Have no fear, SPARTY IS HERE!

Well it’s March.  We are on the verge of longer days and warmer weather.  It’s time to get outside, plant your garden, and enjoy some porch time with your neighbors.  We are not the only ones excited.  Mosquitoes love this weather too for it marks the beginning of their mating season.  But before a female mosquito can lay her eggs, she needs your help.  Don’t worry about reaching out to her.  She will find you.  The carbon dioxide in your breath will lead her to you.  Once she finds you, there is no need for you to offer her what she needs.  She will take it.  She wants your blood.  In return she will leave you with a sting, an itch, and a little red bump to remember her by.  Next thing you know, you will find yourself running indoors and wishing the cold weather back.  But have no fear.  Sparty is here.   

Last time I wrote to you about mosquito control in your yard, I told you that the only options available were either short term remedies, or expensive and labor intensive solutions.  There are many effective products that you can distribute in your yard to provide relief, but they only last for a few days.  You would have to distribute the product 2 or 3 times a week.   At that point, the remedy becomes quite expensive.  The other option is to buy an electric insect fogger for around $100 and spray your yard with potentially harmful chemicals once a week.  The chemicals themselves are not cheap either.  

Two weeks after writing that article, I was introduced to a new product on the market called the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator.  The consumer testimonials were raving.    For the price of $24.95, the product controls one acre of mosquitos for up to 90 days.  I had to try it, and if it works, get it in our store.  At that time, I had recently moved to a house in Old Dauphin Way.  It was winter and about to start warming up, meaning the mosquitoes are coming.  I’m not sure what it is that makes mosquitoes attracted to some people more than others.  But whatever it is, I have it.  I also love working in the yard.  So for years, I’ve dealt with lathering insect spray all over myself.  The smell doesn’t bother me but my wife detests it.  I decided that I would try the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator at my new residence and get an early start by putting it out in March.  For the first time in my entire life of living in midtown, I didn’t have to use insect spray the whole summer.  I immediately bought a large supply to sell at the store and it is now our best-selling mosquito control product.    

Each box contains two bottles that resemble sports water bottles.  Each bottle contains sucralose, sodium chloride, and yeast.  The yeast emits carbon dioxide simulating a living, breathing animal with blood.  The sucralose gives the mosquitoes something to eat, and the sodium chloride works with the yeast to upset the mosquito’s stomach to the point of rupture.  Spartan does not trap the mosquitoes.  The mosquitoes fly off and die after consuming the ingredients so there is no nasty clean-up.  To deploy the Eradicator, fill the bottle up with warm water, shake, and hang it on a tree about six feet high around the perimeter of your property in the shade.  Be sure to maintain the water level and replace the bottle every 90 days.  If you start in March, two bottles per acre should suffice.  If you wait until mosquitoes are bad, you will need to double the dosage.  That is why I am writing this to you in March.  Don’t wait.  Start using this product now before the mosquito population has time to establish itself.    

This summer will be my first living in Oakleigh.  We were shopping our house at the end of last summer and the mosquitos were horrible.  I think the abundance of water oaks around our house make for a nice shady habitat for the blood sucking scavengers.  The Spartan Mosquito Eradicator will be put to the true test this summer for sure against the Oakleigh mosquito population.  My neighbors on either side can expect a gift of two Spartan Mosquitos Eradicators on their doorstep early this March.