You Can Finally Camp Mosquito-Free Thanks To This TikToker's Simple Coffee Hack

Taking a break from civilization to go off the grid and camp at your favorite wilderness spots is practically doing yourself a favor. You get a much-needed break from the daily grind, but the tradeoff is you sort of have to volunteer yourself as an all-you-can-eat buffet for every biting insect within a 15-feet radius. If you situate your campsite near a body of water, you can probably expect mosquitoes to swarm you, which is the last thing you want to happen as these bloodsuckers are notorious for carrying diseases like dengue, malaria, and the Zika virus. Luckily, keeping them at bay doesn't require high-tech gadgets or toxic chemicals. Believe it or not, coffee — the same brew you enjoy each morning — could be your solution, at least according to a TikToker.

Who would have thought that ousting critters often involves using unconventional items? The secret to banishing wasps from your campsite is apparently a common pet product (spoiler alert: flea collars), and keeping insects far away can be as easy as using a pantry staple (the answer is vanilla). As for warding off mosquitoes, coffee grounds apparently make for potent weapons. TikTok user @ataboutface demonstrated in a video that burnt coffee grounds function as a natural deterrent. She noted that mosquitoes are repulsed by the smell of coffee (more on this later), so if you want to minimize the chances of mosquitoes congregating in your campsite, you simply have to sacrifice some of your favorite ground espresso.

While the rich, enticing aroma of coffee perks up most of us, mosquitoes feel the complete opposite. Similar to burning herbs to deter bugs, torching coffee grounds seems to be a nifty solution to send them packing. To these pesky insects, coffee is a total turn-off. In fact, a study published in Environmental Pollution found that certain coffee compounds can adversely affect how mosquitoes develop. Meanwhile, a study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology discovered that caffeine impairs their feeding and breeding habits.

Now, this isn't to say that burning coffee grounds grants your campsite total immunity from the wrath of mosquitoes, but it can at least help in keeping them away for so long as the grounds are burning. According to TikTok user @ataboutface, the process is simple: Dump those grounds into a cup, light them up, and let them burn for hours. You don't need anything fancy, either. She suggests that even the grounds inside a K-cup can do the trick. There's also a user in the comments who claimed that you might not even need to play with fire; just chuck the grounds onto the soil or grass, and you're good to go.

Of course, to effectively prevent bug bites, you might still want to arm yourself with tested and proven repellents like picaridin sprays and citronella. But it's comforting to know that you at least have a backup plan with coffee. If you can't drink it, burn it.