Hand-held Mosquito Zapper

By Owen Jones

The hand held bug killer is the best way of clearing the area around you of insects, especially the flying ones like mosquitoes. The indoor insect killer evaporates any insect from a mosquito to a gnat instantly on contact with a pleasingly loud, electrical 'crack'!

However, this is not to say that the hand held bug zapper cannot be used outside, so long as it is not too wet. It should be handled just like any other high voltage electrical item. Keep the hand held insect zapper dry and please do not use it when you are standing in the pool!

Models do vary a lot, but there are really only two kinds of hand held bug zapper: the battery operated bug killer and the rechargeable electric bug zapper. Both are equally effective at zapping insects and employ the same principle.

The hand held insect zapper looks like a 'kids' tennis racket, but with three layers of 'strings', which are in fact wires. The central grid of wires becomes electrified at the touch of a button, while the other two grids, one on either side, are only earths.

When a bug is trapped between the wires of the indoor bug killer, it creates a short, which evaporates it instantaneously with a loud crack. The hand held bug killer will kill other insects too, but they tend to fry rather than explode.

I have been using the rechargeable kind for about five years and am extremely satisfied with the hand held insect killer. In fact, the electric insect killer has come a long way in the last few years. A fully charged electric insect killer is strong enough to last for several hundred swipes and will hold it's charge, if unused, for weeks without any noticeable discharge.

The battery recharge pack will take intensive use for the best part of a year, although its ability to hold a charge for a few weeks slowly diminishes after six or seven months.

The most recent indoor insect zapper I've had has a main on/off switch, an LED that comes on when it is activated (the brightness of this light also indicates the battery's strength) and a light that comes on when it is plugged in on recharge.

The instructions say that the bug zapper should be (re)charged for about sixteen hours. However, I usually put it on charge over night once or twice every week or two, although the hand held bug killer shows a large increase in performance with only a few hours recharging.

The latest version I've seen also comes with a powerful beam called a 'headlamp'. I have found this very useful when out in the garden, but I'm not sure whether it's meant to attract the flies in the dark so that you can zap them if you're bored. You know, like an anglerfish.

I've used the headlamp on my hand held bug zapper for that reason too, but the beam uses a lot of battery power. All in all, the hand held insect zapper is a huge asset at any outdoor event. The electric bug zapper is useful to 'clean out' your bedroom before retiring; it's unequalled for evening mosquitoes and it will clear a lunch table of wasps as well.

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