Meet Trudy the Mosquito Lady: Environmentally friendly mosquito control
Meet - April 30, 2021In Bali, you see a lot of big resorts fogging (spraying huge amounts of pesticides into the air) for mosquitos monthly, or even weekly. Our friend Trudy Rilling-Collins is also known as The Mosquito Lady, and she pioneered a new method of mosquito control that she has been putting in place for homes, businesses, and resorts around the world to stop this crazy and dangerous practice which actually doesn’t kill mosquitos, or break the mosquito breeding cycle.
The truth is pesticides are failing to control mosquitoes around the world. The neurotoxin pesticides commonly used in failed attempts to control mosquitoes pose serious human health risks, and easily kill bees, butterflies, fish, and other beneficial organisms. Trudy draws on an extensive education in biology, and her degree in Insect Pest Management from UC Berkeley, to provide Environmentally Responsible Mosquito Control programs in tropical areas throughout the world.
Trudy’s story:
“My big mosquito story started 11 years ago on a tiny tropical resort island (just 600m X 200m) where they were fogging and spraying us with neurotoxin pesticides 3 times a day in failed attempts to control mosquitoes! Despite this intensive spray program, they were not able to control mosquitoes and the populations on the island were huge. They had been spraying like this for 9 years since the resort was built.
I studied biological control of insects at UC Berkeley and spent 5 years working in a mosquito control research lab, so I decided to start doing research and come up with a better plan. Breathing neurotoxin pesticides three times a day for 2 months didn’t sound good.
After a week of researching where mosquitoes were breeding in water, I created a proposal and presented it to the General Manager. He took me up on my offer and 5 days after that they were able to stop all of the fogging and spraying they had been doing for 9 years since the resort was built! The resort was saving $25,000 USD in pesticide and diesel fuel costs every year and everyone was noticing the lack of adult biting mosquitoes. They were soon insistent about flying me to their next resort and the project took on a life of its own.”
She’s launching a new online course to help the places and people she can’t reach in person and is offering a free online workshop for people to get a feeling for the whole course. The online Environmentally Responsible Mosquito Control for Homeowners course will give you the training and support you need for do-it-yourself mosquito control. As Trudy always says, focus on finding and eliminating aquatic breeding sites which are the true root cause of all mosquito problems. If you have questions you can email Trudy at trudy@mosquitolady.com.
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