Summer night activities make for some of the best times and memories with friends and family, but it’s frustrating when those nights include swarms of mosquitoes as well. Mosquitoes are always an irritating pest because they buzz around and bite you and overall just never leave you alone. But did you know there are ways to make sure that mosquitos aren’t much of a problem? By preparing for mosquitoes before they really start showing up, you can minimize the mosquito population around your home.
Why You Need to Be Ready for Mosquitos
If you only look at mosquitoes as a nuisance, you might wonder if it’s really worth putting in the effort to prepare for them beforehand. After all, even if it’s annoying, you can deal with things like buzzing and constant swarms. But there’s actually a bigger reason, aside from the nuisance, as to why you should prepare for mosquitoes each year – mosquitoes are actually one of the most dangerous insects you can come across.
That statement might seem a bit extreme. After all, mosquitoes are tiny and they don’t even have venom that can really hurt you. However, despite their apparent harmlessness, mosquitoes are actually very dangerous because they spread a lot of diseases to humans.
The diseases that mosquitoes spread are not just passing things like the common cold. Instead, they are extremely unpleasant and even life-threatening diseases such as the West Nile virus, Zika virus, and malaria, among many others. These are not diseases that you want to take lightly or risk contracting, so it’s best to prepare for mosquitoes ahead of time to have much less risk of possibly getting one of these diseases.
Safety is the most important thing to consider when going into summer. You want to be able to enjoy the summer, not have it ruined by illness or injury. By preparing in advance to minimize and repel mosquitoes around your home, you can be sure that your risk of illness is a small as possible.
Tips for Mosquito Preparation
To help you prepare for mosquitoes this year, here’s a list of a few tips to help you get ready. Most of these tips are very simple, and even though they require a bit of effort, these smaller efforts are worth the long-term results.
Get Rid of Standing Water
One of the best things you can do to prepare for mosquitoes is to make sure there’s no standing water around your home or yard. Mosquitoes always lay their eggs near standing water, so if you have standing water near your home, there is a very high likelihood that mosquitoes will decide to lay their eggs there. So to make sure that you don’t have standing water around your yard, there are a few things you should do.
- Check for any leaky pipes or spigots. Leaky plumbing can lead to standing water near the foundation of your home or on your lawn. The puddles of water can show up quickly if there are leaks, so watch your plumbing carefully.
- Check around any landscaped water fixtures, such as ponds, to make sure that the water isn’t still. There are ways to keep pond water moving enough that mosquitoes don’t want to use it, so if you feel that your ponds are a risk, you may want to look into ways to give them movement.
- If you have a swimming pool, check around the edges of it as well. Most swimming pools have enough movement that you shouldn’t have to worry about them, but it’s still a good idea to make sure the pool is well covered and properly balanced so that mosquitos can’t get in and easily survive in the water.
Stock Up On Insect Repellent
Another important thing you should make sure to do to get ready for mosquitoes is to make sure you have plenty of insect repellent handy. That’s not to say that you should have 10 gallons of it in your home, but having a couple of bottles of insect repellent handy is important so that you can protect yourself from mosquitoes at any time. There are a lot of options for insect repellent these days, so find the option that works best for you, whether it be the typical repellents that use DEET or a more natural option. You can also keep mosquitoes off by wearing clothing that covers your arms and legs well.
Set Out Mosquito-Repelling Smells
Insect repellent may keep the mosquitoes off of you, but they won’t keep them out of your yard. So it’s good to look for ways to encourage the mosquitoes to stay away from your yard. A good way to do this is through smell. Setting out things like citronella candles can be a good way of keeping mosquitoes at bay.
Of course, you can’t always have a candle lit, so you may also want to consider looking into some plants that repel mosquitoes. A lemon balm plant or catnip would be good options for repellent plants, but there are others that you could use as well. Keep in mind that for these plants to be really effective at keeping mosquitoes at bay, you would have to plant a lot of them so the smell is strong enough to keep the mosquitoes away.
Hire a Pest Control Service
If you really want to make sure that mosquitoes stay away from your home and yard during the summer, then you should hire a pest control service to help you out. Their professional treatments for mosquitoes will do a much better job at keeping mosquitoes away than any DIY measure would. And when your health and safety are on the line, it’s worth paying a little extra to ensure your best chance at staying safe from mosquitoes.
A pest control service can also treat your home and yard at just the right season to ensure maximum results. Many pest control services have a yearly plan of treatments that they follow, and by doing so they can treat for mosquitoes before they really start coming out in the spring and minimize the population of mosquitoes to start with. They can also treat at the end of mosquito season as mosquitoes are starting to prepare for winter so that fewer mosquitoes will survive the winter. Pest control is an important part of preparing for mosquitoes, so to keep you and your family as safe as possible, make sure to use this powerful resource.
Photo Credits
Mosquito by mika mamy from Pixabay
Citronella Candle by Deedster from Pixabay
Guest Author Bio
John Moran
John Moran is an American who enjoys the fine art of living well. His interests include anything wine, food or nature related especially when enjoyed with friends and family.
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