Category Archives: Mosquito Control

 
It’s a new year and along with it come new resolutions. Maybe you want to get in the gym more, or be on your phone less, or tackle that big project you’ve been putting off. It’s highly unlikely that your resolutions involve mosquitoes, but if there was ever a time to work on reducing your summer bites it would be now. Just like your “summer vacation self” would thank you for starting that new workout routine now, your family will thank you come to the warm weather. So how can you get rid of mosquitoes?

The easiest way to get rid of mosquitoes is to call Mosquito Joe of NW Houston and we can take care of it for you, but we want to give you some tips and tricks to drive the population in your yard down come summer that you can do yourself.

One mosquito lays about 300 eggs every couple of days in ONE teaspoon of water. Half of those offspring will go on to do the same in as many days. In this way, one mosquito can become well over millions in a month.

Mosquitoes lay their eggs wherever the ground holds water or where is doesn’t dry. If there is no water, then they are very sneaky about their placement aiming to lay the eggs where water will gather later.

For this reason, one of the first and most important steps you should take to reduce the population is to reduce these potential breeding spots. This starts with your gutters – clearing them out and keeping them clear of leaves. Don’t forget the important step of flushing them out with water when you are finished. The sludge is just as important and is often forgotten. Keeping up with this can be tedious but it is well worth it. Make sure that the gutters are flowing freely all the way down the downspouts, they are easily blocked and missed. Make sure that the runoff blocks, if you have them, are directed away from your home and not pooling water or damaging your foundation.

Once the gutters are clean you should turn your attention to the ground. Raking up all the fallen leaves and pine needles will help the soil dry out and stay that way – piles of leaves will shade the soil and thus produce the perfect place for eggs to be laid. The same holds true for fallen branches and brushes – cleaning them all up and removing them will make a big difference, don’t make the mistake of leaving piles of them in the yard.

Take some time to walk through your yard. Remember that only one teaspoon of water is enough to create a population, so look for holes in tree stumps, low-lying spots in the yard, pots turned the wrong way, or even fence posts without caps on them. Remove any tires, plastic containers, or anything that holds water.

Children’s toys can hold a lot of water, and this includes plastic swing seats, see-saws, and such. Removing these areas that hold water will make a huge difference come the spring. And what you cannot remove you can remedy – drill holes in the bottom of tire swings, kids’ toys, even your trash cans that will hold water after rain.

Once you have your yard in order staying on top of it after rains (and leaves fall) is vital. But if you keep at it and keep the water away you will have made a huge impact on the bites you receive in the spring. And of course, if you would just rather not have any issues reach out to us for a free quote at 281-815-0228.

Here at Mosquito Joe of NW Houston, we ALWAYS let our customers choose what they want to do with their accounts. We don’t have contracts and we always let our customers make choices about when they want service and when they don’t. Having said that, we are here to advise and educate – one of the questions we get a lot is, “do we really need you guys in the winter?”

Mosquito activity is temperature-dependent and it’s pretty easy to guess our answer based on this information. Two things are required for them to hibernate: a week of temperatures under 55 degrees, or 3 deep freezes in a row. Until either of these things happen, the mosquito is a happy camper.

While it is true that higher temperatures drive the population up, the same can be true for stagnant water and moist soil. In the winter, the leaves and pine needles on the groundwork drive up this issue – keeping the ground from drying up and providing shade and moisture that mosquitoes love. Gutters tend to get clogged and hold water as well and we struggle to keep up with them as the leaves fall. For those with gutter covers, you are not safe either. The leaves and debris that land on top of the covers will get wet and break down. These particles form a nasty sludge in the gutters that often gets overlooked.

So, the short answer is yes, you need mosquito control in the winter here in Texas since our winter is mild in comparison to other areas of the country. You know you are in Texas when you get bitten on Christmas Day.

Since temperatures vary every year, Mosquito Joe will treat unless you don’t need the service – a good example is the snowpocalypse earlier this year. The temperatures were cold enough that mosquitoes were hibernating, so we let all our customers know they didn’t need service. But as soon as the temperatures hit that 55-degree mark, mosquitoes went back to normal, and we resumed service.

There are some things you can do to minimize issues in the winter, and they all involve yard maintenance (sorry):

1. Rake often and well. The less leaf litter you have, the less wet soil to encourage egg-laying.
2. Avoid the desire to pile up the leaves in the corner of the yard – this will just make things worse.
3. If you have gutter covers make sure you use a hose to flush them out after the leaves have fallen. Repeat this in the spring to minimize issues as the temperatures heat up.
4. Check your gutters often – and don’t forget the downspouts. If enough leaves fall in them, they can get blocked, and the result is a pipe full of water. We see this a lot and it creates a huge mosquito issue. It’s also impossible to treat since our technicians can’t get to that water.
5. Speaking of maintenance, make sure your gutters are flowing correctly and not holding water. Over time, and especially if they get full of debris, the gutters can start angling incorrectly so that they hold water rather than flushing it off the roof.
6. Avoid piles of branches and brush if you take advantage of the cooler months to trim down shrubs. The same issue will result in terms of shade and moist ground.
7. Make sure that your plant pots, wheelbarrows, yard debris, and kid toys are all put away or stored upside down.

It’s October, a time when many Texans wish for cool, crisp air and pumpkin flavored everything. The reality is that we are usually still sweltering in the heat and sipping our pumpkin lattes in the AC.

There are several things you can count on in Texas in October: pumpkins will immediately begin disintegrating once placed on your patio, the leaves will fall while the trees will seemingly continue to produce more leaves to fall, and mosquitoes will bite you.

There are several things to be aware of this time of year to help your little trick and treaters from getting bitten. Firstly, your Halloween decorations can hold a lot of water, particularly items like plastic pumpkins, which can sneakily fill up with water after rain or running your sprinklers. The same goes for plastic signage in the yard. Any open top items will also gather water of course. The use of hay bales in your yard décor will encourage biting midges and gnats, particularly fungus gnats, to gather in droves as the hay gets wet and warm. The same is true for those decomposing pumpkins, so keep an eye on them and get rid of them once they start the dreaded pumpkin slump (which for some reason always seems to happen on the side not facing you.)

Now to the impact of falling leaves in your yard. Firstly, they fill up your gutters at an alarming rate, clogging up the works and causing pockets of water in the gutters after rain. Combine this standing water with the resulting decomposition of the leaves and you end up with a mosquito breeding ground that you neither see nor often consider. With one teaspoon breeding 300 mosquitoes every couple of days, these gutters will really contribute to your population. On the ground the fallen leaves provide shade and dampness mosquitoes love. Once you decide to rake the ground you will see the mosquitoes rise up as they fly off to find shade elsewhere. It’s another job no one enjoys, but it is so important to keep your yard devoid of as much of this ground cover as you can this time of year. Mosquitoes are active until temperatures fall under 55 degrees and remain there for at least a week. That never happens in Texas in the fall, and for that matter very rarely in the winter either.

So, the takeaway is: manage the water both in your décor and in your gutters. Keep the leaves and pine needles picked up from the ground and keep those gutters clean. Be aware of the impact of decomposing vegetation in the yard – keep an eye on those pumpkins. Let’s see those trick and treaters leave your yard with candy and not bites!

If you need help controlling the population of mosquitoes in your yard, give us a call. We will provide a quote over the phone at no charge, and we are always happy to offer advice and suggestions for you to help. The mosquito is the world’s most dangerous creature, and we want to help spread the word on how to reduce the population so we can all benefit from the results. Give us a call at 281-815-0228 for more information!

A lot of the inquiries we receive come from folks who have issues both inside and outside the home with mosquitoes. We wanted to help clarify some of the misunderstandings we often hear regarding mosquitoes in the house.

Firstly, contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes do not want to be inside.  They want warm, wet soil and plant life to feed from. Certainly, mosquitoes can gather by your doorways, seeking shade from the sun under the eaves of your home. But they typically make their way inside by mistake – the force of the air movement and suction when a door opens can pull them inside. Mosquitoes are not good fliers at all, and given their size and body weight, even a light breeze can disrupt their flight.

Once inside mosquitoes are facing a very short life span. Without food (plant nectar from the underside of leaves) and water, they won’t survive long. They will congregate by windows to try and get back outside. To help alleviate the issues of mosquitoes inside you should control the numbers outside (we have provided some easy-to-follow steps to do this in several of our previous blog posts, but the less water in your yard the better off you are.) The other thing you can do to help is to avoid having your outside lights on at night – these will draw mosquitoes and other insects up to the house and make the situation worse. This includes bug zappers which only serve to draw mosquitoes close by but won’t kill them (mosquitoes won’t fly into the light but instead start looking for CO2 plumes.) Hanging mosquito traps near the house is also a bad plan. You draw mosquitoes in from the yards around you, and then get bitten when the mosquito opts for you over a trap (mosquitoes seek you out both via CO2 plumes and by heat.)

Speaking of other insects, the majority of the time that we receive calls for mosquitoes inside the house they are not mosquitoes at all. They are, instead, lake flies or “biting midges.” These guys look very similar to a mosquito, maybe just a tad smaller, and bite the same way. What’s interesting about them is that they are often found in bathrooms and the customer assumes they came in through an open door. The truth is they mostly come in through your drains. The sludge that builds up in your u-bends makes for the perfect home for them to lay eggs.

There is a super simple way to prevent this issue, and we recommend to every customer that they do this twice a year. Simply pour an eighth of a gallon of bleach into each drain and then flush with hot water for 5 minutes.  The bleach helps break up the sludge and the hot water will flush the drains out. In bathrooms that are rarely used, such as a guest bath, close the drains where you can. Within a few days you will see a dramatic improvement. Of course, if you need help reducing the population of mosquitoes and biting midges outside you can reach us 281-815-0228. We provide our quotes at no charge and there are never any contracts with us.

Ahhh August…incredibly hot, incredibly humid and the most active month of the year for hurricanes. It won’t be long until the kids go back to school and just a few more months before the weather cools, but for now we are in the thick of things.

Hurricane season is a stressful time here at Mosquito Joe. Obviously, it is a stressful time for everyone as we worry about damage to property and flooding impacts in the area and to our property. However, we have some additional stressors that can impact us at the office. We don’t treat when it is raining, so weather this time of year can really impact our ability to keep everyone on track. Beyond that, the results of the rains and flooding has a massive impact on the mosquito population. Water washes into properties we treat, bringing with it mosquito eggs that begin a whole new life cycle in a yard where we recently had control. The quantity of rain itself will increase the population of mosquitoes tenfold. All the water left behind will continue to increase this population if we don’t take action.

We all have a plan in place in the case of a weather disaster. Many of us have a stock of beans and rice, a battery powered radio, a collection of water bottles, etc. And while we all head out to help neighbors remove fallen trees or assist stranded cars, we don’t often think of the impact of the weather on mosquitoes.  From a health standpoint, controlling the mosquito population is important.  The county will often send out trucks to spray and reduce the numbers, but since this spray is only done on the streets, hitting some of the culverts, it won’t impact what is going on in your backyard.

We would like to suggest that you also implement a simple, but important, mosquito reduction plan after the weather that will make a huge difference in your backyard:

1. Clear out your gutters – any debris that has fallen in will mean water will get trapped up there, breeding mosquitoes for you.
2. Rake up fallen leaves and pine needles. They act to keep the ground wet and prevent everything from drying out.
3. Along the same lines, as soon as you are able, mow the yard. This again will help dry out the ground and rid you of standing water.
4. Empty out every container in the yard of water. Just a teaspoon (a capful from a bottle of water) will breed 300 mosquitoes every few days, so even the small amounts you might not notice (saucers under plant pots) will increase the population. Turn pots and containers upside down, remove kids’ toys (it’s amazing how much water they hold after a rain), and make sure you are not missing those small places that mosquitoes won’t. Don’t forget any tarps in the yard either!

It doesn’t sound like much, but the impact of these 4 steps can reduce your mosquito population substantially and really make things more manageable in your yard.  We highly encourage everyone to make this plan a part of your “post storm” routine.