Tag Archives: mosquitoes

Tougher Than Tom’s Mosquito TNT review

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I tested the Mosquito TNT in my Pennsylvania yard and have concluded that they do not control mosquitoes. Moreover, they kill a considerable number of non-target organisms, including pollinators, and provide a habitat for developing flies that feed on the decaying carcasses of previous victims. My full review is below. I include instructions for reporting the product to federal and state regulators, plus tips on how to get your money back if the company refuses to honor its refund policy.

Marketing claims

The company says the four-trap kit ($39.99 plus tax) will make a 1-acre yard “mosquito-free” for 30 days. At the end of this period you dump out the contents and add fresh bait (sold separately for $19.99).

Marketing materials assert that female mosquitoes are attracted to the containers because they emit carbon dioxide, which is produced by two pairs of “inert” (i.e., not inert) ingredients (yeast and D-glucose; sodium bicarbonate and citric acid). The active ingredient, sodium lauryl sulfate is said to make them drown faster.

Note that in reality the device would not be able to produce enough CO2 to attract mosquitoes, and certainly not for 30 days. And the active ingredient, sodium lauryl sulfate, is not listed anywhere in the primary literature as a chemical that can kill adult mosquitoes.

My test results

I took photographs of the four traps every several days as a way to record what types of insects were being killed. By far the most common were flies (fruit flies, blow flies, picture-winged flies, etc.), wasps (yellowjackets and hornets), earwigs, and beetles. Initially they were attracted by the sugar and yeast, but eventually the rotting carcasses attracted species that feed on decaying organic matter. Some of these latter individuals laid eggs, resulting in rather large white larvae moving around in the fluid. After about 20 days the stench was enough to make me gag whenever I got close. At no point during my inspections did I notice a single mosquito.

Below are photographs of the other three Mosquito TNTs. Like the trap above, these did not kill any mosquitoes. One had trapped two bumblebees. Although these seemed to attract fewer insects, all contained living fly larvae.

Containers are filled with living larvae

After several weeks, the fluid was teaming with larvae of humpbacked flies (Phoridae). Here’s a photograph followed by a video.

I wasn’t able to rear any of the above to adulthood but did succeed for a different species, below, which I’ve tentatively identified as Coboldia fuscipes, a type of minute scavenger fly (Scatopsidae).

Ads are misleading

Many of Tougher Than Tom’s ads assert that the dead insects inside the traps are mosquitoes, even though the insects appear to be fruit flies, bottle flies, and wasps. I.e., the company uses gaslighting to convince people that traps work even though it is very apparent they do not.

Another tactic is to show images that have been Photoshopped to falsely convey high efficacy. For example, the image below has mosquitoes that were copied from a photograph taken in Germany by Steffen Kugler. It’s unclear whether Tougher Than Tom has legally licensed that photograph.

Photoshopped illustration copyright Zachary Snyder Collins of Tougher Than Tom (from Amazon listing).

Tougher Than Tom also uses “user-generated content” (UGC) to push the Mosquito TNT on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Users seem to be following a script that frequently includes how safe the ingredients are, how yards become “mosquito-free,” and how traps eliminate worries over mosquito-borne diseases (all claims that violate FIFRA). None shows mosquitoes inside the Mosquito TNT. The UGCs rarely disclose a financial relationship with the company even though that is required by the FTC.

How to get a refund

Tougher Than Tom has generous return language (“100% guaranteed,” “hassle-free refunds,” “If Tom’s products don’t work for you, you get your money back!“) but tends to ignore refund requests. For those who persist, company then insists that traps need to be mailed back at customer’s expense. To get around these tactics, I highly recommend posting a review on Trustpilot. The company seems to monitor this site and will usually try to appease consumers in an effort to maintain a good standing on the review site. If your review is extremely negative it will try to get it removed, so contact me if that happens. You can also leave reviews at the Better Business Bureau and PissedConsumer.

If that doesn’t work, file a complaint with the Attorney General in your state. You can do this by conducting an internet search for “file complaint with attorney general [your state]” and then submitting a short form. The office will then contact Tougher Than Tom on your behalf, using legal language that may get the company’s attention. It’s easy.

How to file a state or federal complaint

If you’d like to help protect other consumers, you can report the company for making false or misleading claims.

To locate the person in charge of pesticide registration and enforcement in your state, click on this map. These people have the power to revisit a product’s registration status as well as levy fines against the company for shipping to the state without a registration. In your email, provide details of what your traps have captured and attach photographs if possible.

You can also report the company to the EPA and the FTC. For these communications it is also helpful to attach screenshots of the marketing materials that led you to believe that the product eliminated mosquitoes. And if you noticed zero mosquitoes inside your traps, mention that, too.

Here’s the company contact information to share in your report:

Tougher Than Tom
2028 E Ben White Blvd, Suite 240-1328, Austin, TX 78741
(413) 400-0067
owner: Zachary Snyder Collins
zach@simplystrive.com

Further information

  • The Mosquito TNT is a 69-cent wasp trap made in China.
  • I highly recommend reading the consent agreement (PDF) between the company and the EPA. The company had to pay $80,880 in fines for violating federal pesticide laws.
  • The owner of Simply Strive (“Tougher Than Tom”), Zachary Snyder Collins (photo), likely got into the mosquito-control business from fellow Austin resident Nick Olnyk, founder of Grandpa Gus, a company that had an identical product lineup before being sold a few years ago. I think Collins copied the “folksy, honest grandpa” marketing schtick from Grandpa Gus.

Where can the Mosquito TNT be sold?

From searching databases and regulations, I think the following states allow the product to be sold: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and D.C.

The search revealed that the following states do not allow sales: Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

However, Tougher Than Tom’s website indicates that sales are prohibited only in New Mexico and Tennessee. And the company’s Amazon listing says product cannot be shipped to Oklahoma, North Carolina (which allows sales, actually), and Maine. That these two sources list different states suggests that the company is not paying close attention to where the device may legally be shipped. The company is probably regularly shipping the product to states that have denied a registration. E.g., per a review that Tougher Than Tom features on its website, it has shipped the device to Minnesota (jpg screenshot).

Other reviews

Contact

If you have a question, information you think I should provide, or find errors, send me an email.

Bti honeypot traps for killing mosquito larvae

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An easy way to kill thousands of mosquitoes each summer is to set out a container of water, add a handful of leaves or hay, then drop in 1/4 of a Mosquito Dunk, a compressed, shelf-stable form of Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (“Bti”) that kills larvae. Pregnant females will oviposit onto the water surface as well as onto the sides of the container and when the larvae begin to feed they’ll be killed by the toxins produced by the bacteria. Just add a fresh crumble of Mosquito Dunks every three weeks to ensure the system is operating as needed.

Photograph of a green bucket covered with black mesh, resting on a snow-covered step. Next to it is a milk jug filled with water, a container of dried leaves, and a package of Mosquito Dunks.

Tips

  1. Cover the container with chicken wire or netting to prevent birds and chipmunks from drowning.
  2. Add a long stick that can fit through the mesh so that innocent insects that fall into the water have a way to crawl back out. Bonus: some mosquito species increase oviposition rate when wet wood is present.
  3. Add a white object that allows you to see whether there are larvae wriggling around.
  4. Make more than one to maximize the effect.
  5. Set traps out in early spring so that the leaves have time to decompose and become attractive to female mosquitoes.
  6. Site near vegetation or at the bases of larger trees. Avoid areas that get a lot of direct sunlight.
  7. Set up a reminder on your phone to add more Mosquito Dunks. NB: if you forget, the buckets will be generating mosquitoes.
  8. If you’re traveling for more than three weeks during the summer, dump out all your buckets and start over when you return.
  9. Purge your yard of all other objects that might retain stagnant water so that mosquitoes are forced to leave their eggs in the trap.
  10. Make some for your neighbors, especially those who are spraying pyrethroids.
  11. Get local folks on board by writing a letter to your local paper (e.g., here’s my March 2026 blurb in The Swarthmorean). The more people who use these traps the better.

Are they working?

To determine whether mosquitoes are ovipositing, just look for egg rafts on the surface of the water (photo below, left). You can also check for eggs of Asian tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus) which are oviposited singly or in small groupings on the edges of the container, above the waterline, or on pieces of wood that are floating on the surface (photo below, right). If there are eggs and no larvae, the Bti is doing its thing. If you see larvae in the water, they are not working — if that’s the case, dump everything and start over or add some fast-acting Mosquito Bits (kills in minutes, just as safe) along with a fresh chunk of Mosquito Dunk. Here‘s a great photo on Reddit with several thousand first-instar larvae swimming happily with a non-functioning Mosquito Dunk. If you don’t trust yourself to ID larvae, send me a pic or tag me on social media.

Female Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) with larvae and eggs

Safety

Bti toxins are completely nontoxic to mammals, birds, and all insects except mosquitoes, black flies, and fungus gnats. For an excellent overview of the mode of action and safety, please see this report (PDF).

Sources of Bti

The instructions above mention Mosquito Dunks but there are other products that contain live Bti. Just search for any of the following: Biosolutions Bactive, Bonide Mosquito Beater Water Soluble Pouches, Bactimos mosquito dunks, Terro Mosquito Larvacide Pouches, VectoBac Water Dispersible Granules.

Other sites with similar information

Spartan Mosquito’s attorneys quit over unpaid bills

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In filings on January 30, 2024, the firm representing Spartan Mosquito in its SLAPP against me requested permission from the judge to withdraw as counsel. The stated reason was failure to pay. Alan L. Frank Law Associates (Jenkintown, PA) has been representing Spartan Mosquito since 2019, so the unpaid bills could have been substantial. Here’s the withdrawal motion:

If Spartan Mosquito doesn’t come up with a new attorney by February 28th, the judge can issue sanctions and/or dismiss the charges against me (see order, below).

This will be an interesting year for Spartan Mosquito. Most states in the country still allow sales of the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator (active ingredient: table salt), but regulators aware of the class-action settlement might decide that it’s finally time to enforce state laws and ban the scam. E.g., states are not supposed to allow sales of pesticides that make false claims about efficacy (e.g., “table salt kills mosquitoes”) but dozens do.

Word of the class-action settlement is also likely to turn off some consumers, too. I think the company will always have a core number of true believers but likely not enough people to float a company as large as Spartan Mosquito.

I also see resignations in the company’s near future as salaries and bonuses are cut and employees realize they are working for a company that is based on fraud. Some of the employees now have “Open to Work” badges on their LinkedIn profiles. And then there are the people who don’t even list Spartan Mosquito as their employer on LinkedIn, a group that now includes Jeremy Hirsch (co-founder, chairman of the board), Chris Bonner (co-founder, vice president), Anthony Brett Conerly (president), Karen Bonner (secretary), and Josey Hood-Hirsch (treasurer). The CEO, Christopher Spence, left the company in November, 2023, and deleted all mention of Spartan Mosquito from his profile (he was there for four years). Rats, sinking ship.

If you want more details on the company’s tubes, I’ve listed my past posts here.

Consider donating to my GoFundme campaign

My legal battle with Spartan Mosquito is over but I’m still $36,000 in the hole. Donations and/or shares would be hugely appreciated: https://gofund.me/fe59f642.