Awesome DIY Mosquito Sucker!!

Make a highly effective mosquito sucker with household materials!

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I came up with this idea while teaching in sub-Saharan Africa in 2014. Some experts estimate that over the course of human history, over half of human deaths have been due to Malaria. In Africa, this killer was a daily reality, putting co-workers, students, and especially kids at risk. For my family, we had a Vortex Mosquito sucker ($35), and expensive anti-malarial drugs ($1 per day, per person). But those most at risk can't afford these luxuries, and malaria parasites are growing resistant both to DDT and to many anti-malarial treatments.

Malaria is not a virus or a bacteria, but a parasite. A tiny organism is transmitted, that actually takes up residence in one's liver, blood, and sometimes brain. For this reason, the immune system has a very hard time fighting it. Also, the best way to combat the disease is through reducing exposure through mosquitos.

Enter...the DIY mosquito sucker. This simple design is based on the Vortex Mosquito sucker that you can buy for $35 on Amazon, and which I took with me. The principle is simply to attract the mosquitos into the top chamber through light and CO2, then push them into a screened-in-cage on the bottom by use of a fan. I reproduced this using a can, a computer fan, a car light, a rag, an elastic, some tape, and my swiss army knife.

I found that mine was actually more effective in two ways: 1) it attracted about three times the mosquitos, 2) it killed them all, whereas the store-bought device needed to be opened outside, since mosquitos were often still alive.

Why a computer fan and car battery you ask? Both are readily available in many third-world cities. Also, both run off of 12 volt power, which is also a very common power source. This device will run off of a car battery, or off of a power supply for a computer, telephone, answering machine, etc.

When I originally made my device it did not actually work. Until I added the essential ingredient. Vinegar and baking soda fizzling away on the lid. Those little bubbles coming out are CO2, Carbon Dioxide. Exactly the same chemical we all exhale, and our skin lets off. It is the chemical mosquitos use to hone in on us. And when I put some of that on my device - whammo! In one night, we caught 43 mosquitos in our living room. Which was...kind of freaky. Seriously. I knew there were a few in there...but 43? African mosquitos, as anyone who has traveled there knows, are small, fast, bite repeatedly, and are very hard to catch & kill. Hence their danger, and hence the importance of my little killing machine.

So what? I hope this little video gets passed around a bit! I actually put all the pieces together the very last day we were in Africa, and we have not been able to return since. I had hoped to spread the idea locally, but now this video will need to do the work for me. Help me get the word out!

Share this video! Especially send it to anyone you know who may be traveling to a malaria-infested area. This device literally has the power to save lives! Also, it has the potential to create an employment opportunity. Can't you just see the potential for underemployed peoples assembling these devices, and selling them in the marketplace, or to expats? I sure can.

Hope you enjoy, and God bless!

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