Outdoor bug control- Florida

[gchappel]

A question to the board that knows all things.
I live lakefront in central florida- land of large things that fly and drink blood. In the summers, especially at dusk or if you are dumb enough to turn any type of light on, the swarms can be so thick you retreat inside. The recent hurricanes have made screen enclosures less desirable- the bid on rebuilding my screen cage was 60+K, and home owners insurance would not cover the new cage. I have tried the electric and propane foggers- too much work and with limited success- although they did work for a couple of hours. The propane traps don't work- they simply attract and kill bugs that didn't know I was already there.
There is a "new" system being used in the area that was developed on horse farms. It basically uses high pressure nozzles and fogs the yard with a weak insectacide- pyrethrin or permethrin- once or twice a day. The people I talked to really liked it- but I don't want my yard to be an ecologic disaster with endagered birds falling dead out of the sky. The main brand seems to be bugslayer www.bugslayerww.com
Does anyone have experience with this or a similar system?
Trying to do my homework
Thanks
Gary

[masraum]

I'm from central FL and live in Houston (same weather and same bugs), I think other than fogging yourself and your yard the only other option is to stay indoors. Good luck, let us know how it works out.

[89911]

Hey, the bugs are very tolerable in PA, you can stay outside as much as you want. (retribution for all those "It's snowing up north, it's nice and hot down south post".

[kqw]

Controlling the bugs in Central Florida near the water???

you're kidding, right???

[89911]

That foging sounds good, except they may of left off one problem. Wind.

[Tobra]

When I lived in Texas, we put up a bunch of Purple Martin birdhouses. They eat their weight in bugs every day, and made a huge impact on the bug population. Just had to wash more bird crap off the cars.

[gchappel]

The system routinely fogs at night- so here we usually don't have wind at that time. I have just talked to another lakefront homeowner with the system- and they say it works 95%. I need to look around a little more before I spend 5K - I'd rather spend that money on my porsche and kill the bugs that way!
Thanks again
Gary

[oldE]

Take Tobra's suggestion about the Purple Martin birdhouses and put up bat shelters/roosts for coverage during the night time.
Spend the money on the P-car.
Les

[competentone]

Originally posted by gchappel
The recent hurricanes have made screen enclosures less desirable- the bid on rebuilding my screen cage was 60+K, and home owners insurance would not cover the new cage.

Exactly how big is this screen cage (square footage)? Unless you're dealing with some sort of elaborate and massive (thousands of square feet) design, I can't imagine where that price comes from. You're normally talking about pretty simple structures made of pre-fabricated aluminum channels with fiberglass screening and costing no more than a few thousand dollars to cover quite a few hundred square feet. How many estimates did you get for this rebuild?

[gchappel]

The price issue on the cage is that it is almost 3stories high. When we originally built it I got 4 estimate- 3 said they could not build it and one large firm about 30miles away said it was the largest they had built. That was 15 years ago and it did great through a bunch of storms until the big one hit in 04. This time I had 4 estimates and 2 were willing to build it. Original company was cheapest at 59K, plus some deck work, etc. Other bid was 69K. I dont know the square footage, but it is big and TALL. Basically big enough so you don't realize you are in a screencage. Some of it is when they see a lakefront house the price goes up. I learned on seamless gutter. Now I get a quote per running foot before they see the house
gary

[Rikao4]

I always bring the P in before any contractor shows.
Rika