You have a mosquito problem in your home. You’ve seen one of the little biters roaming around, and they may have already caught you out with a bite or two.
And where there’s one, there’s usually more, especially if you have standing water near home your home to act as a breeding ground.
If a mosquito bite was just an irritating and itchy lump you had to deal with for a couple of days, having one flying around the house wouldn’t be much of a problem. But mosquitoes are so much more than minor irritants.
They’re disease carriers.
Zika virus. Malaria. Dengue. West Nile Virus. Even heartworms (which affect pets).
They’re all nasty (and sometimes lethal) diseases that a mosquito can transmit to you through its bite.
So, it’s not enough to just ignore mosquitoes roaming around your home. You need to kill them.
And if you read on, you’ll discover how to make your own diy mosquito yard spray that eradicates these malaria-carrying insects from your home.
Mosquito Spray Recipe 1 – Mouthwash and Vinegar
For this recipe, you’ll need a one-cup measuring cup for measuring, an empty spray bottle, and the following household ingredients:
- Dish soap
- Vinegar
- Listerine mouthwash
- Water
You should be able to find these easily if you poke around your cupboards or the nearest grocery store.
Next, follow these steps to create the mosquito killer spray:
- Pour half a cup of your mouthwash into the spray bottle. This mouthwash will be your main mosquito-killing ingredient.
- Next – some acid. Pour a quarter-cup of vinegar into the bottle and shake lightly to mix with the mouthwash. The trap vinegar acts as an irritant to the insect, forcing it to fly away if you’re not able to hit it with a full spray.
- Add a quarter-cup of homemade mosquito trap dish soap to the recipe, with the soap acting as an adhesive that forces the mosquito’s wings to stick together.
- Fill the spray bottle with water. It’s also worth noting that half-filling the bottle here means you get a more potent insect killer that’s as useful on ants and larger insects as it is on mosquitoes.
There you have it – your first homemade killer mosquito spray.
This recipe works so well because it attacks the mosquito on multiple fronts. The mouthwash is an instant killer – get one full spray on a mosquito and it’ll usually be dead before it hits the floor.
You use Listerine specifically because it contains eucalyptol – a natural mosquito repellant.
If you miss the full spray but catch the bug with a little, the dish soap binds the insect’s wings together. It still falls to the floor, but you may need to crush it to kill it (or give it another big spray).
Mosquito Spray Recipe 2 – Lavender, Lemon Juice, and Vanilla
Lavender oil has long had a reputation for repelling insects, which is where this killer spray excels – it may not kill but it’ll ward mosquitoes away from any area where it’s used.
For this recipe, you’ll need a pipette for your lavender oil, assuming the bottle doesn’t have one built-in, as well as tablespoons for measuring out your lemon juice and vanilla extract.
Once you have the ingredients, add four tablespoons each of your lemon juice and vanilla extract to a spray bottle.
Add 12 drops of lavender oil before filling the bottle with water.
Give it a shake and you have a gorgeous-smelling spray that works wonders against mosquitoes.
So, why does it work?
It comes down to the fragrance that crushed lavender (i.e., the lavender used in oils) emits. A 2019 study published in the Malaria Journal found that using a solution containing 20% lavender oil can repel mosquitoes for up to eight hours once it’s applied to your skin.
Combine that with the scents that the vanilla extract and lemon juice emit and you have a strong repellant, though not a mosquito eradicator.
Mosquito Spray Recipe 3 – Eucalyptus and With Hazel
It all comes down to aromas again when you create a spray using eucalyptus. Even a mixture containing just 3% eucalyptus has a high repellency rate of over 97%, making it a great tool in your efforts to keep mosquitoes at bay.
For this recipe, you combine 40 drops of eucalyptus essential oil with a third of a cup of water, and another third of a cup of witch hazel. The water ensures the spray covers a good area, with the witch hazel acting as a base for the eucalyptus.
On its own, witch hazel doesn’t have much of a scent, allowing it to emphasize the aroma of the eucalyptus.
If you’d like a combination of scents that mosquitoes hate, try adding some citronella or lemongrass to the mixture.
Mosquito Spray Recipe 4 – Garlic, Cayenne Pepper, and Onion
This is an interesting recipe, not least because it creates a spray that you won’t want to use around the house.
The potent combination of garlic, peppers, and onions is pungent, but it’s also effective as a way to repel or even kill mosquitoes, especially those in the larval stage.
For this recipe, you’ll need a listerine bug spray bottle along with the following ingredients:
- Four cups of water
- Four tablespoons of cayenne pepper
- A garlic head
- A small onion
- A tablespoon of dish soap
Mix everything in a jar with a tight lid and keep it in a dark and cool location until you’re ready to use it.
That brings you to a question – how do you use it?
Thankfully, you won’t be spraying garlic all over your home, even if that does seem like a great way to ward off vampires.
Instead, use the spray on decking, near bodies of water, and in any of the dark and tucked away places where mosquitoes might hide or breed.
As for its effects, the spray is especially useful for killing mosquitoes in their larval stages (hence why you may want to apply it to plants near water) and should repel adult mosquitoes effectively.
Note – the dish soap serves a similar binding purpose as it serves in the mouthwash and vinegar recipe shared earlier.
Mosquito Spray Recipe 5 – Beer and Mouthwash (With a Little Epsom Salt)
Beer, Listerine mouthwash, and Epsom salt may sound like the recipe for a good night out, but it’s also a potent mosquito-repelling combination that you can use to keep the bugs away from your garden. The key – stale beer.
Allow some beer to go off by having it exposed somewhere in your house. Once you have some stale beer, add 36 ounces of it to a large bowl, along with 16 ounces of mouthwash and three cups of Epsom salts.
Leave the mixture until the epsom salt completely dissolve, and then add it all to an empty spray bottle.
Voila – a homemade mosquito repellant.
Much like the garlic-based repellant, this isn’t a spray you’ll likely want to use around your home. Rather, spray it on plants and decking to essentially make them poisonous to any mosquitoes that land on them.
The beer and mouthwash work in tandem to repel mosquitoes, as well as kill any foolish enough to try and drink the mixture.
The role of Epsom salts is less certain (speculation suggests the magnesium sulfate in the salts is a repellant), but it won’t harm your plants so it doesn’t hurt to add it.
What Are the Alternatives to Homemade Mosquito Killer Sprays?
The five mosquito killer sprays shared in the list do a great job of either destroying mosquitoes or at least keeping them away.
Better yet, you can make most of them with ingredients you’ll find around your home, barring the essential oils that you may have to buy separately.
But you may not want to constantly spray around your house to keep mosquitoes at bay. If that’s the case, here are a few alternative mosquito killers you can try.
Bug Zappers
The old “classic” for getting rid of airborne pests, bug zappers combine a bright light that attracts insects with an electrified component that zaps them as soon as they touch it.
They’re effective, especially if you only have a handful of mosquitoes in your home. But they come with some problems.
Bug zappers need constant electricity to work, which adds to your energy bills, even if only a little.
They also require regular cleaning, and the light they emit makes them unsuitable for use in bedrooms or similarly dark rooms.
They also kill all bugs indiscriminately, including those that might kill or compete with mosquitoes naturally.
DEET
Though there’s some consternation about DEET and its use around children, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that it’s safe to use as long as it’s used properly.
The EPA suggests that you can use this chemical to cover exposed skin (remember – follow the bottle’s instructions) to ward off mosquitoes when you’re out of your home.
Though it doesn’t seem to represent a danger to children, the EPA recommends not applying it to young kids and suggests you immediately wash it off with soap and water when you’re back inside.
Mosquito Traps
You’ve already seen how a little dish soap applied to some sprays can bind a mosquito’s wings together, leaving them glued to the spot and ready for a stomping.
Mosquito traps work on a similar principle – adhere the bug to a strip and leave it to die.
You hand these strips on a wall so they can catch any bugs that happen to fly by.
The trick is that they usually contain a mosquito attractant, luring the bug in until it’s stuck and can’t escape.
Interestingly, you can make these traps at home with yeast and sugar water in a bowl, tempting the mosquito into a watery grave.
Soapy water also serves as a trap, with the mosquito lured in by the water only to get trapped and suffocated inside the soap bubbles.
What Kills Mosquitoes in the Bedroom?
You can approach this question from two directions – what kills mosquitos when they’re in your bedroom and what gets rid of them in their own “metaphorical” bedroom (i.e., their breeding grounds)?
Starting with the latter, getting rid of standing pools of water, especially stagnant water, is your best bet.
Keep pools covered, clean ponds regularly, and clean up your garden so that watering cans and similar tools can’t become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
If you want to take a more literal approach to killing mosquitoes where they breed, soap in a bowl of water can do the trick. Add enough soap to leave bubbles on the water’s surface and any mosquito that gets attracted to the water as a potential breeding ground gets trapped.
They suffocate inside the bubble, and you kill both the mosquito and any eggs it would have laid.
Moving away from the mosquito’s breeding habits, you can use several techniques to kill mosquitoes in your bedroom.
Installing a bug zapper is the most obvious, though it’s also the most distracting. The constant light, coupled with the occasional buzz of a fried insect, may make it hard for you to sleep.
But you’ll at least have a tool that attracts mosquitoes and keeps them away from your sleeping body.
If bug zappers in the bedroom aren’t your thing (understandable), indoor insect foggers and insect sprays work just as well.
But again, you won’t want to apply them just before you go to sleep. Rather, use a fogger a few hours before bedtime to get rid of hidden mosquitoes while keeping a can of insect spray somewhere in the bedroom so you can quickly kill any mosquitoes you spot before you get into bed.
Homemade or Not – Kill Mosquitoes Before They Can Bite
With five recipes, you now have a potent collection of mosquito repellants and killer sprays you can make using ingredients you’re likely to find around your home.
But what if you find that these sprays don’t work as well as you’d hoped?
Beyond the alternatives suggested above, there’s another solution – Tougher Than Tom’s Mosquito Eliminator Spray.
Offering more than 1,200 sprays per bottle, this powerful solution is DEET-free and safe to spray directly onto your skin.
It combines lemongrass and citronella, both plants that release the citronella compound, to keep mosquitoes away and ensure they don’t see you as a snack.
Try it today – it’s safe for children to use and one application lasts for an entire day.