Are you taking the bite out of your events?

One option that we provide that many people don’t think about is spraying to rid your yard of mosquitoes before any special events that you might be hosting.  Birthdays, weddings, baby showers, etc… are things that are often enjoyed outside during the months of September and October because of the milder temperatures. However, mosquitoes are only more than eager to take advantage of these opportunities to prey on your guests.

Mosquitoes are often unwanted guests

We have one customer who is holding her daughter’s wedding at her house in early October, and she has already started spraying her yard ahead of time.  She wants to make sure that she is controlling her mosquito population well in advance of the wedding.  What’s her reasoning in this? She told me that earlier this year she was at an outdoor wedding and the mosquitoes were so bad that nobody wanted to stay for the reception.  She said that she would be crushed if she would work so hard to prepare the perfect outdoor reception and then had no guests to enjoy it simply because of mosquitoes. The success of her daughter’s wedding and reception more than outweighs the cost of the spray in her mind, and she is even able to enjoy preparing the yard before the wedding without being bit by mosquitoes.

We know that you want your guests to be focused on enjoying themselves and not protecting themselves from mosquitoes, so let us spray your yard a couple of days before your event.

Marc LeDuc

More rain = More mosquitoes

It is interesting to note that even the local newspaper is writing stories now about the rise in mosquito populations this year in comparison to last year. (Click here for the article) They even quote a mosquito control manager as saying that it is up to 30% worse this year!

Heavy rains this year has been cited as the main reason for the increase in mosquito populations, as standing water is the easiest place for mosquitoes to breed.  Generally 4-7 days after a rain, mosquitoes are ready to hatch and attack  your yard.

On another note, in case you read the newspaper article including the comments at the bottom, you might have noticed that one reader did not approve of Mosquito Squad’s use of garlic to repel mosquitoes.  This reader says that they would like to have mosquitoes killed and not just repelled into their neighbor’s yards.  This does seem like a very understandable desire, but ultimately this reader just doesn’t know enough about our spray.

Our mosquito barrier garlic spray DOES kill the mosquitoes that are in a person’s yard during the spray by suffocating them.  The only mosquitoes that are repelled are the mosquitoes that are currently in the neighbor’s yards.  Our barrier spray causes the NEIGHBOR’S mosquitoes to not want to enter into a customer’s yard, so the neighbor is simply left with the same problem that he had before we ever sprayed – his own mosquito population.  Our spray just keeps the neighbor’s mosquitoes from entering the newly mosquito free yard of our customer.

Marc LeDuc

Does this work as a deer repellent?

This is a question that many customers have asked us, as they feel like they have seen a lot less deer in their yards, and we are working feverishly to try to definitively answer this important question.  Originally, we kept telling people that it isn’t rated as being able to repel deer, but then we discovered in the fine print of our gallon jugs of concentrated garlic that it repels deer.  Now before you run to the phone and call us up as a guaranteed fix for getting rid of deer, let me give you a few helpful thoughts.

Hostas are like candy to foraging deer

1. We don’t know how effective this product is as a deer repellent and whether it completely works every time.
2. We have sprayed around our office property that backs up to 400 acres of woods.  It would not be unusual to see 7-8 deer a day, but we haven’t seen any deer since we started spraying for mosquitoes.
3. We are testing with corn and hostas (a plant deer love) currently to see whether the deer will be deterred from even going after things that they love.
4. If our before mentioned tests prove that the mosquito barrier spray is highly effective at repelling deer, then we will probably create an option to spray your yard all year round to keep deer at bay even when mosquito season ends.
5. Our spray if effective would be MUCH cheaper than the other deer repellents that are on the market like liquid fence deer repellent.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write soon about some good news for all of you who have problems with deer eating your landscaping.  We are very excited about our tests and the potential to help you enjoy your yard all year long!

Marc LeDuc,

What about carpenter bees?

Oftentimes our mosquito barrier spray works so well at killing mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks that customers begin asking whether our product works on other pests as well.  One of the big questions we get in the south is if our spray might kill or deter carpenter bees, since these critters have a real potential for damaging people’s houses.

Unfortunately, our product can not help with carpenter bees, because it was specifically designed to not harm bees in order that it might be a quality product for people interested in vegetable or flower gardens.  These people really want bees to pollinate their flowers and vegetables, and so killing them or driving them away would be a huge detractor for many of our customers. Yes, this means that our product isn’t an all encompassing wonder spray for all pests, but it is really good at doing what it was designed to do – killing mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks while keeping good insects like bees and butterflies alive.

Better looking, more expensive bee trap

If you are reading this blog, though, and do have a carpenter bee problem, one product that I have researched and heard a lot of good things about (though I haven’t ever used it myself) is the Carpenter Bee Chamber. It is a bee trap that you place over existing carpenter bee holes, while not diminishing the appearance of the exterior of your house.

More noticeable, less expensive bee trap

If you are not as concerned with the exterior appearance, then this is a different bee trap that is about half the price. This trap hangs from your house like a bird house, or you can nail it into a section of your fascia that is being infested with carpenter bees.  This trap definitely looks a little more like a build-it-yourself trap, but the customer reviews on this product have been good on many different sites and blogs that I was able to google.

Marc LeDuc

I don’t normally like math…

Normally I try to avoid math as much as possible, because it is tedious and doesn’t seem that interesting.  Mosquito math, though, is actually quite eye catching, so I thought that I would share it with you the reproductive power of one female mosquito.

Do other mosquito options work?

As I have stated in earlier posts, I am not a big fan of insect repellents that I have to spray or rub on myself, since most of them leave me sticky, stinky, or both.  Other people have suggested to me to use other options, though, like citronella candles and mosquito traps, so I have been trying to do some research on these items.

Citronella candles need a lot of smoke to repel mosquitoes

From what I have been able to read on other blogs and product specifications, citronella candles are not effective over large areas.  The key to the candles is the amount of smoke produced, because this is what repels mosquitoes.  Many of the newer candles, in an effort to smell better, actually produce less smoke and are less effective.  Many people in blogs state that the effectiveness of these candles is less than 3 feet oftentimes.

Mosquito traps have a limited range of effectiveness

Mosquito traps are an even bigger question mark.  I have read of a few people who have had great success with them, but there are many more who have tried to get their money back from the companies (especially since most models cost $300 and up)! Even the people that saw success, however, only saw an effectiveness of about 30 feet.  This means that my yard would need 3 or 4 of these traps to cover it all.  Yikes!  And that doesn’t even cover the expense of filling the trap with propane and attractants every month.

Right now, our Mosquito Squad franchise is offering to spray your yard every 2 weeks for $50 a spray, since the mosquito season is halfway over.  Unfortunately, if you are struggling with mosquitoes, there is still 3 more months to go before they hibernate for the winter.

Marc LeDuc

Mosquitoes: Living it up in the heat

As the seemingly hot month of June turned into the scorching heat of July, many people have declared that they have not seen as many mosquitoes.  You want to probably know why?  It is because people don’t want to spend time outside when it is 95 degrees in the shade.  So it is pretty simple, if you are not outside, then you are not likely to see mosquitoes.

The life cycle of many mosquitoes speeds up with hotter weather.

The fact of the matter is, though, that several species of mosquitoes actually breed faster when there is more heat, even if there is not as much water.  This means that there is a much greater mosquito population being born.  Like I just stated, this doesn’t bother most people now, since they are more likely to be in their air conditioning.  However, when it cools down in a few months (September and October) people will begin to brave going outdoors again for hamburgers on the grill, and what will they find – quite possibly a burgeoning mosquito population.

Bites will be coming fast and furious, because the mosquitoes in your yard have been multiplying like crazy while we have been indoors.  This is why I would possibly suggest trying to secure a solution for eliminating your mosquito problem before you actually want to enjoy your yard in order that you won’t be caught napping, because at a whopping 300 eggs per birth cycle your mosquito population is wide awake!

Marc LeDuc

Who hates mosquito repellent?

I for one totally hate spraying myself down with mosquito repellent and feeling sticky and smelly while I am trying to enjoy the outdoors, but oftentimes it seems like the only option.  Here at Mosquito Squad we are trying to eliminate the need for spraying yourself by spraying your yard.  This way you don’t have to feel like this cartoon that I found the other day.

I think many of you can empathize with this picture.

This is a link to another blogger who hates mosquitoes like us at Mosquito Squad, and he has a great viewpoint about how he deals with them in his life.  He has some possible ideas for natural mosquito repellents.

Also, here is a link to a website that lists 7 natural mosquito repellents that have some of the best customer reviews.

Marc LeDuc,

A defined mosquito barrier is a reality

Many people wonder how effective our mosquito spraying will be if their neighbors have a lot of mosquitoes as well.  The conversation goes something like this.

Customer: “I know your spray kills the mosquitoes in my yard, but my neighbors have mosquito problems too and they aren’t spraying to kill their mosquitoes.

OR

Customer: “”I know your spray kills the mosquitoes in my yard, but there is a large creek or pond in the woods behind my house that isn’t being sprayed.

Well, the answer to their question is always that our all natural product produces a barrier that mosquitoes from outside of your property do not want to penetrate.  There are plenty of other better options for them to fly to than your yard.

It's not quite the great wall of China, but our barrier works pretty well.

Now, though, I have a pretty cool example to share with you of how our mosquito control spray creates a barrier around your yard.  There is a yard in Aiken, SC that I have been spraying for a solid month and a half, and this customer has never had any complaints about mosquitoes reappearing after I have sprayed.  However, this last weekend he cut down a lot of small trees, bushes and weeds in the back of his property that he never had me spraying before.  He succeeded in expanding his usable landscape, but he also succeeded in being attacked by mosquitoes.  This customer said that he sees no evidence of mosquitoes in the part of his yard that I have regularly sprayed, but when he goes into this new section of his yard, he gets eaten very quickly.

The reality that he is experiencing is that there is a mosquito barrier now that is splitting his backyard in half.  I sprayed this new section of his yard July 13th, and he hasn’t had any problems since then.  The barrier has been moved back farther and thus the mosquitoes have been pushed back farther.

Marc LeDuc

Do I use Mosquito Squad?

Oftentimes people naturally ask me whether or not I use Mosquito Barrier at my house to keep my own yard free of mosquitoes.  Up until about a week ago, I would have to somewhat embarrassingly reply that I didn’t use it.  I was telling my boss about this, and so he just told me to start spraying my house regularly when I have extra product at the end of the work day.

Providing fun for my little friends!

This was super exciting for me, because my yard has been full of mosquitoes for several months now.  The mosquitoes have been particularly troublesome to my wife and I, since we love have kids at our new house for sleepovers and they were just getting bit up all over whenever they would be outside. Needless to say, we didn’t feel like great hosts when these children were getting attacked by mosquitoes so much at our house.

The point of this whole post, though, is that I sprayed my yard last week before our latest sleepover with five boys from ages 4-7, and we played tag in the sprinkler system, had a crab apple fight, and ate hot dogs and popsicles outside without anyone complaining about mosquitoes.  It was tons of fun, and that is what Mosquito Squad is all about – giving people their lives back!

Marc LeDuc