Many parts of the country have experienced a lot of rain this year. With rain, comes a lot of mosquitoes. I was recently talking to a member of our franchise support staff who travels all over the country visiting our Mosquito Squad locations and he was telling me about the huge mosquito populations from Georgia to Maine to Chicago. Even areas that are just experiencing small bursts of rain are seeing the increase in these pesky bugs.
Standing water is essential for mosquito reproduction. Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water and in just a few short days (if the weather conditions are right), there can be 10s or 100s of new mosquitoes. When it rains, as you can imagine, small pools of water (many of which you wouldn’t notice) begin to form in different areas, creating the perfect spot for mosquitoes to breed.
At Mosquito Squad, we’ve had a growth in our client numbers due to the rain. It is so hard to combat mosquitoes and rid your yard of their presence when rain continues to come so professional mosquito control is much needed. In some cases, we have had to increase the number of sprays for the season to fight them effectively.
Mosquitoes are most active at dawn and dusk, but they can bite any time of day. In summers like this one where we have had a lot of rain, we encourage our clients to take extra preventative measures when venturing outside their mosquito control protected yard. Loose long sleeved shirts and pants are a good first step (less skin to bite), but also topical mosquito mist should be applied to areas of the skin that aren’t covered. When rain and mosquito numbers are high, we usually see an increase in the number of mosquito-borne illnesses, so mosquito prevention is very important.