Do Citronella Candles Work? Repellents to Try Instead

Knowing how to keep mosquitoes away from the yard begs the question: do citronella candles work? These most annoying flying pests are only 1/8- to 1/4-inch-long but they inhabit nearly every place on Earth, sucking blood, leaving itchy welts, and spreading troubling diseases, including West Nile, malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and Zika, among many others. You can keep mosquitoes out of your home with fully intact window and door screens. Outdoors, the best solution for combatting these pests is to eliminate the source of all mosquito life: standing water. Here are more repellants, tips, and advice on how to keep mosquitoes away.

How Mosquito-Repellent Are Citronella Candles?

Citronella candles are moderately effective at repelling mosquitoes but only in the immediate area surrounding the candle. The closer you are to the candle, the less you will be the victim of a mosquito bite. You should think of citronella products as just one layer of protection against mosquitoes. Citronella candles do not keep mosquitoes out of your yard and they do nothing to prevent mosquitoes from multiplying.

3 Ways to Get Rid of Mosquitoes

Getting rid of mosquitoes is not unlike getting rid of mold or the common cold: These things are facts of life—they're everywhere, and you can't possibly get rid of them or prevent them entirely. What you can do is take steps to minimize their numbers. Like mold, mosquitoes need moisture to grow and thrive, so most treatment steps focus on eliminating or treating potential breeding grounds of water. You can also use fans to keep mosquitoes away when you're sitting outdoors.

Tidy the Yard

Nearly anything capable of holding water, be it natural or manmade, is a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes. Rain or irrigation water falling on leaves, palm fronds, and other yard debris creates small pools where mosquitoes lay eggs to reproduce. Keep the yard neat to eliminate this problem. In addition, don't leave pet dishes, furniture, candle holders, or other manmade items where they can collect water.

Treat Water Sources

If you have a pond or other decorative water feature in your yard, you don't have to drain it to prevent mosquitoes from breeding there. The easiest solution is to treat the water with a larvicide that kills mosquito eggs. Treatment products such as Mosquito Dunks are suitable to use in ponds, birdbaths, and fountains because they are safe for fish, birds, and other animals. If you keep fish in a pond, you may not need any treatment, as many common pond fish species, such as bass, goldfish, mosquitofish, bluegill, and catfish, eat mosquito larvae.

Instead of treating water in birdbaths, it's better to simply empty and refill them with fresh water every few days—mosquito larvae hatch in as few as four days.

Plants that hold water should be treated or flushed with fresh water every few days. Bromeliads have leaf axils that can hold enough water to support mosquito breeding. Treatments include bacteria that must be applied once a week and methoprene, a treatment that lasts for 30 days.

Fire up a Fan

Running an ordinary (but preferably strong) household fan is the most effective non-toxic way to keep mosquitoes away from you while you're sitting outdoors. A fan can reduce mosquito landings (on your skin, that is) up to 65 percent for those sitting near the fan.An oscillating fan is best for covering a large area for multiple people, but even a simple box fan will do the job if you're sitting in the fan's stream.

What Causes Mosquitoes

Some associate mosquito invasions with water, so you might also think this means swampy areas and relatively large bodies of water. In reality, mosquitoes can breed in the amount of water contained in an upturned bottlecap. The following are some of the things in a yard that commonly collect water and lead to increased numbers of mosquitoes:

• Low-lying ground or contours
• Drainage areas
• Plant pots and trays
• Stacked or overturned patio furniture
• Tires
• Birdbaths
• Trash
• Debris piles
• Untreated or neglected swimming pools or decorative ponds
• Roof gutters that are dirty or clogged
• Tree holes
• Upturned buckets and trash containers
• Wheelbarrows
• Boats
• Pet bowls

How to Prevent Mosquitoes From Invading Your Yard

Given that mosquito hatches can occur in as few as four days, preventing invasions requires diligence and regular maintenance. If you fail to keep the yard clean of debris and items that can hold water, a single rainstorm can quickly lead to a spike in mosquito numbers. Eliminating potential breeding areas is the primary prevention method.

Many homeowners and professionals turn to chemicals for mosquito prevention. Proper application of insecticide is effective for killing mosquito larvae and thus reducing mosquito numbers, but the effect is always temporary, and the chemicals used are not only toxic to humans, but they also can harm bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insect populations. Sprays also have contributed significantly to pesticide resistance in mosquitoes, making it increasingly difficult to deal with mosquitos on a large scale, such as during an outbreak of disease spread by mosquitoes.