SkeeterVac Review #3

The SkeeterVac has been running for about a month now.  It appears that it's going to run out of gas every two weeks, not every three weeks as the literature says.  Perhaps this is because the literature says to use 20-lb. "precisely-filled" tanks of propane, and we can't find anything but 15-lb. tanks.  After reading the online reviews for this and other brands of mosquito traps, I was worried that the machine would not re-start after running out of gas.  So far, we've had no problems restarting it.

The SkeeterVac catches bugs in two ways: (1) it has a sticky paper sleeve that encircles the entire body of the contraption, sticky side out, which functions like a giant piece of fly-paper to trap bugs that land on it, and (2) it sucks insects into a mesh "drawer" just under the bait compartment.  The sticky paper is catching bugs like crazy.  This "Tac-Trap" seems to work whether the machine is running or not, for the unit ran out of gas just after I installed a new Tac-Trap, and it caught a lot of bugs before we had an opportunity to replace the gas tank.  It is indiscriminate about what it catches; yesterday I counted 6 "Granddaddy Long-Legs" spiders, 2 crickets, some house flies, and a couple of worms stuck to it,  in addition to bunches of tiny flying insects, like gnats, deer flies, and mosquitoes.  We haven't seen much in the trap drawer except fuzz (it looks like a thin layer of white dryer lint) and a few gnats.  It may be that this "fuzz" is actually dehydrated insects.

"But how effectively is it reducing the mosquito population?" you might be asking.

I tentatively give it a "thumbs-up."  We've had an especially cool May, and it could be that there simply aren't as many mosquitoes flying about as usual.  But we've also had an especially wet May, which usually makes for a bumper crop of mosquitoes.  This year, we've had more problems with gnats and deer flies than with mosquitoes; I've never seen them so thick.  They go straight for the orifices on one's head - nostrils, ears, and eyes - and leave giant, itchy, hard knots where they bite.  When I go across the road to work in the garden, they attack me so badly that I can hardly work for swatting.  And Pop-Pop says that tiny, viscious mosquitoes are about to eat him up when he goes outside in his yard.  But neither the mosquitoes nor the gnats/deer flies are attacking me so much in my own yard, so this thing may really be working. 

In the coming week, the temperatures are supposed to reach the low 90s, which may bring the mosquitoes out in full force.  This may be the real test.  I'll let you know.