Why larviciding and Nassau County mosquito misting will not eliminate the mosquitoes in your backyard

There is a long history of mosquito control in Nassau County, which without their efforts there would be many, many more mosquitoes here. But have you noticed that you still have a lot of mosquitoes in your yard? That’s because their efforts are extremely limited, and only concentrated in public areas. The county’s main “attack strategy,” if you will, is low-altitude larviciding in salt water marshes to control the mosquito population. What this means is that they fly over the South Shore salt marshes (and others) at a very low height in a helicopter and dump a liquid larvicide into the water, which kills mosquitoes in their earlier-life-cycle stages and thus controls the large-scale, public mosquito population from growing.

The mosquito misting Nassau County does, as they plainly state on their website, Pesticides that kill adult mosquitoes on contact (also called adulticides) are used only when a public health threat is imminent and other control measures have proved insufficient.

While we here at Mosquito Squad applaud Nassau County’s mosquito control efforts to the public as a whole in public areas, they stop short at actually providing mosquito control for its citizens where they’re most likely to get bitten — at home in their own yards.

Why? There are a few reasons. The first is that mosquitoes usually live their entire lives in a limited area, with travel ranges depending on the mosquito. The Asian Tiger Mosquito, which is responsible for diseases such as Zika virus, yellow fever, and dengue fever, prefer to live and breed around the house, with a flight range of no more than 300 feet. Most species of mosquitoes, like the common house mosquito (Culex pippiens) have a flight range of between one and three miles. This mosquito is the main vector of West Nile virus, the most common mosquito-borne disease. So, unless you live in the middle of or right next door to one of the public areas that Nassau County is larviciding, the mosquitoes they’re controlling would not likely be biting you, anyway.

The mosquito misting Nassau County does, as they mentioned, only happens when there is a public health threat imminent, and is only what is known as adulticide. Adulticide only knocks down adult mosquitoes on contact, and the fogging trucks that they drive around at night that fog up the air with their adulticide only eliminate the mosquitoes in the fog’s path, which is rarely any further than the end of your driveway.

Both these tactics leave a LOT of opportunity to live and breed comfortably in the private sanctuary of a homeowner’s yard. It only takes a thimble full of water to host a raft of 300 mosquito eggs, which can mature to breeding adults within a week. As we explained in our last blog post, it only takes a single female mosquito to produce a domino effect of over a billion mosquitoes in four weeks.

Mosquito Squad’s mosquito misting for your Nassau County home provides both larviciding andadulticiding for the mosquito population in your yard, and continues to eliminate nearly 90% of the mosquitos in your yard for up to three weeks. Our EPA-registered formula is micro-encapuslated to ensure it is time released, much like an extended-release prescription that you might get from your doctor. It is also odorless and colorless, so you don’t even notice it — except you know it’s working when you notice you’re not getting eaten alive in your yard by mosquitoes!

Call Mosquito Squad of Southeastern Nassau today for the most effective mosquito control you can find, and protect yourself and your family where it matters most — at home in your own yard. Our number is (516) 874-3003. We guarantee you’ll be 100% satisfied or your money back. Say Good Riddance to Mosquitoes®.