How to Build a Mosquito Trap

If you are plagued by mosquitos, you may want to consider using a mosquito trap to reduce their numbers. Should you expect to spend a lot of money doing this? Should you shop around for the best deal on mosquito traps? In reality, you can build your own mosquito trap with a few common household items, as long as you know what you are doing. What follows should help anyone trying to build a mosquito trap.

Step 1 - Setting Up

• Cut the top off of the 2 liter bottle with your knife.
• Cut at exactly where the bottle starts to curve, or as close as you can. Ideally, when you are done, you should have 2 pieces of plastic—1 cylinder that you can fill with liquid, and one curved top section.
• Measure out 4 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 cup of water.

Step 2 - Mixing the Ingredients

• Heat up 1 cup of water in the pot on the stove.
• Once it is hot, add the 4 tablespoons of brown sugar. Mix them together until the sugar dissolves.
• Add cold water to the mix until it is merely warm.
• Once you have lowered the water temperature a bit, add a pinch of yeast to the mixture.

The goal here is to ferment the sugar with yeast, which creates carbon dioxide—mosquitos are attracted to both sugar and carbon dioxide, so this mixture will really attract them to your trap.

Step 3 - Building the Trap

Now you have all of the required materials to make a mosquito trap prepared, and it is time to put them together.

• Set the bottom half of the 2 liter bottle upright, and pour the mixture of sugar, water, and yeast in.
• Take the top half of the bottle, turn it upside down so it is pointing downwards, and put it into the lower half of the bottle. At this point, no part of the upper half should be above the top of the lower half.
• Push the lower half down as far as it will go without touching the liquid, just to be sure—you want the upper and lower half to seal off completely, with no opening but the place where the cap used to be.
• Cover the outside of the trap with the black construction paper. You may have to cut it down to size to do this part properly.

Step 4 - Placing the Trap

Your trap is complete. Now all you have to do is put it to good use. Select a cool spot outside, preferably with high humidity, and place the trap there. A spot in the shade is best.

Check the trap every 2 weeks. You will need to empty it out and replace the mixture inside, both to prevent mosquitos from laying eggs in it, and to replenish the supply of sugar and carbon dioxide. With any luck, you will also be emptying a lot of dead mosquitos.