Build a better mosquito repellent and the world will be at your doorstep.
Or at least that’s what the people at Terminix think.
In a press release, the company announced that is offering an environmentally friendly service starting in April, with hopes that it will expand nationwide starting in June. Doing away with repellent altogether, the service is designed to massacre the little insects. “As the world’s largest pest control provider, we’re in a leadership position to bring innovative, industry-leading products to the marketplace,” Terminix president Bill Derwin said, “This new mosquito service will offer our customers yet another line of defense against these dangerous and annoying pests.”
And what is the deadly active ingredient?
Garlic oil.
Terminix's new mosquito killer? garlic oil: http://t.co/BnxYZ5mJz9 pic.twitter.com/rPR5NjVV3L
— Businessweek (@BW) May 19, 2014
Bloomberg Buisnessweek interviewed the man behind this new formula, Entomologist Stan Cope. “You get to do a lot of very interesting things in weird places,” he told them, explaining how he used to protect American troops from insects spreading disease.
After retiring from the Navy at the rank of Captain, Cope joined Terminix. He developed a formula designed to bait and kill mosquitos. The bait? Sugar. The killer? Garlic oil. “They feed on it, and then, literally, the garlic oil makes them sick enough that they don’t want to then go bite a person,” he explained.
He’s not the only one hard at work developing the latest and greatest repellents. Researchers at at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee have developed VUAA1, which they claim is 1000 times stronger than DEET. And as a bonus it works on all kinds of insects from ants to flies and moths.
But for those of us who can’t afford to hire top of the line mosquito repellers, the folks at Terminix will give us a few quick tips, courtesy of their YouTube channel:
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
