Hey there. My spouse and I recently purchased a home we are not yet living in until our lease is up at the end of October. Since it is just around the corner, we have been doing work there on nights and weekends as it's an old home and needs some upgrading. I can't help but notice that pretty much every time I am there outside for 30 seconds or more I end up with at least one mosquito bite, and more often multiples. I am one of the unlucky mosquito bite prone folks, but holy moly, it's exceptionally bad.
The houses in our neighborhood are not far apart at all -- maybe 20 feet or so apart. Our neighbor commented that her back yard seems fine to her family and that the previous homeowner also complained about how bad they are. The gutters do have some standing water (which we have to address), and there are some tall trees back there, but had anyone else successfully addressed a similar issue? Is there some glaringly obvious explanation I may be missing? It's like they stay in our yard by some invisible wall (or, at least I have convinced myself of that).
I purchased a Mosquito Magnet off Craigslist in desparation and got the Octenol cartridges suggested for our part of the county, but haven't had much luck catching many mosquitos. I know it is late in the season and we won't be in there full time until the end of next month, but any ideas how to keep them reasonably at bay aside from bug spray? Or, any suggestions how to start off next summer on the right foot to keep them down throughout the season? Has anyone found the Mosquito Magnet to be either useful or a sham?