Here’s a fun mosquito fact to start your day. Although a mosquito is nowhere near the size of a dog, or nearly as cute, it can smell 1,000 times better. And all of that power has just one purpose, finding its next meal. Ever wonder how they know where to find you? This tiny bug has a sniffer tuned into the very breath you exhale.
The carbon dioxide draws them in. From there, they rely on their vision and finely tuned receptors to hone in on their prey. You’re settling in to enjoy your yard and suddenly you’re what’s for dinner. You won’t even hear them coming. If there is some buzzing, that’s from the male mosquitos, and they don’t bite.
The female isn’t drinking your blood for her nutritional benefit, she’s consuming it to nurture the 100 to 200 eggs that she will lay within the next five days. Under typical conditions, a day or two after that you’ll have a whole new batch of pests invading your space. Meanwhile, the female is off to lay more eggs, which she will do as many as three times in her life span.
The math quickly gets overwhelming as the eggs hatch and start the cycle all over again.
It’s enough to drive you indoors. What else can you do? Grab a spray and douse yourself and your family in chemicals in an attempt to keep the bugs away?
We have another option. Envision a giant, invisible net over your yard keeping out the mosquitoes as effectively as a screen on a window. Play with the kids on the lawn any time of day. Have your morning coffee on the patio. Entertain your friends through the night. All without spray-on repellant, smelly citronella candles, or a cloud of blood-sucking mosquitoes leaving you with itchy bites, or the diseases they can spread.
That’s what Mosquito Shield does. We create a mosquito control barrier that keeps mosquitoes away. It takes just a few minutes of spraying for a typical-sized yard with our proprietary blend of mostly natural oils. You might detect just a hint of garlic immediately after the spraying, but otherwise, you won’t notice a difference. The mosquitoes will, however. They’ll stay away from your yard.
Throughout the summer, we come as often as needed to maintain that barrier against mosquitoes. Rather than setting you up with a rigid schedule, we watch the weather. Why? Because the weather dictates the life cycle of the mosquito, and that’s what we want to disrupt.
The rain leaves behind prime nesting areas that kick off the cycle. The female mosquito lays eggs in wet areas and standing water left behind. It could be as small as a leaf in the shade. The baby mosquitoes thrive on microscopic organisms in the water as they grow large enough to become a nuisance. It will take just a few days before they’re ready to leave the water and head off in search of a blood source.
We work around the weather to better maintain the barrier and stay ahead of the mosquitoes. When it comes to keeping mosquitoes out of your yard, timing is everything. We like to say that we go by a mosquito schedule rather than a calendar. If there’s a lot of rain and hot weather, we will come by more often.
When we treat your yard we focus on the areas we know mosquitoes like to hang out. That’s places like under the porch, behind the gutters, or even flower pots that don’t quickly drain. You’re left to enjoy your yard all day long without being bothered by buzzing or biting.
We typically start in the spring as the mosquitoes start moving. That happens when nighttime temperatures are above 50 degrees. The best time for the first treatment depends on the area of the country. If you haven’t started, it’s not too late. The key is to maintain the barrier so you can use your yard without being bothered by mosquitoes for the rest of the season. We’ll keep going until the temperatures fall below 50 degrees at night. As with the first spray, the last will depend on your location.
It’s essentially a set-it-and-forget-it mosquito control service for homeowners, but not for us. We closely monitor the conditions and make sure we’re available as needed working around the heat and storms to ensure that you have a space you can enjoy all season long.