You're not imagining it. Mosquitoes are more attracted to certain people based on carbon dioxide output, body chemistry, skin bacteria, and even blood type.
Being the person who gets eaten alive while everyone else around you seems fine is just about the most maddening experience in the world. It feels personal. (And in a roundabout sort of way, it is.)
Mosquitoes find hosts primarily through carbon dioxide. Every time you exhale, you send a plume of CO2 that mosquitoes can detect from over 150 feet away. People who produce more CO2 tend to attract mosquitoes from farther away, which is why mosquitoes sometimes hassle larger, more physically active, or pregnant individuals.
But CO2 just gets them in your general direction. Once they're close, other factors take over. Your skin emits a unique blend of compounds including lactic acid, uric acid, ammonia, and various fatty acids. The exact blend varies person to person. Also, research has shown that the specific composition of bacteria living on your skin can play a big role in how attractive you are to mosquitoes. People with a high density but low diversity of skin microbes tend to get bitten more.
There’s also blood type. Studies suggest that people with Type O blood often end up being universal donors to mosquitoes in a way that people with Type A and Type B blood aren’t. Body heat and dark clothing also increase your visibility to mosquitoes at close range.
What’s frustrating is that you can’t change your skin’s chemical composition. We don’t recommend you stop breathing either. But you can wear lighter-colored clothing and reduce your time outdoors during peak dusk and dawn hours. Both help cut down on mosquito encounters.
But if you really want to protect yourself from mosquitoes, property-level treatment helps a lot. If you are tired of being mosquito bait in your own yard, Mosquito Squad of Leominster can apply barrier treatments to the resting and breeding areas across your yard. Technicians will focus on places where mosquitoes spend the most time, treating those areas every 21 days. Each treatment can cut the mosquito population down by 90%, which means you can enjoy some relief from the mosquitoes all season long.
