Mosquito Control
Repellent - Traps - Mosquito Misting

Back Yard Tips

If a mosquito isn't born it can’t bite you. There are a few simple measures you can take around your home to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. First go through your yard and the sides of your home to find breeding spots. This means identifying places were water is standing or could stand. Some obvious places include; children’s pools, bird baths, containers, tarps, drains, and gutters. In addition to these artificial places, there are natural breeding sites around your home; places like tree holes and ditches. After locating these sites the water should be removed and the container covered. Ponds can be treated by adding fish that eat mosquito larvae.

Personal Defense / Repellent

Some simple things you can do to protect yourself are wearing long sleeved clothing when possible and apply repellents containing DEET. Mosquitoes are most active at dusk and dawn so you can minimize bites by staying indoors at those times.

Misting Systems

This is a great too in the fight against mosquitos. This system not only kills mosquitos but kills the breeding cycle by spaying at dusk and dawn during the breeding times of the mosquito. No mosquito eggs no mosquitos.

The newest innovation in mosquito control is the perimeter misting system. These units may consist of tubing that is run around the perimeter of your yard. Attached to the tube are misting nozzles that release an environmentally friendly pesticide into your yard killing all the mosquitoes. The tube is connected to a reservoir and is controlled by a timed control box. The mist can be activated by a timer to go off at peak activity times for mosquitoes, or manually as needed. Other misting system are self contained and can be placed stategicaly around your yard.

These systems generally use Pyrethrin

Key facts about Pyrethrin:

• It's derived from chrysanthemum daisies
• It's long been used to fight mosquitoes (and most other flying insects)
• It's botanical, and will not accumulate in the environment (depending on sunlight, it normally burns off within two hours). Don't be fooled - there are synthetic forms of this extract in other products (pyrethroids, permethrin) that will accumulate in the environment
• It works, killing mosquitoes on contact.
• Because it's botanical, mosquitoes almost never build up a tolerance (unlike some synthetic versions

Fogging / Spraying

The most basic option for keeping mosquitoes out of your yard is to spray an area repellent. These will kill adult mosquitoes present in your yard; however the effect is short lived and the mosquitoes will return. They are effective for only 2 to 4 hours.

Traps

Mosquito traps are a more long term way to combat mosquitoes in your yard. Simple traps use an ultraviolet light to attract mosquitoes and the zap them. The downside to traps is that they are actually attracting mosquitoes to your yard and if a mosquito finds you before the trap, you're lunch. The Ultra Violet (UV) light from zappers attracts all night-flying insects. Each night zappers kill about 3,000 beneficial insects such as moths and butterflies, which pollinate flowers, but only a handful of mosquitoes. A Notre Dame University study in South Bend Indiana showed that people with a zapper in their backyard got bit 10% more than people without one because zappers attracted mosquitoes but did not kill them. UV light also helps mosquitoes find water where they lay their eggs. When UV light is reflected off the surface of water it is polarized. Like polarized sunglasses that reduce glare and help you see objects more clearly, the mosquitoes follow the polarized light to the water to lay their eggs. Because they attract large bugs, they are purposefully designed to explode them so they don't accumulate and become a fire hazard. Exploding bug-fragments drift on the air. People and food nearby may be contaminated by insect-fragments from the zapper.

The more complicated systems let out carbon dioxide to mimic humans. This brings the mosquitoes to the trap were a vacuum pulls them into a container were they dehydrate.