Mosquitoes are annoying and can carry serious diseases such as encephalitis (West Nile, St. Louis and Eastern Equine), yellow fever, dengue and malaria. Be a good neighbor and help control mosquitoes. If there are any places around your home where water collects, you may be raising mosquitoes! Call 311 to request a home inspection.
Help Fight the Bite!
Here are a few things you can do:
- Repair leaky pipes and outside faucets.
- Move house cooler drain hoses frequently.
- Install screens on rain barrels and openings to water tanks or cisterns.
- Empty water from boats.
- Change water and scrub vases holding flowers or cuttings twice each week or grow cuttings in soil.
- Eliminate old tires, tin cans, bottles, jars, buckets, drums and other outside containers.
- Clean clogged roof gutters and drain flat roofs that collect water.
- Scrub and change water in bird baths twice weekly
- Empty watering areas of pets and chickens daily.
- Fill holes in trees with sand or mortar, or drain or spray them as required.
- Empty your plastic wading pool weekly and store it under shelter when not in use.
- Stock fish pools or lily ponds with minnows. These fish eat mosquito larvae.
Commercially Available Mosquito Treatments for Homeowners
Residents are advised to dump small water holding containers twice a week to prevent immature mosquitoes from developing into adulthood. For large or small water holding containers or plants such as bromeliads from which emptying frequently water may not be attainable, residents can use commercially available granular applications or dunks containing Bacillus thuriengensis israelensis or methoprene. If applied according to the manufacturer label, these products are safe to animals, birds, fish and or plants. These products may be purchased from local home improvement stores, hardware stores, garden centers. Residents who continue to experience mosquito problems can
contact Mosquito Control to request a full inspection by our licensed inspectors via this link.
More tips for ridding your property of potential mosquito breeding habitats.
Personal Mosquito Prevention Practices When Outdoors
Residents can wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants that cover most of the skin during peak mosquito activity period to reduce mosquito bites. In addition, residents are advised to use EPA-registered mosquito/tick repellents such as products containing DEET or other EPA registered active ingredients. You can find a list
here.
Why Mosquitoes Need Water
Some mosquitoes lay their eggs on standing water where they hatch in a day or two. Other mosquitoes lay their eggs in old tires, tin cans or other water-holding containers in which they may remain un-hatched for weeks or months until they are covered with water. With both types of mosquitoes, the wigglers (larvae) grow quickly and turn into pupae. Soon, the skin of the pupae splits open and out climbs another hungry mosquito. The lesson here is not to leave any standing water around outside your home in which mosquitoes can breed.
