Tanner is both a pest control technician, a licensed applicator, and a misting system technician for Mosquito Joe of NW Houston and S Brazos Valley. He has been working with us since early 2020. Prior to that, Tanner attended Newman University on a golf scholarship and graduated Magnolia High.
What made you want to work at Mosquito Joe of NW Houston & S Brazos?
It’s the family business, so that’s a big part of it. But beyond that, the opportunity to get outside and be somewhat independent was something I loved the idea of. I really enjoy meeting new people. The best part, though, is helping the customers and making a difference to them and their families in their yards.
What’s one word to describe your time at Mosquito Joe?
Hard work!
Do you have a favorite customer story?
I once went to treat a customer and when I walked in the back 5 little puppies ran up to me. I spent quite a bit of time playing with them. Playing with the dogs is a highlight of my day, and I always make sure to have plenty of treats on me.
Fun fact about you?
I’m ambidextrous and play most sports with either hand.
Do you have any hobbies?
I love golf and play any chance I get. I have a +2.7 handicap and have been playing since I was 3 years old.
What are some of the most common misconceptions customers have about mosquitoes?
That mosquito hawks, mosquitoes, biting midges, and gnats are all the same. Just because it bites (and mosquito hawks don’t) doesn’t mean it’s a mosquito.
What is a typical day at Mosquito Joe like?
A lot of sweat, walking, and dealing with crazies on the road. But mostly searching and slaying every mosquito I see. Unless of course, I am working on misting systems with Paul.
What’s your best piece of advice for someone wanting to control mosquitoes in their yard?
Get rid of as much shade and water in the yard as possible. Removing breeding grounds is the first, and most important step of mosquito control. Don’t just look for the big amounts of water, look for the little stuff as well.
Give Us a Call to Make Outside Fun Again!
Tanner and the rest of the Mosquito Joe of NW Houston and S Brazos Valley team are ready to help you take your yard back with our outdoor pest control services. Give us a call at 979-859-5998 to get started!
Paul is one of the owners of Mosquito Joe of NW Houston and S Brazos Valley and has been our Mosquito Misting System technician since 2015. Prior to that, Paul serviced Montgomery, Harris, and Waller Counties, both as a firefighter and as a paramedic. He retired fully from Emergency Services 3 years ago to make Mosquito Joe his top work priority.
What Made You Want to Open Mosquito Joe of NW Houston & S Brazos?
Well, Kate (my wife) and I were discussing what she could do after a partnership, that she was doing due diligence for, fell through. We thought about opening a business because both of us wanted to work for ourselves. We hired a franchise coach and after much investigation decided on opening a Mosquito Joe franchise. Neither of us regrets it.
What’s One Word to Describe Your Time at Mosquito Joe?
I think I can describe it in a few words, but not one. Difficult, satisfying, empowering, and fun.
Do You Have a Favorite Customer Story?
There are so many. I am a bit of a sports fan and have been lucky enough to have a famous MLB Baseball player and a famous NFL Football coach as customers. I also love it when a customer calls to sign up and says, “I’m sure this won’t work.” Then we get to prove them wrong.
What Is One Fun Fact About You?
When I was a young man, I dreamed of being an actor and a photographer.
Do You Have Any Hobbies?
Beekeeping, fishing, and doing what Kate wants me to do.
What Are Some of the Most Common Misconceptions About Misting Systems?
I think the biggest misconception is that a Mosquito Misting System is always the best way to get rid of mosquitoes. The truth is it depends on the property and the mosquito pressure on that property. Technology these days gives us many options to control mosquitoes. We can customize these options to give the customer the level of control they want at the price they want to spend.
What Is a Typical Day at Mosquito Joe Like?
For me, there is no typical day. I’m the Jack of all trades for our company. I may treat customers’ yards with our Barrier Treatments one day then fill and repair Mosquito Misting Systems the next. I may have a day helping in the office or in the shop ordering supplies and repairing mist blowers. Throw the occasional trip to the bank and the recycling center in the mix. I’m not the best at anything, except maybe anything having to do with Misting Systems, but I’m pretty good at most things. We are lucky to have the best technicians and office staff in the industry that are the best at what they do.
What’s Your Best Piece of Advice for Someone Wanting to Control Mosquitoes in Their Yard?
Well, other than calling Mosquito Joe. I would recommend being very diligent in keeping standing water to a minimum in your yard. Keep buckets, kid toys, plant saucers, wheelbarrows, tarps, and the like clear of standing water. That won’t keep you mosquito-free, but it should greatly reduce the numbers on your property.
At Mosquito Joe, we believe that the key to controlling a pest is understanding it. The more we understand their habits, behaviors, and needs, the better we can be at controlling the population and managing them. When it comes to mosquitoes, understanding mosquito eggs is vital. It’s the one thing that no laboratory has managed to kill. So, knowing what an egg needs to survive allows us to reduce the numbers in a yard, and hence the mosquito population as a whole.
A mosquito’s life cycle involves 4 stages, beginning with the egg and ending with the emergence of the adult mosquito. The first three stages occur in water so that is the preferred location for eggs to be laid. But a mosquito will lay eggs elsewhere if there is no water available. Where the female lays her eggs is driven by the species.
In general, mosquito eggs fall into 3 groups. The first are eggs that are laid as single units on water. The second are eggs laid in rafts which float on the water’s surface. The third are laid singly outside the water – on the side of rocks or holes or artificial containers. When the water rises in these areas, the eggs contact the water and hatch.
While managing water is the key to preventing the larvae from hatching, it’s not enough to control them. The fact is, if you have a female mosquito in your yard who wants to lay eggs, she will find a place. And if there is no water, then she will find a location where the soil is moist and opt for that. If you water regularly chances are that the soil is damp enough for her to lay eggs there.
If you have a culvert by the street, while it may not hold water when she visits, she will opt for it as a good spot. If you have plant pots, a wheelbarrow, or any number of containers in your yard, even if dry, she will lay eggs there knowing that the rain will come, and the container will fill.
So how long will that egg survive if we don’t get rain? The answer is the key to why mosquitoes are so hard to control. A mosquito egg can lay dormant for up to 15 years. They can be frozen in ice and hatch when the ice melts. You may read that Dawn dish soap can suffocate eggs, but this is not true. No one has worked out how to kill a mosquito egg and we are limited to killing the larvae and pupae (as well as the adults).
The best way to control the mosquitoes in your yard is to limit the water, as well as areas where water can accumulate after rain. As soon as water touches an egg it can hatch, and ONE TEASPOON of water will provide enough for 300 eggs. A good checklist is as follows:
Keep your gutters flowing and free of debris.
Turn all containers upside down and store them out of the elements (plant pots, wheelbarrows, saucers under plant pots, gutter drains, etc.).
Even your yard if you have low spots can accumulate water. Customers with the worst mosquito issues are usually those who have dogs that dig holes in their yard.
Minimize the use of tarps – one tarp can create multiple pockets of standing water.
If you have poor drainage in your yard, fixing it can resolve a lot of issues. Direct water away from your property and be careful not to lay a French drain without a steep angle – poorly designed drains are hidden under the ground, but not from mosquitoes.
Keep your yard tidy and your ground clear of as much leaf and pine needle debris as possible. The more ground cover you have, the wetter the soil beneath.
Bring kids’ toys inside before rains. One small plastic toy can fill with water and breed a lot of mosquitoes. The same goes for plastic kid playhouses.
Refresh your birdbaths often, it is not enough to tip out the water – mosquito eggs can cling to the sides. Scrub the bath before refilling so you are not just refreshing the water for those eggs!
Finally, after a weather event spend a few minutes tipping and tossing the water. An egg cannot hatch without water, so don’t give them that option!
Our mosquito service involves more than laying down products. Our technicians will tip and toss as they treat, so if you want to have us manage these issues just give us a call to find out more at 979-859-5998.
We often get calls from folks who have recently moved to our area from out of state and have had their first encounter with fire ants. To put it mildly, they are horrified that such an insect exists and can’t understand why the rest of us are so seemingly so casual about them. We agree, fire ants are not to be trifled with and are pretty nasty. But Fire ants are also amazing creatures, so we thought we would share some interesting facts about them that you may not know.
Fire ants first came to the US in about 1918, arriving at the port in Mobile, Alabama. They arrived in soil used as ballast for the cargo ships. It took until the 1950’s for them to reach Texas and, since that time, they have spread all over the Southeast. The northern migration of fire ants is limited by cold winter temperatures that freeze the soil deeply enough to not allow the colonies to overwinter.
Fire ants spread by swarming: Unmated, winged reproductive male and female ants exit the mound in mass, fly into the air and mate while airborne. The newly mated fire ant queens fall back to the ground within a few miles of the mound from which they emerged. They shed their wings, eat them, and then attempt to start a new colony.
The queen does this by laying a few eggs that eventually become small workers. These first workers then help care for their younger sisters and the colony begins to grow. Most of the ants in a fire ant colony are infertile, female workers. It takes several months for a colony to grow enough to build a mound large enough to be noticed in the average home lawn. Worker fire ants vary in size, but all are capable of stinging (fire ants first bite to grasp the skin, and then inject their stinger).
For every large mound in a lawn there are usually many younger colonies that are still too small to produce visible mounds. Small colonies develop into large colonies especially quickly if there are no bigger colonies nearby to compete with them. Once a young fire ant colony is well established and has a few thousand workers, it can quickly develop into a mature colony containing tens of thousands of ants. The mound is just like the tip of an iceberg and represents just a hint of what is going on under the soil.
Fire ant queens live a long time – as long as 7 years. They can lay up to 1,600 eggs per day. This translates to over 4 million eggs in her lifetime! The queen will never leave the nest once she develops into a breeding queen.
Fire ants have a complete life cycle. The eggs hatch into legless larvae, which develop into pupae, and ultimately become adults. As you will see later, the larvae are essential to allow the colony to eat. Fire ants feed on a wide range of food, including insects, honeydew, plant nectar, seeds, fruit, and animal carcasses. They are especially interested in foods high in fat. Foraging workers exit the mound through underground tunnels that radiate away from the mound, exiting to the surface 5 to 25 feet away from the mound.
Adult fire ants are incapable of swallowing solid food and have to carry it back to the mound. Solid food is fed to the larger larvae, which chew and digest it, then regurgitate it in liquid form. This liquid food is then passed from the larvae back to the workers and shared with all ants in the colony. The queen will wait 48 hours before she eats the food, and if her workers die after ingesting it, she will not eat, thereby ensuring that the colony will not be lost.
Fire ants are social insects that nest in the soil in large colonies that contain tens of thousands to more than 200,000 ants. During cold, wet weather fire ants tend to maintain their colonies high above ground—to keep brood out of water-logged soil and to take advantage of solar heating. During hot, dry weather fire ants tend to maintain their colonies below ground—to take advantage of cool, moist conditions.
Fire ant colonies can survive flooded conditions by “rafting,” and will establish a new mound wherever they happen to make landfall. This rafting is an amazing technique and it’s well worth a quick watch of this video from Nat Geo WILD to see it in action.
During times of flooding, it’s essential to keep an eye out for these rafts and stay well out of their way. When forced to relocate, worker fire ants will use their bodies to build a bridge across narrow expanses of water to allow safe transportation of their brood.
Fire ants have only one known predator; the Phorid Fly. The female phorid fly will seek out fire ants and lay her eggs in the ant’s thorax. When the egg moves into their larvae stage, they will push onto the ant’s head and kill it.
As with all insects, effective pest control requires a good understanding of the insect in question. While many homeowners utilize a poison they water in, to try and control and kill fire ants in their yard, Mosquito Joe prefers to use a bait that allows us to kill the queens. Our bait has a 72-hour delay which means we are able to circumvent the queen’s 48 hour wait time to feed, thereby killing the colony completely. Give us a call at 979-859-5998. to find out more!
Prior to Hurricane Harvey, biting midges were an issue for our customers in very specific locations – namely around Lake Conroe. Since that time, however, biting midges have become a very real problem for most of our customers. Bryan/College Station has them everywhere, and now we see them as far south as Tomball and as north as Huntsville. Few people have heard of them, so we are here to clear up some misinformation about mosquitoes and help you distinguish the two.
Mosquitoes are dawn and dusk insects because they are unable to regulate their body temperature. The only exception to this is the Asian Tiger mosquito (see photo), which is larger than your average mosquito and has clear black and white stripes on its body. Biting midges are not as affected by the sun, so they will be out all day, mostly in the ground and grass.
Here is how some typical conversations go in the office:
Caller: “Hi, I have mosquitoes everywhere. They are swarming and they are in the house!”
MoJo: “Ok, do you get bitten during the day, maybe more so on your lower legs than elsewhere?”
Caller: “Yes! How did you know that?”
Or
Caller: “Hi, I need help. The baby mosquitoes are really bad at my house, and I can’t go outside without being attacked.”
MoJo: “I’m so sorry – is this all the time, during the day and evening?”
Caller: “Yes! My kids get eaten when they are outside playing or when they swim. They swarm them.”
Or
Customer: “Hi, I don’t think your service is working. I’m still getting bitten and now they are in my house. I think you guys pushed them inside.”
MoJo: “Ok, so please understand that our service kills mosquitoes and won’t push them anywhere. But tell us more so we can help. Are you bitten in the sun during the day? Do you have lots of bites on your legs?”
Customer: “Yes! There are a lot of baby mosquitoes, so I don’t think it’s working.”
The first thing to know is that there is no such thing as a baby mosquito. Mosquitoes hatch fully grown from pupae. “Baby mosquitoes,” are never mosquitoes and always something else. The second thing to know is that midges live in the ground and grass, which we don’t treat when we treat mosquitoes; since mosquitoes live, shelter, and feed in the green leaf. We ask everyone who calls where they are in their yard when they are bitten, as well as the time of day, so that we can try to drill down to the insects causing them issues. Biting midges are smaller than a mosquito and black in color. They have different wing veining and more feathering on their antennae, but neither of these can be seen when they are flying, so we understand the confusion.
We often hear the comment that they are, “in the house.” While it is totally feasible that a mosquito flies in through an open door, mosquitoes have no desire to be inside. They are far too busy looking for plant nectar to be focused on an open door. If they are focused on biting you, they may follow you in, but unless you keep your door wide open, or have open windows with the lights on at night, mosquitoes have better things to do, like eat and breed.
To understand what is happening we need to appreciate that midges feed off decomposing matter. They love the sludge in gutters, decomposing pine needles and leaves, sludge in your gutters and downspouts, and the sludge in the U-bends of your sinks. When someone calls in with “mosquitoes” in the house, we are confident that the drains are the issue.
There is a super easy trick everyone can do inside, and we recommend this twice a year to everyone:
Pour 3 “glugs” of household bleach into every drain, shower, tub and sink in the house.
Let the bleach sit for 5-10 minutes.
Run your water on hot for 5 minutes in each drain.
Plug any sinks, tubs etc. that don’t get used much (guest sink for example).
This simple task will flush out the U-bend and clear out any eggs laid there too. Within a week most people report a dramatic difference in their issues.
Another consideration is your septic tanks if you are on septic. Those lids will crack over time with mowing or just the sun. Sometimes the septic company does a poor job of sealing the lids back up after a visit. The number of mosquitoes and midges that can come from this one issue can be overwhelming. Take a moment to check your septic tanks – if you open one and a cloud of insects flies out, you know you have an issue with your lid (any insect inside that tank is getting in somehow and getting out to feed).
To treat for midges, Mosquito Joe will tack an add-on service to your treatment (for this we charge only the cost of the products and time). This involves treating all the ground and grass in addition to our mosquito service. We always request that we coordinate this service with the customer so that the grass is short when we visit, and that they avoid mowing (and thereby cutting off the product) for 4 days after we come. If you would like to learn more about our services or have questions, don’t hesitate to call or email us. We are always here to help: 979-859-5998
Tanner is both a pest control technician, a licensed applicator, and a misting system technician for Mosquito Joe of NW Houston and S Brazos Valley. He has been working with us since early 2020. Prior to that, Tanner attended Newman University on a golf scholarship and graduated Magnolia High.
