The electric bug killer is the best way of clearing your immediate vicinity of insects, especially the flying ones such as mosquitoes. The hand held insect zapper evaporates any insect from a mosquito to a gnat instantly on contact with a pleasingly loud, electrical ‘zap’!

However, this is not to say that the electric insect killer cannot be operated outside, as long as it is not too wet. It should be treated like any other high voltage electrical equipment. Keep the hand held insect zapper dry and please do not use it while you are standing in water!

Models vary greatly, but there are basically only two types of hand held insect zapper: the battery operated bug zapper and the rechargeable electric bug killer. Both are equally effective at killing bugs and work on the same principle.

The hand held bug zapper looks like a ‘junior’ tennis racket, but with three sets of ‘strings’, which are in fact wires. The central network of wires becomes live at the push of a button while the other two grids, one on either side, are earths.

When an insect is trapped between the wires of the hand held bug killer, it creates a short, which vaporizes it instantly with a loud crack and a flash. The electric bug zapper will kill other insects too, but they just fry instead of just disappear.

I have been using the rechargeable sort for five years and am extremely satisfied with the electric bug killer. In fact, the electric bug zapper has come a long way over the last few years. A fully charged hand held insect killer is strong enough to last for several hundred swipes and will hold it’s charge, when unused, for weeks without any significant discharge.

The rechargeable battery pack will put up with serious use for the best part of a year, although its capability to hold a charge for several weeks slowly reduces after six or seven months.

The most recent indoor insect zapper I’ve had has a main on/off switch, an LED that shines when it is live (the brightness of this light also gives an indication of the battery’s strength) and a light that comes on when the zapper is on recharge.

The instructions say that it should be (re)charged for sixteen hours. I usually put it on charge over night once or twice every week or two, although the indoor bug killer shows a marked increase in performance with only a couple of hours charging.

The latest model I’ve seen also comes with a strong light called a ‘headlamp’. I have found this very useful when walking in the garden, but I’m not sure whether it’s meant to lure the flies in the dark so that you can zap them if you’re feeling bored or just vindictive. You know, a bit like an Anglerfish.

I’ve used the headlamp on my indoor bug killer for that too, but the headlamp uses a lot of battery power. All in all, the electric insect killer is a big asset to any outdoor event. The indoor insect 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 too.

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