Three Tips To Reduce Mosquito Populations For Your Property
For many homeowners, the summer months will bring major mosquito problems. These insects can leave extremely uncomfortable bite marks, and they may also spread diseases to your family and pets. Unfortunately, homeowners will often take no steps to address this problem, but there are a few simple steps that can greatly reduce the prevalence of these pests on your property.
Improve Drainage
Standing water can be excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Unfortunately, properties that have poor drainage can be far more prone to developing puddles that can last for several days after heavy rains. Improving the drainage of your property will be essential for stopping this problem, and while this may seem like it will be a very difficult task, it can be done through the installation of gutters, outdoor drain tiles, and gravel.
Determining the best way of improving the drainage of the property will be difficult for a homeowner to do as there will be many factors that must be considered, such as soil composition and density. Therefore, you should leave drainage improvement projects to professionals as mistakes during this work could make the drainage issues worse.
Keep Ponds Stocked With Minnows And Other Small Fish
If your property has ponds on it, they can be a major source of mosquito breeding. Luckily, you can easily reduce the ability of mosquitoes to use these bodies of water for breeding by placing minnows or other small fish in the pond. When choosing fish, you will want to choose species that feed near the surface of the water as this is where mosquitoes and their eggs will be found. If your pond is particularly small, you may want to invest in an oxygen pump as the small surface area of the water may prevent enough oxygen from being absorbed by it.
Have The Property Professionally Treated
In addition to preventing the mosquitoes from breeding, you may also find that having the property professionally treated with pesticides can greatly reduce the prevalence of these insects. While there are home-based mosquito treatment kits that can be used, it can be difficult to effectively use these kits if you are unsure of the area where the mosquitoes will likely be. A professional pest control service will have technicians that will audit a property before treating it to determine the most likely areas that mosquitoes will target. This will allow these professionals to effectively reduce these pests while minimizing the amount of chemicals that will need to be applied to the property.
For more information, contact local professionals like those found at American Pest Control Inc.