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Why are some people so much more attractive to mosquitoes than others? And what can you do about the pesky little bloodsuckers, especially if you don’t want to resort to DEET? (DEET, while effective, is also weakly neurotoxic in humans.)
To start, there are some 150 different species of mosquitoes in the United States, and they differ in biting persistence, habits, ability to transmit disease, and even flying ability.
Mosquitoes of the genus Culex are painful and persistent biters and they will gladly fly into your house to bite you. They bite at dusk and after dark, and they can spread West Nile virus. On the upside, however, they are not strong fliers and won’t fly long distances from where they hatched. And, they’d prefer to bite a bird than a human. A common Culex species in the U.S. is C. pipiens, the Northern House mosquito.
Then there’s the genus Aedes, which includes A. aegypti and A. albopictus, the Asian Tiger mosquito. The former is not a problem in the U.S.; […]
What about B vitamins? I seem to remember a friend who took more (which ones? how much?) in mos. season. very effective. Said it made her blood less sweet. She quit because her husband alas also found her scent off-putting!
I believe eating garlic is a good remedy, too. It is what I have used for over fifty years.