Yes, a one-time special event treatment is built exactly for outdoor parties, weddings, and other gatherings where you want the mosquitoes gone for a day. It’s applied a day or two ahead and knocks down the biting population so your guests can have a good time.
If you’re being bitten by mosquitoes you can’t see, it is probably the Aedes mosquito, since they bite during the day and they tend to go for spots like ankles. You can reduce their presence the same way you can with other mosquitoes: remove standing water where they breed and treat shaded areas where they rest.
Rain helps mosquitoes breed because it creates more pools of standing water for breeding. But in LA, irrigation is a bigger problem because it creates standing water even in the dry season.
Professional treatment is designed to be applied so that, once dry, kids can use the yard normally. The products are EPA-registered and applied per label instructions by trained technicians.
In Los Angeles, the established threat is West Nile virus, spread by Culex mosquitoes. The bigger problem is that the invasive Aedes mosquito is now common across the area, which can transmit dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, diseases California historically only saw in returning travelers.
Big mosquito swarms often start from small water sources right next to the house. LA has invasive mosquitoes that breed in tiny amounts of water, so the source is probably not far from you.
The swarms usually trace back to small, overlooked water sources right around the house. LA's invasive mosquitoes breed in tiny amounts of water close to where you live, so the source is rarely far away.
Invasive Aedes mosquitoes are small, black-and-white daytime biters that have become common in California in the past decade. They breed in tiny containers of water, bite aggressively during the day, and can carry diseases like dengue and Zika.
Some mosquitoes, especially the invasive Aedes species, target the legs and feet because that's where certain scent cues concentrate and because they tend to approach low and from below.
A mosquito breeding source is essentially any standing water that sits still for a few days, and it takes shockingly little. Anything from a clogged gutter or a plant saucer to a bottle cap, a tarp fold, or a pet bowl can become one.
Invasive Aedes mosquitoes are naturally daytime biters, most active in the late afternoon and early evening, while the more familiar Culex mosquitoes feed mainly at dusk and night. It's a difference in species behavior, not a change in habits.
Invasive Aedes mosquitoes lay their eggs just above the waterline on the damp inner walls of small containers, not directly in the water. The eggs are tough and drought-resistant, able to survive drying out for months and then hatch once water rises to reach them.
It's possible, though uncommon. A mosquito that has fed on different infected hosts can pick up more than one pathogen, and if it does, a single bite could pass along multiple diseases at once.
A single infected mosquito can bite multiple people over its lifetime, infecting everyone it bites. Because a female mosquito feeds several times as she produces eggs, one infected mosquito can spread a pathogen to a number of people. This is how a few infected mosquitoes can turn into a full-scale local outbreak.
In a mild climate like Southern California's, invasive Aedes mosquitoes can stay active nearly year-round, with far less of an off-season than mosquitoes in colder regions.
You check by dragging a light-colored cloth slowly through the shaded, brushy parts of the yard and the edges near any wild vegetation, since that's where ticks wait. In much of flat, irrigated Los Angeles the tick risk is low, but properties near the foothills, canyons, and open space are a different story and worth checking.
