Stop the Mosquitoes. Put Down the Phone.

Summer gets easier when you know two things: how to take back your backyard and how to stop your phone from running your night. Andy Baryer, home and technology expert at Handy Andy Media, brings both in the same conversation, and neither fix costs much.

The Five-Dollar Mosquito Trap Nobody Told You About

A five-gallon bucket, grass clippings, water, and a couple of days is all it takes to build what Andy calls the bucket of doom. Female mosquitoes are drawn to the fermented water to lay their eggs, which is exactly the point. One small tablet called a mosquito dunk, available online, carries a naturally occurring bacteria that wipes out the larvae without touching anything else. Thirty days of coverage, almost no cost, and you stay outside for the whole game. Andy also shares a frozen water bottle trick that turns a basic fan into something close enough to air conditioning to actually sleep.

NEW TECH - Free AI and a Phone That Knows When to Back Off

Amazon Prime members can now upgrade to Alexa Plus at no extra cost, with full English and French support finally live across Canada. It handles real-time news, scheduling, and extended conversation without needing the wake word each time. The TCL K70 Next Paper solves a different problem: one button switches the screen to e-ink mode, pulling the colour and the compulsion out of the phone without locking anything down.

Topics: summer mosquito trap, Alexa Plus Canada, TCL K70 Next Paper phone, sleeping cool summer, digital detox

GUEST: Andy Baryer | handyandymedia.com

Originally aired on 2026-06-15