Product Review: Mosquito-Less

Company: Alex Milne Associates Ltd.

Item(s) tested: MOSQUITO-Less (900mL $39.95)

Where item(s) can be purchased: Home Hardware, Truserv Stores, www.rittenhouse.ca and Contact products in Quebec.

The claim of the product: Simply spray your property, trees, shrubs, gardens, lawn, fences, out buildings and low areas. In minutes after this ready-to-use natural garlic oil product is sprayed. Mosquitoes leave immediately. Lasts up to 4 weeks.

How the product works:

1. Garden Hose Applicator: Add product to hose bottle. Set metered hose sprayer at #10 (10mL/L or 2 oz/gal) Spray around the "zone" you want mosquito free.
2. Garden Pump Sprayer: Add 30 - 40mL/L or water. Shake well and begin spraying "zone". Use entire 900mL bottle of concentrate to treat up to 5000 sq ft.

What is great about the product:

1. It truly works, we were mosquito free for 10 days at the cottage (even in the evening when mosquitoes are at the worst!)
2. Natural ingredients, the ingredient list is: garlic oil & water.
3. Repels mosquitoes does not kill them (so biologists can rest assured we are not killing off a part of our eco-system).
4. Little effort for a big pay off, one spray took us about 1 hour to cover the area around our home/cottage, and the pay off was 10 days of being mosquito free (we were not able to test for 4 weeks straight).
5. Made in a EcoLogo certified plant in Canada.

What is not so great about the product:

1. The garlic smell is VERY strong. You will need to store this outside in your garden shed (even when you have not cracked the seal).
2. Because of the strong smell, the bottle is made of plastic that can be recycled versus using recycled plastic (a recycled plastic bottle would not hold in the garlic smell as well as newly made plastic).
3. You will have a garlic smell where you spray for about 3 hours after using it. We recommend spraying in the evening and when you get up the next morning the smell is gone and so are the mosquitoes.
4. Rain may dampen the effects, so you may need to spray again after a heavy summer rain, so 1 spray may not last all 4 weeks.

Grade from Green Living: A (the strong smell was the only thing we wish we could change, but it only lasts for a few hours and that was worth the pay off of a mosquito free holiday.)