All posts by Mosquito Joe

 
Here at Mosquito Joe of S Brazos Valley, we ALWAYS let our customers choose what they want to do with their accounts. We don’t have contracts and we always let our customers make choices about when they want service and when they don’t. Having said that, we are here to advise and educate – one of the questions we get a lot is, “do we really need you guys in the winter?”

Mosquito activity is temperature-dependent and it’s pretty easy to guess our answer based on this information. Two things are required for them to hibernate: a week of temperatures under 55 degrees, or 3 deep freezes in a row. Until either of these things happen, the mosquito is a happy camper.

While it is true that higher temperatures drive the population up, the same can be true for stagnant water and moist soil. In the winter, the leaves and pine needles on the groundwork drive up this issue – keeping the ground from drying up and providing shade and moisture that mosquitoes love. Gutters tend to get clogged and hold water as well and we struggle to keep up with them as the leaves fall. For those with gutter covers, you are not safe either. The leaves and debris that land on top of the covers will get wet and break down. These particles form a nasty sludge in the gutters that often gets overlooked.

So, the short answer is yes, you need mosquito control in the winter here in Texas since our winter is mild in comparison to other areas of the country. You know you are in Texas when you get bitten on Christmas Day.

Since temperatures vary every year, Mosquito Joe will treat unless you don’t need the service – a good example is the snowpocalypse earlier this year. The temperatures were cold enough that mosquitoes were hibernating, so we let all our customers know they didn’t need service. But as soon as the temperatures hit that 55-degree mark, mosquitoes went back to normal, and we resumed service.

There are some things you can do to minimize issues in the winter, and they all involve yard maintenance (sorry):

1. Rake often and well. The less leaf litter you have, the less wet soil to encourage egg-laying.
2. Avoid the desire to pile up the leaves in the corner of the yard – this will just make things worse.
3. If you have gutter covers make sure you use a hose to flush them out after the leaves have fallen. Repeat this in the spring to minimize issues as the temperatures heat up.
4. Check your gutters often – and don’t forget the downspouts. If enough leaves fall in them, they can get blocked, and the result is a pipe full of water. We see this a lot and it creates a huge mosquito issue. It’s also impossible to treat since our technicians can’t get to that water.
5. Speaking of maintenance, make sure your gutters are flowing correctly and not holding water. Over time, and especially if they get full of debris, the gutters can start angling incorrectly so that they hold water rather than flushing it off the roof.
6. Avoid piles of branches and brush if you take advantage of the cooler months to trim down shrubs. The same issue will result in terms of shade and moist ground.
7. Make sure that your plant pots, wheelbarrows, yard debris, and kid toys are all put away or stored upside down.

It’s the question we often hear and the answer we hate giving, but the fact of the matter is mosquitoes don’t go away in Texas. The activity level, which is driven by temperatures and weather (read water), will dimmish but they won’t go away.

After the snowpocalypse of 2021, we had a LOT of people calling us complaining that the mosquitoes were back and asking why the freezing temperatures didn’t kill them. It’s logical to think that the little suckers were wiped out with such extreme (for Texas) weather, but sadly, that’s not how it works. You only have to think about Alaska and its intense mosquito issues every summer to realize that mosquitoes are incredibly resilient and unaffected by a freeze. They simply go to sleep and wake up when the temperature hits about 50-55 degrees and life goes on as normal.

So, if they don’t go away what happens? It varies year by year with our weather of course, but there are some general rules of thumb we can expect. Some species of mosquitoes that we have in Texas have become less active. The adults die and their eggs lay in wait until the temperatures climb a bit. Those eggs are often laid in areas that are prone to holding water, and often under and around fallen leaves. Therefore, keeping your yard tidy will help so much come spring. Other species of mosquitoes actually prefer cooler temperatures and will become more active, like the Culiseta inomata. Known as the “winter” mosquito, it prefers cooler temperatures and is active across Texas. It is also a vector for West Nile, which is another reason that managing the water and leaf litter/pine needles/gutters in your yard should be a year-round focus and not something you only consider in the summer.

We say this a lot in our blogs, but it’s always worth repeating. Mosquitoes are active unless one of the following 2 things occurs.
1. The temperatures fall under 55 degrees and stay under for a week.
2. We have 3 deep freezes in a row.

What is also important to remember, and often overlooked, is that as soon as the temperatures rise over 55 degrees, they all wake back up and proceed as if nothing had happened. Mosquito eggs can live 10 years in the ground and then a single drop of water can hit it and it will hatch. Mosquitoes have been around for over 200 MILLION YEARS! They are the worlds’ deadliest creatures and have evolved to manage weather and, frankly, laugh in the face of it.

Knowing that they never go away is important. It brings a new understanding to our fall chores of raking and gutter management. It’s not just about making things look managed and tidy, but it goes a long way to reducing your issues not only in the here and now, but in the spring when things really start kicking up a notch.

If you have any questions don’t ever hesitate to give us a call. We believe that educating folks about mosquitoes is so important and advice is always free!

It’s October, a time when many Texans wish for cool, crisp air and pumpkin flavored everything. The reality is that we are usually still sweltering in the heat and sipping our pumpkin lattes in the AC.

There are several things you can count on in Texas in October: pumpkins will immediately begin disintegrating once placed on your patio, the leaves will fall while the trees will seemingly continue to produce more leaves to fall, and mosquitoes will bite you.

There are several things to be aware of this time of year to help your little trick and treaters from getting bitten. Firstly, your Halloween decorations can hold a lot of water, particularly items like plastic pumpkins, which can sneakily fill up with water after rain or running your sprinklers. The same goes for plastic signage in the yard. Any open top items will also gather water of course. The use of hay bales in your yard décor will encourage biting midges and gnats, particularly fungus gnats, to gather in droves as the hay gets wet and warm. The same is true for those decomposing pumpkins, so keep an eye on them and get rid of them once they start the dreaded pumpkin slump (which for some reason always seems to happen on the side not facing you.)

Now to the impact of falling leaves in your yard. Firstly, they fill up your gutters at an alarming rate, clogging up the works and causing pockets of water in the gutters after rain. Combine this standing water with the resulting decomposition of the leaves and you end up with a mosquito breeding ground that you neither see nor often consider. With one teaspoon breeding 300 mosquitoes every couple of days, these gutters will really contribute to your population. On the ground the fallen leaves provide shade and dampness mosquitoes love. Once you decide to rake the ground you will see the mosquitoes rise up as they fly off to find shade elsewhere. It’s another job no one enjoys, but it is so important to keep your yard devoid of as much of this ground cover as you can this time of year. Mosquitoes are active until temperatures fall under 55 degrees and remain there for at least a week. That never happens in Texas in the fall, and for that matter very rarely in the winter either.

So, the takeaway is: manage the water both in your décor and in your gutters. Keep the leaves and pine needles picked up from the ground and keep those gutters clean. Be aware of the impact of decomposing vegetation in the yard – keep an eye on those pumpkins. Let’s see those trick and treaters leave your yard with candy and not bites!

If you need help controlling the population of mosquitoes in your yard, give us a call. We will provide a quote over the phone at no charge, and we are always happy to offer advice and suggestions for you to help. The mosquito is the world’s most dangerous creature, and we want to help spread the word on how to reduce the population so we can all benefit from the results. Give us a call at 979-859-5998 for more information!

A lot of the inquiries we receive come from folks who have issues both inside and outside the home with mosquitoes. We wanted to help clarify some of the misunderstandings we often hear regarding mosquitoes in the house.

Firstly, contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes do not want to be inside.  They want warm, wet soil and plant life to feed from. Certainly, mosquitoes can gather by your doorways, seeking shade from the sun under the eaves of your home. But they typically make their way inside by mistake – the force of the air movement and suction when a door opens can pull them inside. Mosquitoes are not good fliers at all, and given their size and body weight, even a light breeze can disrupt their flight.

Once inside mosquitoes are facing a very short life span. Without food (plant nectar from the underside of leaves) and water, they won’t survive long. They will congregate by windows to try and get back outside. To help alleviate the issues of mosquitoes inside you should control the numbers outside (we have provided some easy-to-follow steps to do this in several of our previous blog posts, but the less water in your yard the better off you are.) The other thing you can do to help is to avoid having your outside lights on at night – these will draw mosquitoes and other insects up to the house and make the situation worse. This includes bug zappers which only serve to draw mosquitoes close by but won’t kill them (mosquitoes won’t fly into the light but instead start looking for CO2 plumes.) Hanging mosquito traps near the house is also a bad plan. You draw mosquitoes in from the yards around you, and then get bitten when the mosquito opts for you over a trap (mosquitoes seek you out both via CO2 plumes and by heat.)

Speaking of other insects, the majority of the time that we receive calls for mosquitoes inside the house they are not mosquitoes at all. They are, instead, lake flies or “biting midges.” These guys look very similar to a mosquito, maybe just a tad smaller, and bite the same way. What’s interesting about them is that they are often found in bathrooms and the customer assumes they came in through an open door. The truth is they mostly come in through your drains. The sludge that builds up in your u-bends makes for the perfect home for them to lay eggs.

There is a super simple way to prevent this issue, and we recommend to every customer that they do this twice a year. Simply pour an eighth of a gallon of bleach into each drain and then flush with hot water for 5 minutes.  The bleach helps break up the sludge and the hot water will flush the drains out. In bathrooms that are rarely used, such as a guest bath, close the drains where you can. Within a few days you will see a dramatic improvement. Of course, if you need help reducing the population of mosquitoes and biting midges outside you can reach us 979-859-5998. We provide our quotes at no charge and there are never any contracts with us.

Ahhh August…incredibly hot, incredibly humid and the most active month of the year for hurricanes. It won’t be long until the kids go back to school and just a few more months before the weather cools, but for now we are in the thick of things.

Hurricane season is a stressful time here at Mosquito Joe. Obviously, it is a stressful time for everyone as we worry about damage to property and flooding impacts in the area and to our property. However, we have some additional stressors that can impact us at the office. We don’t treat when it is raining, so weather this time of year can really impact our ability to keep everyone on track. Beyond that, the results of the rains and flooding has a massive impact on the mosquito population. Water washes into properties we treat, bringing with it mosquito eggs that begin a whole new life cycle in a yard where we recently had control. The quantity of rain itself will increase the population of mosquitoes tenfold. All the water left behind will continue to increase this population if we don’t take action.

We all have a plan in place in the case of a weather disaster. Many of us have a stock of beans and rice, a battery powered radio, a collection of water bottles, etc. And while we all head out to help neighbors remove fallen trees or assist stranded cars, we don’t often think of the impact of the weather on mosquitoes.  From a health standpoint, controlling the mosquito population is important.  The county will often send out trucks to spray and reduce the numbers, but since this spray is only done on the streets, hitting some of the culverts, it won’t impact what is going on in your backyard.

We would like to suggest that you also implement a simple, but important, mosquito reduction plan after the weather that will make a huge difference in your backyard:

1. Clear out your gutters – any debris that has fallen in will mean water will get trapped up there, breeding mosquitoes for you.
2. Rake up fallen leaves and pine needles. They act to keep the ground wet and prevent everything from drying out.
3. Along the same lines, as soon as you are able, mow the yard. This again will help dry out the ground and rid you of standing water.
4. Empty out every container in the yard of water. Just a teaspoon (a capful from a bottle of water) will breed 300 mosquitoes every few days, so even the small amounts you might not notice (saucers under plant pots) will increase the population. Turn pots and containers upside down, remove kids’ toys (it’s amazing how much water they hold after a rain), and make sure you are not missing those small places that mosquitoes won’t. Don’t forget any tarps in the yard either!

It doesn’t sound like much, but the impact of these 4 steps can reduce your mosquito population substantially and really make things more manageable in your yard.  We highly encourage everyone to make this plan a part of your “post storm” routine.