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Paul Gould

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.

Give Mosquito Joe of S Brazos Valley a call today to learn more about our mosquito control and other outdoor pest control services!

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:

1. Keep your gutters flowing and free of debris.
2. Turn all containers upside down and store them out of the elements (plant pots, wheelbarrows, saucers under plant pots, gutter drains, etc.).
3. 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.
4. Minimize the use of tarps – one tarp can create multiple pockets of standing water.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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!
9. 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.

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:

1. Pour 3 “glugs” of household bleach into every drain, shower, tub and sink in the house.
2. Let the bleach sit for 5-10 minutes.
3. Run your water on hot for 5 minutes in each drain.
4. 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

We all know that, as the summer heats up, so do the mosquitoes. But we often get asked why this happens, and why we don’t see as many when the temperatures drop. We thought it would make an interesting blog post to break down the impact of temperatures on mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are incapable of regulating their body temperature as they are cold blooded. This has an impact on when we see them and where, since their body temperature will essentially be the same as the environment, they are in. It’s the reason why we see them in the shade but not the sun – a mosquito venturing out into the Texas sun during the day will get a nasty surprise and not live to talk about it.

Essentially, there are some temperature parameters for the mosquito that we can follow. Temperatures under 50 degrees F force the mosquito into hibernation. Some mosquitoes will die, but others, already lethargic when the temperature drops into the mid 50’s, will shelter under leaves and may live to see the temperatures rise again. In Texas that may only be a few days, as we like to ping pong from cold to hot in the cooler months. Some species of mosquito are much better at dealing with the weather changes, while others will perish once the temperatures reach a low level. Female mosquitoes preparing to lay eggs will often hibernate and lay them when the temperatures warm.

On the other side of the scale, we have heat. Mosquitoes don’t enjoy incredibly high temperatures, but they have evolved over millions of years to develop coping strategies to deal with them. Mosquitoes will come out at night to feed, bite, and mate, and then shelter in the shade during the day waiting for the temperatures to drop down again.

As we continue to see weather changes worldwide, so too do we see changes in mosquito presence. Over the decade between 1980 and 1990, mosquito season in New York City was about 141 days long. In 2006, it was 153 days long. As our temperatures increase, so too do the number of days when mosquitoes coexist with us. In 2021, the increase in storms and rain that summer, along with the warmer than expected temperatures, resulted in a 300 fold increase in mosquitoes in Tammany Parish, LA, while Luzerne County, PA, reported more mosquitoes in 2021 than the combined total from the previous 10 years.

As is typical in Texas, we had a “practice summer” in April this year, followed by a long, endless deluge of rain in May, which resulted in a rather epic mosquito population as we entered June.

But the real key to the population are the mosquito eggs. We tell everyone who will listen just how amazing mosquito eggs are. You can freeze one in a block of ice and melt it a few years later, and it will hatch. You can shelve a mosquito egg for 10 years, and then apply a drop of water to it and it will hatch.

The fact of the matter is, while mosquitoes are impacted by temperatures, mosquito eggs are not. After a ton of rain, mosquitoes will lay eggs, in groups of 300 at a time, everywhere there is standing water. Those eggs will lie in wait, if the temperatures are too cool, until the right time and then they hatch. Once the temperature hits 50 degrees they are off to the races. Sometimes, the area where they are laid dried up, but that’s ok. They will just wait for some new rain and then hatch.

What is crazy to think about is the rapidity with which a mosquito populates its space. Let’s say a female (Aedes) mosquito flies out of the woods into your yard and finds a hole in a tree trunk with water inside, or a pool deck drain holding water under the ground. She pauses and lays her 300 eggs and moves on. And let’s say that 50% of those 300 eggs become females, which will occur about 4-6 days later. You now have 150 females, who will hatch, immediately breed, find a blood meal, and lay their 300 eggs. Eight to twelve days after the female first arrived, you now 150 females producing 150 females a piece, or 22,500 females. Twelve to eighteen days after the first arrived those 22,500 females produce 150 females a piece, and you have 3.3 million females in your yard. In two weeks! Granted some of the original females will no longer be with you, but at this point we don’t think it would matter.

In summary, it’s more than the temperature that impacts the population – it’s the weather and the rain and the locations in your yard that provide the perfect place for egg laying. The perfect storm is Texas weather. Rarely under 50 degrees, often hot and usually humid with rain.

If you want to know how to control your population check out some of our earlier blog posts that provide some great advice. Or you can just call us, and we can take care of your yard for you with one of our treatment options!

The mosquitoes in your yard can seem relatively absent during the day, but most of us have experienced the excessive amount of activity in the evenings, and the resulting bites we greet the next morning. So why are they so active at night, and where do they all go the next day?

Before we answer this question, we must add a caveat. Asian Tiger mosquitoes are the oddity here as they are out during the day as well. If you see larger than normal mosquitoes, with an easy-to-spot black-and-white color, you have Asian Tigers. These mosquitoes are container breeders – their favorite home is an old tire. If you want to reduce the quantity of these mosquitoes have a quick spruce up, flip pots and open containers, and check your woods for discarded trash under leaves.

For the rest of the mosquito breeds we have in this part of Texas, we don’t tend to see them during daylight hours. So why?

Much of it has to do with their size. Mosquitoes are very small, and they are unable to regulate their body temperature efficiently. Sun exposure in Texas can dehydrate a mosquito and kill it rapidly. Mosquitoes also expend a lot of energy in flight, which makes sense given their size.  As a result, they must feed, and feed a lot.

It’s a common misconception that mosquitoes bite us to feed off our blood. It’s only the female that bites, and she does so only when she needs protein to lay eggs. Every time you get a bite somewhere in the yard a female mosquito is preparing to lay about 300 eggs.

Mosquitoes obtain their energy from and eat, plant nectar. During the day they head for the green plants in your yard and shelter on the undersides of leaves – keeping them fed and safe from the sun. At dawn and dusk, when the temperatures drop, mosquitoes can safely leave their hiding spots, and the females set about finding warm-blooded creatures to bite, while the males look for breeding partners.

Beyond the sun, there is also another factor that impacts the number of mosquitoes that will be out, and that is all related to water. Mosquitoes need water to survive, and we are not talking in the sense that they must drink it. Rather, mosquitoes need water to lay eggs – the life cycle of a mosquito is such that they spend the first part of their lives in water as larvae and pupae. The geography of your yard will impact your mosquito population – a creek, uneven ground, stagnant water (in a wheelbarrow, trash can, the hole at the base of the tree, and French drains, are some locations to name a few), and damp ground covered in leaf debris or pine needles all increase the presence of mosquitoes nearby.

Mosquitoes are also attracted to light. However, they will only be attracted into your yard – they won’t fly towards a bug zapper, or hover around your patio lights like moths do. Keeping your yard tidy, removing standing water and ground cover, and minimizing your bright lights will all go a long way to making your yard less hospitable. Mosquitoes have been around since the dinosaurs for good reason. If you are tired of having your evening ruined by mosquitoes, just give us a call for a free quote for mosquito control services. We will manage the water in your yard, eliminate the mosquitoes living in it, and help you adjust your yard so you can enjoy your outside again. Call us today at 979-859-5998 if you have any questions!