Mosquitoes at the front door

Our front door is in a bit of an alcove and for some reason mosquitoes appear to love to congregate there at night which means that whenever you open the door several fly into the house.
I was wondering if anyone else had this problem and whether there were any possible solutions to this. I have tried placing a bug catcher there but it did not seem to make a difference.

I have thought about:
a) Setting up a fan (don’t know if it would work)
b) Installing mesh doors to block off the area (expensive)
c) Installing a fish tank (don’t know if it would work)
d) Spraying poison (don’t know if it would work and/or how healthy it is to be breathing it in before walking into the house.
e) Not using the front door….(?!?)

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Are you sure they are mosquitos (small and bitey lol) and not gnats (larger and relatively harmless)? Where I used to live (in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria) we often had gnats congregating outside of the front door during the warmer months - they would fly into the house when the door opened (even with a screen door) but went away after a while. According to wikipedia male gnats often congregate in groups called "ghosts" at dusk.

I would try to ascertain why you have such a large concentration of insects around the door. Do you leave a light on at night? (which will attract them) It there any stagnant water nearby? (where mosquitos will breed). Are there any fruits/vegetables/fungi nearby which the gnats may be attracted to?

If they are mosquitos I would think something as simple (and inexpensive) as a citronella candle would help to deter them. If they are gnats I'd just wait until they decided to move on to somewhere else.

Hope that helps

Adult mosquitoes only live for a few weeks and most have a relatively short flight range. The first thing that I would be doing is to try and establish where the mosquitoes are breeding.

The fact that they congregate around the front door is a clue and the first thing that I would be doing is checking your guttering for ponding in this area. Once the larvae emerge as adults, the gutter will no longer be their home and they will move to somewhere hospitable nearby.

Most new homes have roof drainage that is designed for aesthetics rather than function and this is why many new homes do not have downpipes at the front. The distance between the downpipes then causes issues with inadequate slope, particularly as the house settles. Mass numbers of new homes are built and sold with non compliant storm water drainage. It is endemic.

If you also have a rainwater tank with a wet system, you need mosquito proof leaf diverters fitted to every harvested downpipe as well as flaps on the discharge pipes above the tank's top meshed inlet to prevent mosquitoes from accessing the water and breeding. Both of these devices are mandatory in many areas but they should be mandatory everywhere.

Mosquitoes also breed in plants that capture and retain water. A mosquito lays between 200-400 eggs in a raft and they emerge as adult mosquitoes within 10-14 days.

I noticed a similar thing at our old house, in a back corner of our alfresco. It was fairly dark and maybe a touch damp there, although there was no actual water laying around or pot plants, although it was only 4-5 metres from our water tank..? It didn't bother us too much because we never used that corner but what about spraying around insect repellent surface spray stuff? Might that work as an easy option?