Mosquitoes are not only a nuisance; they’re a health hazard. That’s why it’s important to spray mosquitoes wherever they congregate, especially in the common outdoor areas around your home. After all, your family and pets spend time in those areas, and who wants always to be dealing with those annoying, biting mosquitoes?
For the home DIYers, it can be tempting to grab the mosquito spray and let loose on your Houston, TX home. But even the best outdoor mosquito repellent system requires a bit of know-how to maximize the benefit. To have a go, you’ll need to account for three things: eliminating mosquito breeding sites, killing adult mosquitoes, and using mosquito repellents.
Eliminating Mosquito Breeding
Since female mosquitoes need the protein found in blood to lay eggs, the first order of business is to get rid of any mosquito reproduction. Mosquitoes hone in on the carbon dioxide emitted with every breath, as well as follow our body heat and the scents coming from our skin.
Mosquitoes can lay eggs in water or moist soil, but they need standing water to breed and survive, such as ponds, lakes, swamps, ditches, salt marshes, old tires, tree pots, puddles, gutters, and buckets. To get rid of mosquitoes, you must start where they breed and live. If you can, remove any standing water or potential for standing water around your property by dumping or covering problematic spaces.
It only takes a few ounces of standing water for a mosquito to set up shop, so you must be meticulous. However, mosquitoes could always be breeding and hanging out in your neighbor’s yard, so the mosquitoes on your property may not even be living there.
Killing Adult Mosquitoes
The next order of business is to kill adult mosquitoes with mosquito spray around your Houston, TX home. If they’re not attacking you, mosquitoes will mostly be found in bushes and shrubs where they feed on plant nectar. Start by spraying the vegetation areas around your homes such as bushes, shrubs, weeds, tall grass, and shaded areas with mosquito spray.
Residential pesticides won’t have the same killing power as commercial stuff, but those are tightly regulated, and you’d need a special license even to obtain or use them. Home pesticides are safe and affordable as long as you follow the directions, and many of them will last days, so it’s not like you have to spray for mosquitoes every morning or night.
You will need some kind of pump or sprayer, but something like a mosquito fog spray might be overkill for your Houston, TX home, at least at the DIY level.
Don’t Forget the Mosquito Repellents
In addition to using pesticides to deal with mosquitoes around your home, you can also leverage mosquito repellents around the yard or on your skin to keep the mosquitoes at bay. While most mosquito repellents are made for direct application on the skin, some repellents can be sprayed around the yard, which masks the smells that mosquitoes seek out. It’ll only give you a few days of relief, but that can be enough for that barbecue or outdoor event.
Commercial Fogging and Misting Systems
If you want to get rid of mosquitoes once and for all, you’ll need something with more power than a simple mosquito spray for your Houston, TX home. Our mosquito fogging service is great for a month-long break from mosquitoes, and our mosquito misting control system is ideal for year-round protection. Call us today for a free quote.
