[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

There is a lot of question about the shelf life of the mosquito dunks. I have used one recently that was purchased last Feb. It is not as effective as I recall. Since this is not mosquito season, I would question the freshness of the dunks. Also, we had such an incredibly bad case in one very large pot, let it go too long, that we needed results now. So, out came the ready mixed pyrethrin spray that I keep around for all kinds of problems. Used to use it for keeping the slugs off of my flowers when I had a bad infestation in the GH. A very light dusting did that job, so I have used the pyrethrin spray, very lightly on the surface of the pot, because I don't want to kill too many of the organisms from the mosquito dunks within the pot. This seems to be really working well, so long as I spray the pot tops about a week or a week and a half apart.

When I was using it on the slugs, I felt that $4 a bottle was too much, so I bit the bullet and bought a quart of concentrate for about a hundred dollars. I am now making up my own bottles, reused from previous purchases, at about a $1 a piece. Comes in handy when the termites swarm just after the monsoons start and invade our bedroom and living room. Finally, after 5 years, found out they were coming down the fireplace flues, even with the dampers closed. I went up onto the roof in the middle of the swarm and sprayed the chimney, and that turned them off like a switch. In the mean time, it takes an hour a piece of spraying and vacuuming to clean up the two rooms. Fortunately, it was only the bedroom this last time. We now have lids on the fireplace chimneys that will have to be removed before we use the fireplaces.