How Keep Mosquitoes Out of Your Yard, According to an Entomologist

Figuring out how to keep mosquitoes out of your yard can feel like an uphill battle. No matter what you try, someone always ends up with a few itchy bites by the end of the night. Unfortunately, there’s no getting rid of them for good—with more than 3,500 mosquito species worldwide and over 400 in the U.S., they’re here to stay. But the good news? You can take steps to keep them from crashing your next s’mores night and protect yourself from those pesky bites.

Why (and When) Mosquitoes Bite

While it seems like it, we’re not a mosquito’s favorite meal. “Many mosquitoes wouldn’t bite a person—they bite frogs, birds, lizards,” says Dina Fonseca, PhD. “But we’ve domesticated them to realize that we’re a source of blood.” That’s especially true of some invasive mosquito species, like the Asian tiger mosquito, which are the most likely to bite you. “They’re becoming very large populations because they don’t have any competitors or predators and can exploit the environment.”

We may not love mosquitoes, but they’re an important part of the food chain, feeding bats, birds, fish, and other insects. And they also help pollinate flowers. Mostly, mosquitoes live on sugar from plants. “Only female mosquitoes bite—they’re little moms getting blood to be able to make eggs,” Fonseca says. “They use the blood to feed the eggs.”

Active Times

Mosquitoes are most active when the weather is hot, so June through September in the United States is high season. As far as times of day, these insects prefer early mornings and early evenings. There are a couple of types of mosquitoes that are also active during the day, but for the most part, early mornings and dusk are the times you’re most likely to encounter them.

How to Prevent Mosquitoes

There are ways to make your yard less enticing to mosquitoes—and fortunately, most of them just require a little work (and no money!) on your part.

Remove All Standing Water

You’ve probably heard this before, but when they say all standing water, they really mean all. “No water, no mosquitoes,” states Fonseca.

Unfortunately, even the smallest amount of standing water results in too many mosquitoes. “We’re talking about a yogurt container, saucers under plants, planters that don’t have drainage holes and may fill up with too much water, the accordion extension pipes for gutters,” Fonseca says. “We cleared out one of those and found 500 larvae for Asian tiger mosquitoes.”

Be especially careful with covering recycling bins—even a little rainfall can collect in your recycled bottles and cans and provide places for mosquitoes to lay their eggs. “Plastic was the best thing that ever happened to mosquitoes,” Fonseca adds. If you keep the cans outside (not in your garage), drilling a small hole in the bottom will help prevent water from collecting and attracting mosquitoes.

Clean Your Gutters

When your gutters get clogged up with gunk, they tend to pool water in them. Since mosquitoes love standing water, dirty gutters create an ideal breeding ground for them. As a bonus (for the mosquitoes, that is), the water in your gutters has likely been marinating leaves and sticks in it, so it’s packed with nutrients that the insects need to survive. Make sure you clean your gutters twice a year—late spring and fall are ideal—and install gutter guards, if applicable.

Plant Naturally Repellent Foliage

Plant lavender, lemongrass, citronella grass, lemon thyme, lavender, rosemary, basil—even catnip, which can help keep mosquitoes at bay.

Maintain Swimming Pools

Standing water attracts mosquitoes like flames attract moths, and swimming pools are not immune. However, maintaining your pool can help prevent mosquito infestations in several ways. First, the chlorine kills the larvae; second, circulating the water drives away mosquitoes as they prefer standing water; and third, keeping the pool clean of debris leaves no nutrients for mosquitoes to feast on.

Set up a Fire Pit

Mosquitoes (and many other bugs) hate smoke—which makes yet another reason to gather people around the campfire. (Besides the s’mores, of course!)

Declutter Your Yard

Purge old junk that’s been sitting around unused in your backyard. There’s a chance water can collect in these items (like run-down tires or rusty grills), so eliminate any potential nesting zones before they become a problem.

Fill Tree Holes

Again, this is all about reducing standing water. If you inspect your tree and see that the holes are filling with water, you can inject them with expanding foam, which will seal the hole without harming the tree. Don’t try to substitute concrete, sand, or gravel. These do not prevent water from collecting and can damage the tree.

Talk to Your Neighbors

Get them on board with mosquito prevention tactics. Mosquitoes don’t respect property lines, so your neighbor with the swampy-looking planter can breed a whole army of mosquitoes poised to invade the neighborhood. Mention that to your neighbor so they can make their yard (and yours) less attractive to mosquitoes.

Call Your Local Mosquito Control Program

Most U.S. counties have a program dedicated to keeping mosquitoes at bay. If you suspect that mosquitoes are coming from marshes or other wet areas around your neighborhood, the county may be able to help.

In many cases, environmental changes cause mosquitoes to breed in a different area than where the mosquito control program has treated. “Climate change can change the distribution and abundance of mosquitoes,” Fonseca says. “For instance, on the coast, sea level rise is flooding areas that didn’t used to flood, so the hotspots for mosquitoes may be changing.”

How to Get Rid of Mosquitoes

Prevention will go a long way, but what should you do when you already have tons of mosquitoes in your yard? Here are some ways to deter or remove them.

Set a Mosquito Trap

Bug zappers are cool, but the best trap is a DIY one that involves two different-sized buckets and some sticky tape or flypaper. “You add in water, a little grass or yeast to make the environment an enticing place to lay eggs,” Fonseca explains. “Then you put canola oil on the sides of the container and flypaper, so they get stuck.”

Spray Repellant

For mosquito repellant, anything DEET-based is most effective at keeping mosquitoes away. Rather than killing them, DEET just makes it hard for them to smell humans. Many perceive it as a harsh chemical, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that proper use of the spray does not present a health concern to the general population, including children.

Encourage Natural Predators

Mosquitoes have plenty of natural predators, and encouraging them to flock to your yard can help you fight your mosquito problem. Bird feeders and baths ensure that birds have a comfortable place to hang out. If you have a pond, several types of fish consume mosquitoes, such as goldfish and bluegills. Bats are also natural predators of mosquitoes, and you can find bat houses at home improvement stores to put in trees.

Use Lemon Eucalyptus Oil

Fonseca started using this after she developed a reaction to DEET, and she finds it very effective. (In fact, that and DEET were the two products that performed best at repelling mosquitoes in a Journal of Insect Science study.)

Bring Out a Fan

Running a fan creates a breeze that outmatches a mosquito’s tiny wings, but this still leaves you a little exposed. “A mosquito can figure out a way,” Fonseca says. “I got bit on my back—the mosquito used me as a shield from the fan.”

What Doesn’t Work to Repel Mosquitoes

Some commonly used mosquito deterrents don’t do much to stop mosquitoes—so you might want to reconsider using them. For one, those lemony citronella candles don’t hold a candle to other options for preventing mosquito bites. A 2017 study found that citronella candles do absolutely nothing to repel mosquitoes. (Though they do smell nice for people if you want to light them for that reason.)

Also, Fonseca says the jury’s still out as to whether mosquito treatment companies work, and she has doubts. “We know very little about how effective private companies are,” she admits. “The best way to get rid of adult mosquitoes is to get rid of them as larvae with larvicides.”

Commercial treatments may end up killing beneficial insects along with mosquitoes. “Then you’re replacing a mosquito problem with a plant-based problem, with aphids and whiteflies increasing.”