I’m not a crazy PETA person or anything (Ok, yeah, I am) but I don’t like killing anything. Not a mouse. Not a cockroach. Not even a mosquito. But I am thoroughly aware that they are annoying little mofos and one should not readily befriend them. We have a major problem with those nasty tiger mozzies in our Brooklyn backyard and my husband wants to annihilate them. I say if we’re going to cause them an untimely death, let’s at least do it in a humane way.

The best thing to do is keep them from breeding in the first place. That means get rid of standing water! It can collect in drains, gutters, birdbaths or just about anywhere.

The female of the species is the only one who bites as she searches out nourishment for her eggs. Mosquitoes find their prey using a combination of sensory signals including light, shape, color, heat, movement and other by products of human activity. Contraptions like the Mega Catch or Lentek Mosquito Trap mimic a mammal by emitting carbon dioxide, heat and moisture. The mozzies are attracted to the unit and get sucked in where they eventually dehydrate and die. There is also a DIY method which will save you the $300. All you need is a coke bottle, sugar and yeast. My husband wanted to do this, but it was the slow death part I didn’t like.

Zappers will kill them instantly. There are bug zappers and mosquito zappers. They each have pluses and minuses. The Mosquito Power Trap uses the CO2 approach to attract biting pests only (supposedly), so you’re not going around killing pretty little butterflies and fireflies. This runs on propane though. There are zappers that just plug in. Less energy is used, but you’ll kill everything in site. The cost of compassion is steep. The Power Trap is $400 as opposed to the free coke bottle/yeast set up.

But here is my favorite idea: BATS! If you build it, they will come. You can attract them by installing bat houses in your backyard. After hours of research and thinking this was the direction I was going to take, I realized that you have to be close to a source of water. Bed Stuy is not. Yes, we can install a pond or even a small pool will do, but isn’t that just going to breed mosquitoes?