Mild Winter Means More Mosquitoes

There is a week left in winter and many parts of the country are seeing abnormally warm temperatures. Nice, right? Well, good and bad is more like it. While many of us are enjoying the nice weather by spending more time outdoors, so are the mosquitoes. They are coming out, in droves. The mild winter, while it was nice, will end up bringing out more mosquitoes this spring and summer.

Mosquitoes breed in standing water. If there are sustained freezing temperatures in the winter months, a lot of mosquito eggs will die. Unfortunately, this past season didn’t provide many areas with the needed cold and resulted in a larger number of eggs reaching maturity. In short, that means more annoying bugs.

Randy Peck of Mosquito Squad, who provides mosquito control in Charlotte and its surrounding areas, was recently interviewed by the local media regarding this years’ mosquito population:

“With all the rainfall we’ve had, it’s keeping everything moist and it’s not really drying out. So if it stays like that in the spring, I would imagine that mosquitoes are going to be a little worse this year,” says Randy Peck of Mosquito Squad based in Matthews. Peck says the lack of deep freezes and plenty of moisture could make for a problem.” See complete article here.

In some parts of the country municipalities are starting to mist for mosquitoes much earlier than usual. One area of Houston scheduled their first mist 2 months earlier than they did in 2011. Two months!

To cut down on the number of mosquitoes around your home, it is important to get rid of standing water where mosquitoes breed. For us, it’s as simple as the 7Ts:

• Tip – tip over objects in your yard that may hold water including dog dishes and kids’ toys.
• Toss – remove excess grass and clipping from yards
• Turn – turn over larger items like birdbaths and plant saucers so the mosquitoes can’t fully develop
• Remove Tarps – If tarps aren’t pulled tightly, they can create small pools of water, and 300 mosquitoes can hatch in a space as small as a bottle cap.
• Treat – treat the vegetation in your yard where mosquitoes and ticks harbor and feed.

Mosquito Squad provides a mosquito control barrier treatment that will protect your yard for 21 days so you can enjoy the outdoors more. If you have questions on how we can help you, please contact your local Mosquito Squad.