Why Mosquitoes Bite You More — and How to Stop Them Naturally

The moment temperatures start rising in Delhi, mosquitoes are back! And just when you think the monsoon will bring some relief — it does in temperature  — but the rains create perfect breeding conditions and the numbers explode. My kids’ ankles are somehow always the first target.

For years I handled it the standard way. Coils that filled the room with smoke nobody wanted to breathe. A vaporizer I’d stopped reading the ingredient list on. DEET spray that made my skin angrier than the bites did.

Eventually I went back to what our grandmothers already knew — and cross-checked it against what the research actually says. Here’s the natural mosquito repellent solution in my home.

How to Stop Mosquito Bites Naturally

The most effective way to stop mosquito bites naturally is to combine natural repellents with mosquito control around your home. Remedies like neem oil, lemongrass oil, tulsi, camphor, and clove oil can help repel mosquitoes when applied on skin or used in the home. At the same time, removing standing water where mosquitoes breed greatly reduces their numbers.

Why Mosquitoes Pick You

It’s not random. Female mosquitoes detect CO₂ from your breath from 150 feet away, then lock onto lactic acid, ammonia, and 300+ compounds from your skin. A 2022 Nature study confirmed skin odour is a stronger signal than heat or moisture — which is why one person at a dinner table is the mosquito magnet, ravaged by them, and the person next to them doesn’t.

Pregnancy, alcohol, exercise, and dark clothing all increase your attractiveness to them. Some of that you can control, most of it you can’t. So the real strategy is either masking those signals, or making sure they have nowhere to breed near you.

Start Here: Kill the Breeding Grounds

Everyone wants to repel adult mosquitoes. In reality, the most effective mosquito control at home starts with eliminating breeding grounds.

Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water. A bottle cap’s worth is enough. What I do regularly:

• Baking soda + vinegar + boiling water down every drain — removes the organic buildup where larvae grow. (Twice a month in the mosquito season)
• Empty plant saucers, buckets, anything sitting with water in it.
• Keep water features moving — larvae need to surface for air and can’t in moving water.
• Check AC drip trays. Most forgotten spot in every Delhi home, including mine for an embarrassingly long time.

Honestly, this single habit does more than everything else combined.

Neem — Inside and Out

If there’s one thing I’d stake my natural living reputation on for mosquitoes, it’s neem. A 2024 study in the American Journal of Entomology found neem products showed 88.3% repellency. A review in Acta Tropica reported 90–100% protection against malaria vectors. What makes it remarkable is that it works at every stage — eggs, larvae, pupae, adults. Nothing else on this list does that.

• On skin: Mix neem oil and coconut oil equally, apply on exposed areas. Can work for upto 8 hours.
• Neem smoke: Burn dried neem leaves in a metal dish at dusk. One study found this was 100% effective at repelling mosquitoes indoors.
• Neem coils: A 2025 study showed neem-based coils achieved 98.7% mortality against Culex mosquitoes — without the toxic compounds in conventional coils.
• Neem tablets — repellent from the inside out: This one is close to my heart, and something I personally do every summer and monsoon. In Ayurveda, neem is called Sarva Roga Nivarini — the curer of all diseases. Internally, it’s described as Krimighna (antiparasitic) and Raktashodhaka (blood purifier). The active compound azadirachtin disrupts insects’ olfactory receptors so powerfully that some insects would rather starve than feed on azadirachtin-treated sources. Neem’s bitter compounds — nimbin and nimbidin — also support liver detoxification, helping the body flush toxins that might make you more attractive to insects in the first place.
• What I do: one 500mg neem tablet daily for a week at the start of each mosquito season, (or you can chew 4–5 fresh neem leaves  on an empty stomach if you can manage!) — the way our grandmothers did it. It’s not a standalone shield the way topical neem oil is, but as a layer in your defence, it genuinely helps.
• One important note: avoid oral neem if you’re pregnant, nursing, or trying to conceive. Always check with your doctor before starting any supplement.

No DEET. No prallethrin. Just a tree that’s been quietly growing in Indian backyards for centuries, doing what it’s always done.

The Ayurvedic Toolkit

These weren’t spiritual practices that happened to repel mosquitoes. They were deliberate pest control that also happened to be spiritual.

• Camphor: Burn near windows and doorways. Works fast, and unlike a chemical coil, the smell is actually pleasant to be around.
• Tulsi: Grow it near windows. The volatile oils — especially eugenol — interfere with mosquitoes’ ability to locate humans. Real biochemistry, not just tradition.
• Clove oil: Diffused or burned in a lamp. Overwhelms mosquitoes’ scent receptors. Documented larvicidal properties too.

Lemongrass Oil

I use lemongrass over citronella. Most “citronella plants” at nurseries are actually scented geraniums — they smell citrusy but don’t have the repellent compounds. True repellency comes from the Cymbopogon genus, which lemongrass belongs to. Studies show 98.8% protection against the southern house mosquito, and 74–95% for 2.5 hours in field conditions.

Mix 1:1 with coconut oil. Apply on wrists and ankles. Reapply every hour if you’re outside. I also use a few drops in my mopping water daily at home!

Two Myths I Want to Address

• Vitamin B1: A 2022 scoping review examined multiple controlled trials — zero repellent effect. In one study, mosquitoes probed sooner on people taking thiamine. It doesn’t seem to work.
• Garlic: University of Connecticut tested it against a control group — no difference in bites. A 2005 JAMA study said the same. Great for food, useless here.

Neem works because it actively interferes with insect feeding behaviour at a biochemical level. Different category entirely.

My Routine

Personal:

1. Start eating neem tablets for a week at the beginning of a mosquito season (my family and my staff)
2. Apply neem oil + coconut oil in exposed areas of the body or lemongrass + coconut oil when stepping out
3. In highly infested times and places, add a natural mosquito repellent sticker to the kids’ clothes
4. Wear light coloured clothes when stepping out, especially to parks or green spaces

Environment:

1. Empty any standing water around the house – check weekly, and daily in the monsoon season!
2. Grow tulsi and lemongrass near the windows of my home!
3. Burn dry neem leaves near the entrances of the house – at dusk
4. Use citronella or neem sticks near the entrances of the house
5. Mopping water for floors with lemongrass oil or pure citronella oil daily
6. Once in two weeks, baking soda + vinegar + boiling water down every drain.

No chemicals. No fumes making my throat burn. And the mosquitoes? They’ve mostly surrendered.

Citations

1. Assessment of the Effect of Neem Plant Products on House Mosquito Repelling (2024) — Science Publishing Group, American Journal of Entomology
2. Neem-based products as potential eco-friendly mosquito control agents — Review (2023) — Acta Tropica, ScienceDirect
3. Compounds from human odor induce attraction and landing in Aedes aegypti (2022) — Nature Scientific Reports
4. Thiamine (vitamin B1) as an insect repellent: a scoping review (2022) — Bulletin of Entomological Research, Cambridge University Press
5. Advances in mosquito repellents: effectiveness of citronellal derivatives (2022) — PMC/NIH
6. Repellency Effect of Prepared Neem Tree Leaves Smoke against Mosquito (2020) — Asian Journal of Research in Zoology
7. Production and Characterization of a Mosquito Repellent Coil Using Neem (2025) — International Journal of Scientific Research in Chemical Sciences