Fed up with being the blood for dinner, community struggles to exterminate mosquitoes

Michelle Mingrone was fed up with being a mosquito's blood dinner.

For the dedicated gardener from Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood, leaving the house in the summer meant being attacked by hordes of those flying hypodermic needles, ready to pierce her skin and leave itchy marks - and sometimes serious infections like malaria or Zika.

"They're unbearable. You can't stay out there," said Mingrone. "I grew up in the middle of the woods. I want my kids to be outdoors, and every year it's very frustrating that we can't be outside because of the mosquitoes."

She contacted the local government in February and discovered that a full-time specialist oversees the district's mosquito control operation during the summer, with help available as needed.

To make her yards less infested with insects, she realized that she and her neighbors would need to take on the task themselves.

In March, Mingrone wrote a post on a local parenting discussion list. It began: "Hello, neighbors. Mosquito season is almost here and I'm determined to do something about it this year."

Spraying is a temporary solution that may help a little, Mingrone notes, but it also kills many beneficial insects, such as bees and dragonflies. Instead, she was inspired by a Maryland community that used a multi-pronged, pesticide-free approach to drastically reduce the local Asian tiger mosquito population. The more people who participated, the more effective it would be, as mosquitoes don't respect property lines.

"Do you want to participate?" she asked, sharing a link to an interest form and a specific email address.

Mingrone hoped to get around 40 families to join. In the first four days, she received 600 responses.

The Tiny Mosquito Population Committee was launched.

"I knew the mosquitoes were a problem and that people were frustrated, but I didn't expect a reaction of this magnitude, so I just let it go," Mingrone said.

Michelle Mingrone asked her neighbors in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood if they would be interested in solving the mosquito problem. In four days, she received 600 responses - Maansi Srivastava/CNN
It's not just Washington, D.C. Mosquitoes are everywhere and their populations are growing. Thanks to climate change, mosquitoes are now found in almost every corner of the planet, far beyond their main strongholds in South America, Central America and Africa.

According to the World Mosquito Program, countries in Europe have begun to observe an increase in the population of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit, such as malaria, dengue, zika and chikungunya. Extreme flooding in Germany last year caused the mosquito population to increase tenfold from normal levels. Even Iceland - one of the last mosquito-free places on Earth - reported finding mosquitoes in 2025.

In the United States, municipal mosquito control efforts have not kept up with demand. Areas that have long struggled with mosquitoes, such as Miami and South Texas, have well-funded, integrated mosquito control programs. But there are many new pockets of mosquito infestation in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest that have not received adequate funding or staffing for mosquito control, said Dr. Daniel Markowski, technical consultant for the American Mosquito Control Association.

"As weather patterns change, mosquitoes are also changing, as are the diseases they transmit," Markowski said. "They are changing their distribution, their frequency and increasingly bringing diseases to areas that don't have good mosquito control programs."

"This is a real concern."

The world's deadliest animals
Longer periods of warm temperatures mean earlier emergence and longer mosquito seasons in many parts of the world. There are almost 3,700 species that use their tubular mouths to pierce the skin of animals and feed on blood to obtain proteins, necessary for laying their eggs.

Not all of these species are harmful to humans, and some offer benefits.

In addition to blood, mosquitoes need sugar to obtain energy, which they obtain through plant nectar, which makes them important pollinators. Insects and their eggs also serve as food for other insects, such as dragonflies, as well as birds, bats and fish.

Fortunately for us, most mosquitoes rely on other animal sources, such as frogs, birds and small mammals, for food. Only a few species have evolved to prefer human blood.

But these few species are devastating, causing around 700 million illnesses and 1 million deaths worldwide each year due to infections such as malaria, dengue fever, Zika and West Nile virus.

In 2024, another Washington D.C. resident, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, wrote about contracting West Nile virus from a mosquito in his backyard - an infection that left him fatigued, feverish, and delirious, and fearful that he would "never recover and return to normal."

Mosquitoes are such a pest that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ranked them as the deadliest animals in the world.

Although most scientists say it would not be ethical or even feasible to try to eliminate all types of mosquitoes, many say it makes sense to try to eradicate the main species that feed on human blood.

"Certainly, from an ethical and moral point of view, if we are talking about countries where diseases are being transmitted, it is very difficult to say to an African mother with her child who has just had malaria, 'You shouldn't kill these mosquitoes because they are part of the ecosystem,'" said Dr. Bart Knols, a Dutch biologist who runs the website Malariaworld.org.

Knols highlights that humans have been at war with mosquitoes for a long time.

The secret to getting rid of them effectively is to eliminate the insect without ultimately paying the price in other ways.

He cites the pesticide DDT, which was hailed as a miracle killer of mosquitoes in the 1940s when it was used during World War II. It was later banned for most uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after it was shown to persist in the environment and harm other animals, including humans.

Rather than resorting to chemical methods, he says a set of more specific technologies are being developed and tested to reduce mosquito populations, including inserting harmful genes into their DNA and infecting them with a bacteria called Wolbachia, which acts as a method of contraception.

Dr. Raymond St. Leger, entomologist and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, took a different approach, using a mosquito-killing fungus that occurs naturally around the roots of some plants.

He genetically modified it, adding genes from spiders and scorpions to make it a faster-acting poison, as well as genes that produce floral odors that attract mosquitoes. When the mosquito lands on the fungus, its hooked spores penetrate the insect's exoskeleton and kill it within days. If further testing is successful, he envisions using it as both bait and poison for mosquito traps.

Because the mosquitoes that bite humans in the U.S. generally belong to two invasive species that recently arrived in North America, they don't really play any role in ecological diversity here, St. Leger said.

"I would certainly be in favor of suppressing the mosquito population in America," he said.

A five-pronged approach
The Tiny Mosquito Population Committee is trying, at least in their own backyards.

Their approach is based on five things to make backyards less hospitable.

Dispose of standing water
First, Mingrone said they became more vigilant about discarding any standing water, as the amount present in even a bottle cap is enough to allow females to lay their eggs. In his own backyard, Mingrone discovered that cracked trash container lids allow water to pool after rain, creating an important breeding ground.

Treating larger water sources
Water sources that cannot be thrown away, such as Mingrone's small frog pond, are treated with tablets called Mosquito Dunks, which contain a natural larvicide to kill the next generation of newly hatched mosquitoes. Storm drains are another important breeding site that also needs regular treatment.

Lure them inside
Mingrone and his neighbors use a combination of baited traps that attract mosquitoes with human scents and trap them with glue or fans until they die. She negotiated a discount with the German company that sells the traps, Biogents.

"I did a very amateur mosquito count, and in 24 hours I found 104 mosquitoes," Mingrone said, and cleaning the traps is "pretty gross, but very satisfying."

The electric traps, called Mosquitaires, are so effective that they have eliminated human-biting mosquitoes on entire islands in the Philippines, said Knols, who led the project.

Mingrone has two in operation: one in the front yard and one in the back yard.

Swap plants
Some plants, such as English ivy and bamboo, allow mosquitoes to thrive in moist, shady environments. Native plants, such as St. Jacob's wort or prairie grass, are not as hospitable.

Spread the word
The committee is encouraging members to share campaign details, as mass participation increases the likelihood of success.

In just three months, 1,800 homes joined the project, which is managed by more than 220 block coordinators in neighborhoods throughout the District of Columbia.

They don't have hard data yet - that's the next step - but it looks like their joint efforts are paying off.

"Pretty much everyone I talked to said the mosquitoes are much better this year," Mingrone said. "I've been having dinner parties outside. I spent all day working in the garden the other day, something I definitely couldn't do this time last year."

Source: CNN