubes are generally high, and use that fact to argue that the products must, in fact, work. For example, the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech has a 4/5 rating on Amazon. I’m of the opinion, however, that even completely useless products can get ratings like that. For example, OFF! citronella candles get a rating of 4.2 even when “not intended to repel mosquitoes” is prominently displayed on the packaging (that’s correct: citronella candles do not repel mosquitoes).
Please consider sharing this post on Facebook or Nextdoor so that your friends and neighbors don’t get sucked into the scam.
The number of potential customers and profit is so high that they probably only need to have customers purchase them once to make them a nice earner for a small company. Probably many do repeatedly buy them. I’m a medical statistician and I’m amazed how patients can be quite enthusiastic about placebos, although I’m honest enough to know that I could probably be fooled.
This is exactly the business model. They just keep reselling to the Believers, and take as a loss the 10% of irate consumers who demand refunds.
Yup. Tougher Than Tom doesn’t work, and if you comment such on their platforms they delete comments and block users. Total scam. :/
Mosquito tnt is working for me. Sorry that you don’t agree with it, but I’m living proof that it does work. Just two days after putting them up, I have been able to enjoy the outdoors without getting eaten alive.
It lacks any ingredient that would be able to kill adult mosquitoes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the lack of mosquitoes you clearly are experiencing. You are a lucky person.
I also got these and sat outside for ten minutes and counted the mosquitoes that I could kill with a racket, during a certain time period of the day. The count slowly went down from 20 on the first day of the traps being out, to 2 by day 13. I know this isn’t a completely scientific experiment, but it does show that they are working.
Tougher Than Tom deleted all its Mosquito TNT ads and claims it is “sold out”. Are you going to try another brand?
how many did you collect in the traps?
So I’m not seeing that there’s any evidence that these products don’t work (except for the one Spartan product). Why would you try to get the EPA to ban these things with just the opinion that they’re unlikely to work? The EPA is only going to ban products that cause harm to people and after years of extensive study of the things. Is there evidence of harm to people? Why are you trying to get people to complain to the EPA about these products? Have you ever personally tried any of these products? Do you have an interest in getting these things banned, such as a career in pest control, for example?
As an example, peer-reviewed research by scientists have showed that the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator does not work. And a separate publication shows that salt does not kill mosquitoes, so when companies claim that salt kills mosquitoes, that’s a false claim. It is illegal for a company to make exaggerated or false claims about a mosquito control device or pesticide. Yes, I have tried some of these products. They didn’t work at all. I have no competing interest in all this. Protecting citizens from being scammed is just something that seems worthwhile.
I have used the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator for YEARS. You are wrong. The DO WORK and work very well. Maybe it should not make sense, or, maybe bigger more powerful companies paid for scientist to conclude that the don’t work BUT most of my friends use them and so do I. They most certainly DO WORK.
The scientists who showed that salt doesn’t kill mosquitoes — Donald A Yee, Catherine Dean, Cameron Webb, Jennifer A Henke, Gabriela Perezchica-Harvey, Gregory S White, Ary Faraji, Joshua D Macaluso, Rebecca Christofferson — all seem highly respected in their field. I would be very surprised if any of them had been secretly paid to falsify their findings. Similarly, the scientists in Florida (Vindhya Aryaprema, Edward Zeszutko, Courtney Cunningham, Emad Khater, and Rui-De Xue) who concluded that Spartan Mosquito Eradicators do not work are highly respected. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy.
By the way, you can now buy refills for Spartan Mosquito Eradicators on Amazon.
The experiment you mentioned that invalidated the Spartan product was a tiger mosquito. Not native to the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus
Yup. Terrible mosquito.
If salt water kills mosquitoes wouldn’t my salt water pool kill them all anyway?
Yes, if salty water was lethal in any way to mosquitoes, vast stretches of saline marshes on coasts would be completely mosquito-free. And if salty water was lethal, that fact would have been exploited thousands of years ago. That’s why it’s immediately obvious it’s a scam.
One study on how salt (by itself) doesn’t kill adult mosquitoes along with one single peer-reviewed research by scientists supposedly showing that the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator does not work, isn’t the greatest due diligence vs. the hundreds of customers I’m reading saying that they work. Who funded that peer review study? The competing pest control companies? Do some better research before coming to your inconclusive conclusion.
The two teams who conducted the experiments you mentioned were composed of respected scientists who approached the questions in an unbiased way, carefully designing controls and including replicates to ensure that the outcome was robust. If they had found that salt did kill mosquitoes or that Spartan Mosquito Eradicators did kill mosquitoes, they would have published that result, too, I’m sure. And as far as I know, no competing pest-control interests contributed funds toward the experiments, though you are correct in wanting to know details. I find their conclusions sound, and they make sense given what I have witnessed with the tubes I’ve used in my yard. I.e., the tubes don’t seem to attract mosquitoes, so they are unlikely to kill mosquitoes. I do understand that hundreds of thousands of Americans believe the tubes work, and that’s no surprise given the type of marketing Spartan Mosquito does. If consumers have hundreds of dollars to spend on these tubes each summer, that’s totally up to them. I just hope they supplement the expenditure with DEET or picaridin spray, something that has demonstrated efficacy and that has ability to reduce chance of disease exposure. Are you still using Spartan Mosquito Eradicators or do you buy Pro Techs? A lot of Amazon reviewers who liked the Eradicators say the Pro Techs don’t work at all. I’m still puzzled why the company decided to cease production of the Eradicator. Thanks for your comment.
Also, if by chance you live in Canyon County, Idaho, you pay taxes (1.05%) to the Canyon County Mosquito Abatement District. They use trucks and airplanes to apply adulticide all summer long. I don’t like abatement districts at all (they kill pollinators), but I think it’s good to know where your taxes are going, and it can sometimes explain why mosquitoes suddenly disappear. You can follow them on Facebook to get alerts on when and where they are spraying. There are thousands of abatement districts around the country and in my experience their existence is a surprise to many of the people who live in them.
You sir, have far more patience than I do. Responding to some of the more ridiculous and silly assertions born from confirmation bias (this will work, I see less mosquitos, so THIS kills mosquitoes; when really there’s many reasons there MAY be less). Also, this isn’t a claim of disbelief in the linked article about citronella candles (I simply do not have enough Information to make a strong claim either way) but the citronella candles sold here (western/Buffalo NY area) DEFINITELY say on the candle/pack “repels mosquitoes” “guaranteed to repel mosquitoes” etc. In the article above it says that the packages don’t even claim to do so, or even say they do not on the packaging itself. That’s not the case here. I know because I was just shopping and did buy some. Luckily only about $5 haha
It’s my understanding that only Big Citronella is worried about being sued for false advertising, so you’ll still be able to buy candles with “repels mosquitoes” claims. And if the cheaper ones smoke more, that might actually be more effective than. I.e., it’s the smoke that actually can work.
You did not answer the question about the EPA
Is there a particular question about the EPA you’d like an answer to? Not exactly sure what you mean.
I bought the Tougher Than Tom’s. I commented once about how it got eaten by a chipmunk or something and knocked out of the tree the first day I put them up. Now they blocked me on Facebook. I cannot comment on their Ads and I cannot massage them on Facebook. Very odd for a company to do that I’d say.
I think the guy behind Tougher Than Tom is trying to maximize the number of sales before the authorities shut him down. So he prunes all comments except those who believe the device is killing mosquitoes, and the resulting positive comments fuels more buying by the those who want to give the product a try. Pretty typical behavior, unfortunately. Can you get your money back via the website? I’d also recommend leaving a review on the Facebook page. And, please, contact your state’s pesticide regulatory folks. Depending on which state you live in, they want to hear about companies like this. E.g., it could be the case that Tougher Than Tom hasn’t registered its pesticide. Selling an unregistered pesticide is illegal. Keep me posted, please.
Long ago, the internet was once very useful. Then it became a medium for cat gifs, and now it is now largely grotesque. However, sites and posts (and people!) like this give me fleeting hope that all is not lost. Thanks for the well-researched, informative post!
Thanks! Though personally I love the cat gifs. But that’s because of my name, I suspect.
Thank you for exposing these scammers. Wish people would use due diligence before buying products off the web!
Thank you for this post – extremely informative and well organized. One of these devices popped up on one of my social media feeds, and as much as I hate mosquitos, I was drawn into watching the ad. But as you pointed out, I noticed there was no actual data shared about its efficacy, which led me online to do some further research and came upon your post. On a related note, if you do know of any natural mosquito controls out there that actually work, I would be interested to hear about it!
Here’s my list of mosquito-control tips. But, sadly, the tips only work if you can get all your neighbors on board, too. For most people with mosquito problems the cause is neighbor problems.
It’s probably true that salt doesn’t kill mosquitoes, but that’s not what this recipe seems to be setup for. They are saying it’s the yeast that makes them explode. The sugar feeds the yeast and the salt is for slowing down the yeast from overeating too fast and dying quickly. The salt is a buffer to allow the yeast to grow slower and last longer. I don’t see you mention this anywhere. Only repeat that salt doesn’t kill mosquitoes.
Fruit juices and nectar are consumed by mosquitoes regularly, and both contain wild yeasts. If mosquitoes couldn’t expel gas they’d be exploding all the time and we wouldn’t have a mosquito problem at all. As far as I know, the geniuses at Spartan Mosquito came up with the lie that carbon dioxide is toxic to mosquitoes. It’s just inane. I have more details in my review of the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator.
Folks that have made some bread during a pandemic will know a bit about yeast, salt, and sugar.
Mike, yeast doesn’t make anything explode. When yeast eats sugar, it releases carbon dioxide that causes expansion in cases where there is gas restriction. In the case of this product, the released gasses supposedly attract the mosquitoes which means the gasses have already escaped.
Even if the theory is true that some mosquitoes were eating yeast and sugar, this affect would be short lived at best. Unfortunately, even slowing the process with salt would only result in a day of yeast activity in normal summertime temperatures for North America. That’s why you can’t keep your proofing dough on the counter for two days.
HTH.
Ive bought some.. I noticed they kill wasps and pincher bugs when they drown in the water.
Mosquitos may drink water and then fly away but how can we tell if the mosquitos die after drinking the solution?
I guess we don’t have proof of the negative or the positive.
Hi Tony,
That’s what I’ve found, too: plenty of insects enter and drown in yeast-and-sugar containers, as you’d expect, but never mosquitoes. And companies carefully say that you’ll never find mosquitoes inside because the mosquitoes fly off to die elsewhere. Many Americans see the lack of mosquitoes inside as proof that the tubes work.
The only experimental test of a company’s claim is the one I did on Spartan Mosquito’s Pro Tech. All I did was use a home security camera to confirm that mosquitoes aren’t even attracted to the tubes in the first place. I suspect all of the devices fail at the “attracts mosquitoes” phase. And, thus, all companies are using deceptive advertising claims.
Thanks for this! I was sooo close to clicking ‘buy’.
BYW, the CO2 produced by the fermenting yeast is one of several natural attractants. I didn’t think that mosquitoes would feed from something like this but who knows?
Hummingbirds are better at mosquito control. That and being vigilant for standing water.
Mosquitoes certainly use CO2, and yeast can definitely make CO2 … but Spartan Mosquito is just stitching those facts together in a claim that their tubes produce enough CO2 for months. It’s pure gobbledygook.
Thanks for posting this. I live in Florida and have a huge mosquito problem. I also have a lot of bed and butterflies so I can’t use the spray systems. I was literally about to buy the Tougher than Tom one after the barrage of social media ads but thanks to this I did not.
My pleasure!
Thank you so much for your research on this! I did click on the ad via FB, because I was curious if Tom’s would actually work. My first red flag was that I couldn’t find the ingredients anywhere on their website. So I googled it and came upon your article. Very interesting info! So thank you again. You saved me some money.
I was curious to try this, but bummer about killing the bees, as we have a guy nearby who raises them and would probably not be too happy about this.
Ugh I fell for their marketing scam. Currently waiting for my order to arrive ♀️
Hopefully I can get my money back !!!
I fell for the Tougher Than Tom gimmick thinking it was some sort of breakthrough in treating mosquitos. Man, was I wrong. We have just as many if not more than usual. I opened the canisters (I bought four, but only using two at the time) and I found other insects had drowned in them but NO mosquitos (thankfully, no bees). Should have known better since all the comments in their Facebook ads are positive. That’s usually a red flag for most product reviews. Buyer Beware! As my father used to say, “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”
PS: Is there any other use for these canisters to either deter or kill mosquitoes (which is environmentally safe and won’t have a negative effect on bees)?
Thanks for this blog and thanks for the added tips in your other article! I was sucked in by Tougher than Tom’s ads but now I just use the little containers they sent me with some water and a mosquito dunk…my thought it maybe they’ll lay eggs there instead of somewhere else and I’ll avoid future generations. Also you could add bat boxes and plant shagbark hickory trees to promote bat populations in your area! The bats make a huge difference when they migrate north to our area!
Mosquito dunks are great, and I think your use of container is perfect. But did you get your money back? You should. And report the company to your state regulatory authorities. I can provide you with contact information if you’d like.
Who would I contact in Texas?
We use cedarcide yard spray for ticks(works AMAZING) and garlic barrier for mosquitoes. The combination works well for us. The cedarcide lasts longer than the garlic, but with both you need to reapply after heavy rains or 3-4 weeks…I’d say 3 weeks though. Cedarcide makes human and pet bug spray which I have been buying for years and mosquitoes hate it! Oh and we have 3 racket bug zappers that are great for mosquitoes.
I’ve been using Spartan’s brand for three years at our river property. They absolutely do work and even our neighbors have started using them because THEY WORK.
Funny how my comment in favor of Spartan’s devices are not being allowed to post
I try to approve all testimonials in both directions. My apologies if I somehow missed yours from months ago. Thanks for stopping by. For the record, Spartan Mosquito deletes all negative comments on its Facebook page within minutes (they even have a team dedicated to doing that). By the way, Statesboro is supposed to have a pretty good mosquito-control program. It’s run by a member of the Georgia Mosquito Control Association. You might relay your success to him. His name is Robert Seamans.
I bought Mosquito TNT. Complete scam. people that say it works are probably bots.
It did nothing to our mosquito population. I’m in the San Fernando valley. i kept needing to fill the water in the device thinking it’s that. and then they say it takes 2 weeks to notice any decline and still it did nothing.
looking at the contraption I can see it attracts nothing. I see mosquitos flying around me but not that. Also just by the logic if this thing is attracting mosquitos i should find a few that just died getting stuck in there. I find other insects, flys, gnats, fruit flys but no mosquitos. other insects went in and got stuck and died but no mosquitos.
BUT the yeast does work for a while. I can attest to that but i’m not looking to create yeast in a cup.
I am not a bot. We have been using Tougher than Tom’s for two years and it works way better than the mosquito bucket our pest control company was putting in our yard for $50 a month. All I s know is we saw a great reduction in mosquitoes after we stated using them. If we don’t fill them up the mosquitoes come back.
I challenge you to take a photograph of the tubes that shows the swarms of mosquitoes trying to get into the holes. I’ve asked people for years and nobody has managed to do that. Not even the company has photographs of mosquitoes gathering around the containers. It’s just a scam, I’m afraid. That said, I’m happy that *something* is controlling your mosquitoes. Likely local spraying from city or county … depends on where you live.
Thank you
I found one thing tougher than tom, and that’s the mosquitos in central Pa. Have 4 of these TNT buckets, 3 citronella candles burning, and I’m covered in deep woods off. Can’t sit outside for more than 15 minutes before I have to retreat inside.
I’m surprised that Deep Woods Off isn’t working. But definitely ditch the candles and tubes of sugar and yeast. I haven’t purchased one but you might splurge on a Thermacell. I’ve heard they work in small areas.
If you have a minute to spare, you might send a pic of your Mosquito TNTs to Daniel Duer at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. He is the person who would know whether the products are registered for sale in the state. If you have photographs of the box and any brochures within, he can also glance at the claims and assess whether they are allowed under state law. Some states might object to the false claim that mosquitoes explode, for example.
Tougher than Tom is selling it on Facebook ads as of 3/23/23
Yes, I’ve been getting hit pretty hard with them. Pretty brazen claims for something that doesn’t appear to register.
I almost never post in comments, but for this I had to make an exception. Its so funny to see what seems to be the “reputation management company” army (yes, the businesses exist) trying to put a good face on this and plant at least a bit of doubt regarding the less than stellar performance of the product reported here. It looks like they gave up at some point since not many people will read 20 comments in anyway. People are desperate as I am to red themselves of of these insidious creatures and this product plays on that desperation.
The reviews on their own site (mosquito TNT) are a bit suspect as well. I always read the bad reviews first. Only a total of five “one and two star” reviews and two of those were shipping time. One griped about an only 50% reduction. Boo hoo! Even a “positive” in the WORST reviews. Imagine that! This puts their 3 and above rating at above 97%. I have NEVER seen a product THAT good.
Note the location of the below “verified buyer” review. It shows the buyer being in Greenville, SC and the text part states “I am in Florida”. Oops.
Review:
“Lily G.
Greenville, SC
Satisfied
Okay these actually did work but it took a bit longer than I expected, it was not an immediate event like I thought it would be but after 6-7 days basically the mosquito population in my backyard dropped to 0. Even at dusk and dawn when they are the worst! I can now actually enjoy my patio! I am in Florida and they literally are our state bird. Issue I have is the shipping took 10 days instead of 5-7 but they said they changed their shipping with a different company and were very helpful with that part.”
And last, don’t you think a big corporation would have figured this out long ago? Ohhh.. that’s right. “THEY” don’t want you to know…
THANK YOU!!!
These ads are all over facebook and I suspected it was a scam well because nearly everything on facebook is.
Thanks for confirming that it IS a typical facebook scam.
Which product did you see an ad for?
Your content is insightful… There’s no question there are plenty of social media snake oil scams out there… Though, I am curious if you’ve seen the new design from Tougher Than Tom’s mosquito trap? Perhaps the bees won’t be able to fit inside? Valid concern for sure…I like the bees, and they are part the reason I avoid any type of usage of commercial pesticides on my property. But mainly I don’t want my kid around the harsh chemicals. Nevertheless, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Tom’s solution. I have a few family members and friends here in southern New Jersey successfully using the traps. They swear by them. I recently just purchased a 4-pack, my property is about 7500 sq ft…so it should cover it. I am about to set them up this evening. I saw that you mentioned people being unaware of aerial pesticide spraying over residential land…I suppose that could be applicable in some cases throughout the country, but it certainly does not apply to everyone. It’s speculation at best… My municipality does not spray over residential land…the mosquitos have been eating my family alive for 8 years on our current property. I’ve gone through every preventive step known to man over the years, including speaking with my neighbors about the potential of standing water hiding somewhere. Desperate for relief, I am trying everything and anything… I suppose I could provide an update if you are interested?
I’m aware that Tougher Than Tom now provides little tents for the Mosquito TNTs, but the company seems to do that so that rain doesn’t flood them. They don’t seem to mention the size of the holes or even show those holes on their ads. I would be very interested to receive updates and any photographs of the contents if you wouldn’t mind. For the latter, just dump out the fluid onto a plate, photograph it, then dump it back in. And if you have the ability to set up a security camera to spy on one, that would be fantastic, too. The ads claim the mosquitoes explode so that should be good footage if true.
Those are very valid considerations for sure. They don’t mention the hole size on their website. I’d be happy to provide some photographs of the contents and the results of dumping out the liquid on a plate. I do have an extra Nest camera that I suppose I could mount near one of the traps. Though, I am not sure how great the quality of footage might be. I can give it a try nevertheless. That’s another solid point though… you’d think Tom and his crew would be advertising the mosquitos exploding haha. I honestly can’t think of a better and more genuine marketing campaign if such footage existed. I will keep you updated, Colin. Thanks for your reply as well!
I used an old Nest camera to spy on a Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech in my yard. It was fun. Got lots of footage of ants going in and out of the tubes. The ants apparently brought enough of the boric acid solution back to their colony that it was killed. Poor ants.
Is there anything that actually works to kill them?
Not that I’m aware of. If you have neighbors that are willing to work with you I have suggestions here.
I do appreciate your well researched article. I hate mosquitoes but I go ballistic when my neighbors have companies spray their ” natural” and nontoxic sprays. I point out to them they are killing off the bees and other beneficial insects. Cleaning my gutters always helps with my mosquitoes. I do use some kind of spray or wipe for short trips outside. Mosquitoes don’t like my skin nearly as much when someone young and tasty is present!!
I was just googling why Tougher than Tom is always sold out and found your article. Maybe I’ll look for some other “solution!”
Yes, I’d definitely keep looking.