Neighbor-run · Washington, DC
Let’s ruin their summer for once.
You shouldn’t need bug spray to last three minutes on your own porch. So we’re taking the block back, with methods that actually work.
Who we are
Mosquito season in DC is awful. We’re done complaining about it.
We started as one listserv post on Capitol Hill and heard back from a thousand households in a week. Turns out nobody likes getting eaten alive on their own porch. Spraying doesn’t fix it. And they build up a tolerance, so each round works a little worse than the last. So we do the things that actually work, one block at a time.
Five things that work
Five things that actually work.
Proven, cheap, and something you can start this week. Even if you leave this page in ninety seconds, leave with these.
The most effective thing you can do costs nothing.
Once a week, walk your yard and dump anything holding water. A bottle cap is enough to breed mosquitoes.
Bins. Dump what collects after storms.
Yard toys. Slides, water tables, kiddie pools, that one lonely rain boot.
Tarps and covers. Shake them out. The folds hold water.
Planter saucers and empty pots. Tip them, or ditch them.
Big-leafed plants. Some leaves cup enough water to breed.
How we win
Rally your block.
Clearing standing water and running traps works far better over a whole area than yard by yard. A spotless yard between two neglected ones still gets swarmed, because a fence line means nothing to a mosquito. So we go block by block: one captain (or more!), a few participating yards, and the whole area gets covered at once. It’s also a lot more fun with your neighbors than swatting solo in the backyard. 250+ blocks have a captain. Yours might not.
The proof
We don’t take our own word for it.
Turns out the neighborhood is full of data nerds and public-health wonks, so we run the whole thing like an experiment. Every trap, every treated water feature, every report lands in the Itty Bitty Mosquito Portal, our shared map of what’s working.
But counting our own effort isn’t proof. To see whether the mosquitoes actually drop, we’re building surveillance with DC Health and local researchers. We keep what works, cut what doesn’t, and will use it to push the city to fund the rest.
Numbers shift as we learn. Updated all season.