500,000 Mosquitoes Killed by 1 Tablet Before Any of Them Could Ever Fly

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Last summer, I wiped out an entire season of mosquitoes in my backyard for $11.37.

[00:00:09]The whole season.

[00:00:11]June through October.

[00:00:14]I sat on my patio in the middle of July at [music] dusk, the exact hour when mosquitoes usually own the air, >> [music] >> and I did not get a single bite.

[00:00:26]My skin was clean.

[00:00:29]The yard was quiet.

[00:00:31]Meanwhile, my neighbor Dave >> [music] >> spent $420 on a professional spray service. [music] They came out twice a month, soaked his yard with chemicals, [music] and he still had mosquitoes every single evening, hovering around his porch [music] light, landing on his wife's arms while she tried to read.

[00:00:57]$420.

[00:01:00]Still getting bit.

[00:01:02]I spent [music] $11 and change. Not one bite all summer.

[00:01:09]And here is the part that is going to bother you.

[00:01:13]The reason it worked has nothing to do with sprays, [music] repellents, or those purple zapper lights that mostly just kill moths.

[00:01:25]I did not buy a single can of anything you spray on your skin or your yard.

[00:01:32]Today, I am going to walk you through exactly how I did it, step by step.

[00:01:36][music] I am going to show you the one cheap tablet that does most of the heavy lifting.

[00:01:44]And I am going to explain the science behind why it works so well [music] that the EPA, the CDC, and the World Health Organization all endorse it.

[00:01:57]And at the very end, I am going to show you a bonus trick using a basic box fan >> [music] >> and some window screen material that costs about $3 to build [music] and catches dozens of mosquitoes every single night [music] while you sit outside.

[00:02:16]That one is worth sticking around [music] for.

[00:02:20]But first, let me tell you about every dumb thing I tried before I figured this out.

[00:02:28]>> [music] >> Because I spent years doing it wrong, years. And I would bet money >> [music] >> you are making at least one of the same mistakes right now.

[00:02:40]That is fine. I made all of them.

[00:02:43]If you've got a Dave in your neighborhood, someone dropping hundreds on sprays and still getting eaten alive, comment Dave below.

[00:02:54]This one's for you.

[00:02:57]I started where most people start, citronella candles.

[00:03:01]I bought the big bucket ones from the hardware store, the kind that weigh about 4 lb and [music] smell like a lemon had a fight with a campfire.

[00:03:11]I would light three of them around the patio >> [music] >> and sit there feeling like I was doing something smart.

[00:03:18]I was not.

[00:03:20]The mosquitoes flew right [music] past them.

[00:03:24]A study published in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association tested [music] citronella candles against unlit controls and found they did reduce bites, [music] but when they compared them to a plain burning candle with no citronella at all, the difference was almost nothing.

[00:03:45]The smoke helps a little.

[00:03:48]The citronella itself [music] barely moves the needle.

[00:03:52]$12 in candles [music] gone in two evenings and I still had welts on my ankles.

[00:04:00]Then I tried those tiki torches with the citronella oil.

[00:04:04]I lined six of them around the patio like some kind of mosquito defense perimeter.

[00:04:11]Looked beautiful, I will say that.

[00:04:13][music] My wife loved the ambiance.

[00:04:17]The mosquitoes also loved the [music] ambiance. They flew right through my little ring of fire like it was decoration.

[00:04:25]I sat there smelling like a tropical gas station [music] and still scratching my arms.

[00:04:31]Same concept, same disappointing result.

[00:04:35]Looked nice, did nothing.

[00:04:38]Then I moved on to the yard sprays, [music] the kind you hook up to your garden hose and blast your whole lawn with.

[00:04:45]I bought one that cost $19 and claimed to kill mosquitoes on contact and keep them away for up to 8 weeks.

[00:04:54]It killed them on contact, I will give it that.

[00:04:57]>> [music] >> I saw a few drop out of the air, but 8 weeks?

[00:05:02]Try 8 days, maybe.

[00:05:05]After [music] the first rain, it was like I had never sprayed at all and I was putting chemicals all over the grass where my kids play.

[00:05:13]I could smell it for 2 days after spraying.

[00:05:16]My dog would come inside with wet paws and I would wonder what she was tracking through the house.

[00:05:22]That did not sit right with me.

[00:05:25]Worked for about a week at best, then right back to square one.

[00:05:30]Then I bought one of those propane mosquito traps, the big one that looks like a small barbecue grill.

[00:05:37]>> [music] >> That cost me $180.

[00:05:40]It uses propane to generate carbon dioxide, which is what attracts mosquitoes to your body and it sucks them into a net.

[00:05:49]Sounds brilliant. In theory, it is.

[00:05:53]But in practice, I had to buy propane refills, replace the attractant cartridges every month, >> [music] >> and clean the thing out constantly.

[00:06:02]After a full summer, I had caught a lot of mosquitoes.

[00:06:06]The net was full every week, and it felt like progress.

[00:06:09]But I had spent close to $300 when you add up the trap, the propane, and the refills.

[00:06:15]>> [music] >> And the mosquitoes in my yard never actually decreased. Every evening, right back. I was catching them, sure.

[00:06:22]>> [music] >> But they breed so fast that catching adults is like bailing water out of a sinking boat with a teaspoon while the faucet is running full blast. [music] That was the moment something clicked. I was fighting the wrong enemy entirely.

[00:06:36]The pivot came when I was at the county extension office picking up some soil test results.

[00:06:43]I got to talking with one of the guys in their vector control department. Older guy, been doing mosquito work for over 20 years.

[00:06:52]I told him everything I had tried, all the sprays and traps and candles.

[00:06:57][music] He just kind of smiled. Then he said something I have never forgotten.

[00:07:03]>> [music] >> He said, "Every mosquito that bites you was a larva 7 days ago. Kill the larva, and you never have to fight the adult."

[00:07:12]I stood there in that little office with my soil test papers in my hand feeling stupid. Because it is so obvious once someone says it out loud. But I had never once thought about it that way. I had been swatting at the finished product, the adult mosquito, and completely ignoring the factory that made it.

[00:07:32]Here is the line that rewired my entire approach.

[00:07:36]Killing adult mosquitoes is treating the symptom. Standing water is the actual problem. If you fight adults, [music] you fight all summer, every summer, forever.

[00:07:47]If you eliminate the larvae in standing water, the war is over in about 2 weeks.

[00:07:54]2 weeks. That is it. [music] And here is why.

[00:07:58]A single female mosquito lays between 100 and 300 eggs at a time.

[00:08:04]She can do that every few days for her entire life.

[00:08:07]Those eggs hatch into larvae in as little as 24 to 48 hours.

[00:08:12]>> [music] >> The larvae become flying, biting adults in 7 to 10 days.

[00:08:17]>> [music] >> One female, one forgotten flower pot saucer full of rainwater, hundreds of new mosquitoes in a week.

[00:08:24]Now, multiply that by every piece of standing water on your property. That old tire leaning against the shed, [music] the wheelbarrow you left out, the birdbath nobody changed this week.

[00:08:35]That is how you end up with thousands of mosquitoes that seem to come from nowhere.

[00:08:40]They are not coming from nowhere.

[00:08:42]They are coming from your own yard. And here is where the title of this video starts to make sense. [music] 10 breeding sites on one average property, each producing around 200 mosquitoes per week.

[00:08:56]That is [music] 2,000 new mosquitoes every 7 days.

[00:09:01]Over a 22 week mosquito season, that is 44,000 mosquitoes >> [music] >> from just 10 small puddles.

[00:09:11]But many properties have 30 or 40 sources of standing water when you count every gutter, every [music] tarp, every divot.

[00:09:20]And a single neglected rain barrel can produce over 10,000 larvae in a season by itself.

[00:09:28]One BTI tablet sitting in a drainage [music] ditch for 30 days, preventing several hundred larvae per day from hatching >> [music] >> can stop tens of thousands of mosquitoes from ever existing.

[00:09:43]Across a full season of monthly replacements, [music] the math adds up fast. That is not hyperbole. That is just how exponential breeding works.

[00:09:55]So, here [music] is the system.

[00:09:57]Four steps. Cheap, simple, and it works.

[00:10:01][music] But, the order matters, so do not skip ahead.

[00:10:06]The first step is the survey. You need to do this before [music] anything else.

[00:10:11]Grab your phone or a notebook. Walk every single foot of your property.

[00:10:17]>> [music] >> I mean every foot, including the parts you never look at.

[00:10:22]You are searching for any water that sits still for more than a few days.

[00:10:27]>> [music] >> And I need you to think much smaller than you are thinking right now.

[00:10:33]We are not just talking about ponds and ditches. [music] We are talking about the saucer under the potted plant on the deck. [music] The bird bath you have not changed in 2 weeks. The kiddie pool with an inch of water in the bottom.

[00:10:49]>> [music] >> The wrinkle in the tarp covering your boat or your firewood stack.

[00:10:55]The clogged gutter holding a puddle you cannot even see from the ground.

[00:11:01]The old paint can on the shelf in the open garage.

[00:11:05]The lid of the trash can sitting upside down by the curb.

[00:11:10]The [music] corrugated drain pipe that has a dip in it.

[00:11:14]The tree stump with a hollow in the top.

[00:11:18]The dog bowl that has been outside for 3 days.

[00:11:22]>> [music] >> The watering can you left by the garden bed.

[00:11:27]Every single one of these is a mosquito nursery.

[00:11:31]I am not exaggerating. [music] According to the CDC, mosquitoes can breed in as little as a teaspoon of standing water. A teaspoon.

[00:11:43]That is a bottle cap. That is the indent on the top of a soda can.

[00:11:50]When I did my first survey, I found 14 sources of standing water on my property. 14.

[00:11:59]And I thought I kept a clean yard.

[00:12:02]You will be surprised what you find.

[00:12:05]Write [music] them all down. Every single one.

[00:12:11]That is it for step one.

[00:12:14]The second step is eliminate what you can.

[00:12:17]And this is the part that costs you nothing but an hour of your Saturday.

[00:12:23]Most of those water sources can be dumped out, flipped over, or thrown [music] away.

[00:12:30]Dump the saucers. Flip the wheelbarrow.

[00:12:33]Toss the old tires. [music] Change the bird bath water every two or three days. Drill a small drain hole in the bottom of your tire swing. Unclog the gutters.

[00:12:46]>> [music] >> Clear the tarps so water runs off instead of pooling.

[00:12:52]I knocked out 11 of my 14 water sources in about an hour.

[00:12:57]>> [music] >> Did not cost me a penny. Just sweat.

[00:13:02]And I could already tell that evening that something had changed. There were noticeably fewer mosquitoes around the patio that same night. [music] Dead simple.

[00:13:13]Now, here is where it gets good. Step [music] three is the tablet. And this is the thing I wish someone had told me about a decade ago.

[00:13:24]For For water sources you cannot eliminate, [music] the rain barrel, the ornamental pond, the ditch that holds water after every rain, the low spot in the yard that stays [music] wet for a week, this is where you use a product called a mosquito [music] dunk.

[00:13:43]It is a small tan colored disc about 2 in across. Looks like a little donut.

[00:13:50]You toss it into standing water and it floats there.

[00:13:55]>> [music] >> That is the entire application process.

[00:13:58]You throw it in the water, it floats. [music] It does not stain, it does not smell, it does not fizz or foam. It just sits there, slowly dissolving over the next 30 days, quietly doing [music] its job.

[00:14:16]Inside that disc is a naturally occurring soil bacterium [music] called Bacillus >> [music] >> Everybody just calls it BTI.

[00:14:29]It was discovered in 1976 by researchers Joel Margalit and Leonard Goldberg in a stagnant pond in the Negev desert in Israel.

[00:14:40]This strain of bacteria produces a protein crystal that is specifically toxic to mosquito larvae and a narrow range of related insects like fungus gnats [music] and black flies.

[00:14:55]When larvae eat the BTI, and they will because larvae are filter feeders, constantly consuming whatever is in the water, those crystals rupture the lining of their gut.

[00:15:08]They stop feeding within hours, dead within 24.

[00:15:13]But here is what separates BTI from everything else on the shelf.

[00:15:19]It only affects mosquito larvae and that very narrow range of related insects.

[00:15:25][music] Non-toxic to fish, birds, bees, pets, wildlife, and humans. [music] The EPA registered it in 1983.

[00:15:37]The CDC recommends it. [music] The World Health Organization recommends it for mosquito control in developing countries.

[00:15:47]>> [music] >> It is approved for organic farming by the USDA National [music] Organic Program.

[00:15:54]Sit with that for a second. The strictest organic certification in the country says this is safe.

[00:16:01]You can put it in your horse trough, your bird bath, a rain barrel you use to water your vegetable garden. It is that targeted. One dunk treats a 100 square feet of water surface and [music] lasts 30 days. A six-pack costs about 10 to 12 dollars >> [music] >> at any hardware store.

[00:16:21]For most residential properties, >> [music] >> a six-pack will last you an entire season. I used five dunks last year.

[00:16:29]Total cost, 11 dollars and 37 cents after tax. That covered my rain barrel, >> [music] >> the low spot behind my shed, a drainage ditch along [music] the back fence, and two areas where water pools near my [music] downspouts.

[00:16:47]I ran my own test because I needed to see it with my own eyes. I left one puddle untreated and dropped a dunk in an identical size puddle about [music] 20 feet away.

[00:17:01]Within 3 days, the untreated water was full of wriggling larvae. [music] Hundreds of them. Easy to see if you look.

[00:17:12]The treated water had zero. Not reduced, zero. I checked it every day for 2 weeks. Nothing survived.

[00:17:21]The treated puddle looked as lifeless as tap water from the faucet, while the untreated one, right [music] next to it, was a squirming nursery.

[00:17:31]That was the moment I knew this >> [music] >> was the real answer.

[00:17:36]That is it for step three.

[00:17:38]Quick question for the comments while you have it on your mind.

[00:17:42]Before this video, did you know about [music] BTI?

[00:17:46]Drop a one if you already knew.

[00:17:49]Drop a two [music] if this is the first time you are hearing about it.

[00:17:54]I read every single comment, [music] and the answer genuinely helps me figure out how deep to go on stuff like this in future videos.

[00:18:05]Now, the fourth step is maintenance.

[00:18:07][music] This is where most people quietly fall off and then wonder why the mosquitoes came back in August.

[00:18:15]You cannot do this once and forget about it.

[00:18:19]>> [music] >> You need to re-walk your property after every significant rain, because rain creates new standing water in places you did [music] not expect.

[00:18:30]A heavy storm can fill a dozen containers you forgot about.

[00:18:35]>> [music] >> I do my walk-through every Sunday morning. Takes me 10 minutes, usually less. I dump what I can.

[00:18:43]If I find a new spot that I cannot drain, I break a dunk in half and toss it in.

[00:18:49]Every 30 days, I replace the dunks in my permanent water sources. [music] That is all there is to it.

[00:18:57]10 minutes a week and a few bucks a month.

[00:19:01]That is [music] the cost of a mosquito-free yard.

[00:19:05]When I tell people that, they almost do not believe me. But, it is the truth.

[00:19:11]Let me tell you about the patterns I see when I help people with this. [music] Because I have walked a lot of yards at this point, and the same mistakes come up almost every time.

[00:19:25]The first pattern is that almost everyone focuses on the big, obvious [music] water, the pond, the ditch, and they completely miss the small stuff.

[00:19:38]But the small stuff is where most of the breeding actually happens. One guy I helped had a pristine yard, beautifully maintained, but he had a stack of 5-gallon buckets behind his garage, open side up, and every single one had an inch of water in it. That was his main mosquito [music] factory. He had no idea. We dumped those buckets, flipped them over, and that single change cut his problem noticeably that same evening. I noticed it, he noticed [music] it, his wife noticed it. The second pattern is treating once and assuming the job is done. People buy the dunks, toss them in, feel good, and never think about it again.

[00:20:22]>> [music] >> 60 days later, those dunks have dissolved completely, and the larvae are back with a vengeance. You have to keep up with it. Set a reminder on your phone for the first of every month. It takes 5 minutes, but you have to actually do it.

[00:20:39]Consistency is the whole game with this system. The third pattern is spraying the yard and wondering why the mosquitoes are back 48 hours later, because spraying kills the adults that happen to be there at that moment. It does nothing to the thousands of larvae developing in the water on your property.

[00:21:00]Two days later, a new batch hatches, and you are right back where you started.

[00:21:05]You are treating the symptom, not the source.

[00:21:09]You are not alone if you have been doing this. Almost everybody does it first.

[00:21:14]I did it for three entire summers before I figured out the real answer.

[00:21:19]The fourth pattern is overcomplicating the whole thing.

[00:21:22]>> [music] >> People think effective mosquito control requires expensive equipment, monthly professional services, [music] or some elaborate system. It does not. It requires a 10-minute walk, a few bucks worth of BTI tablets, and the discipline to do it consistently.

[00:21:40]That is the whole system.

[00:21:42]Simple beats complicated every single time with this.

[00:21:46]Now, here is the bonus I promised you at the top. I saved this for the end because I wanted you to have the foundation first.

[00:21:54]This trick is not a replacement for the four steps, but it is a surprisingly effective add-on, especially if you like sitting [music] outside after dark.

[00:22:04]Take a basic box fan, the cheapest 20-in one you can find, about $15, though you probably already own one.

[00:22:15]Get a piece of fiberglass window screen material [music] from the hardware store.

[00:22:20]A small piece costs >> [music] >> two or three dollars.

[00:22:25]Cut it to fit the back of the fan, the intake [music] side, and attach it with magnets or binder clips around [music] the edges. Snug, no gaps.

[00:22:36]You want the screen [music] tight against the housing so nothing slips through.

[00:22:42]Set that fan on your patio, aim it outward, and turn it on medium or high.

[00:22:50]Here is why this works.

[00:22:52]>> [music] >> Mosquitoes are weak flyers. They top out at [music] about 1 to 1 and 1/2 mph.

[00:23:01]A box fan pushes air at roughly 8 to 15 mph, >> [music] >> depending on the speed setting.

[00:23:09]They literally cannot fly against it.

[00:23:13]The fan creates a zone of moving air around your seating area that mosquitoes cannot [music] penetrate. And the ones that get caught in the airflow get pulled against the screen on the back and stuck there. Entomologists at Michigan State University tested fan-generated wind against mosquitoes and found [music] it strongly reduced mosquito catches, especially at higher speeds. I tested it myself on my patio.

[00:23:43]Sat for 10 minutes without the fan, got bit three times.

[00:23:47]>> [music] >> Turned it on, sat back down in the same chair, same spot. 30 minutes later, not a single bite. In the morning, I checked the screen on the back of the fan and counted over 40 mosquitoes stuck to it.

[00:24:02]40 in one night. Those are 40 mosquitoes that never got to bite anyone in my family.

[00:24:09]Is it as powerful as eliminating breeding sites with BTI? Not even close.

[00:24:15]BTI stops them from existing in the first place. The fan just keeps existing ones away from you while you sit outside. But for a patio dinner or an evening on the deck, >> [music] >> it costs almost nothing to run and it works well enough that I use it every single time I sit outside after dark.

[00:24:36]My wife calls it the mosquito vacuum.

[00:24:39]She is not wrong.

[00:24:41]So, here is the whole system in one paragraph.

[00:24:45]Walk your property and find every source of standing water.

[00:24:49]Eliminate every one you can [music] by dumping, draining, flipping, or covering.

[00:24:56]Drop a mosquito dunk in every water source you cannot eliminate.

[00:25:01]Resurvey after every heavy rain and replace your dunks every 30 days.

[00:25:07]If you want extra protection while sitting outside, set up a box fan with a screen on the back.

[00:25:14]Total cost for an entire season is somewhere between 10 and 20 dollars depending on how many water sources you have.

[00:25:22]>> [music] >> No monthly service, no expensive equipment, >> [music] >> no chemicals on your lawn.

[00:25:30]Just a system that works with biology instead of against it. I would love to hear from you in the comments. What have you been using for mosquito control up to this point?

[00:25:42]And here is one I am genuinely [music] curious about. What did your parents or grandparents do [music] about mosquitoes when you were growing up?

[00:25:53]Somebody told me their grandmother burned cow dung.

[00:25:57]Another person said kerosene [music] in the rain barrel.

[00:26:02]Different times.

[00:26:04]If you know somebody who spends every summer getting eaten alive on their own patio, >> [music] >> send them this video. It might save them a lot of money and a lot of itching.

[00:26:17]This is what I do here.

[00:26:19]I find the stuff that actually works, [music] test it myself, and share it straight.

[00:26:26]No fluff, no sales pitch, just what works.

[00:26:31]If that sounds useful to you, >> [music] >> you are in the right place.

[00:26:36]Thanks for spending time with me today.

[00:26:39]I will see you in the next one.