Mosquitoes are streamlined flying insects that seek out living prey. They are nocturnal which means they travel and hunt mostly at night. As you know, however, mosquitoes are opportunists and will bite during the day. They usually find the shade of grass or of plants to rest underneath when they're not out in search of their next blood meal.
At dawn, dusk, and through the night, they hover about looking for a meal. As they fly their proportionately long legs lazily hang, sprawled beneath their slender bodies. After they identify their living target, they gingerly land and inject their prey with vasodilators. These "vasodilators" contain traces of their last victim's blood, anticoagulants, and an organic chemical that acts as both a blood thinner and a numbing compound. At this point during the mosquito's feeding cycle, they also transmit dangerous diseases to their victims such as the Zika virus, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, encephalitis, yellow fever, and malaria.
The list of diseases is still growing. It seems mosquitoes become scarier every time they are put under the microscope. This isn't just true in Spokane Washington, mosquitoes are the most dangerous animal in the whole world in terms of human death. The unfortunate truth is that many places have no practical way to control dense mosquito populations.
How To Keep Mosquitoes From Biting
It's inevitable that you will likely be bitten by a mosquito several times in your life. However, there are some measures you can take to keep mosquitoes from biting you.
Cover your body. Mosquitoes will not bite areas that they cannot access. Therefore, if you wear long sleeves and long pants, you are less likely to suffer from a mosquito bite. Furthermore, mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors, so wear white or bright shades to prevent them from making you their next meal.
Use repellants. You can mask your scent and prevent mosquitoes from biting you by using CDC-approved mosquito repellants that contain DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus, para-methane-diol, or 2-undecanone. However, when using these repellants, be sure to spray the exterior of your clothing and avoid spraying your skin directly. Some people swear by natural repellants that use ingredients such as citronella and lemon balm while others find these repellants ineffective. Feel free to try them out to decide for yourself.
How To Prevent Mosquitoes In Your Spokane Yard
Though some mosquitoes are inevitable, there are some preventative measures you can take to help keep your population under control. If you think you have mosquitoes, shake the bushes in your yard. Most of the time this will reveal a mosquito problem.
Mosquitoes love the deciduous forest here in the valley. Our high annual rainfall creates the perfect mosquito habitat. That is why we need to keep our yards free of standing water. It only takes one to two weeks for mosquito eggs to become full-grown pests. So as soon as it stops raining, be sure to dump any pooling water. Be sure to check tarps, children's toys, wheelbarrows, tires, buckets, clogged gutters, boat covers, and birdbath. These unsuspecting areas are often overlooked and contribute to your mosquito population.
Call The Pros At Alta Pest Control
By limiting standing water sources we can keep mosquitoes populations down. By checking our hedges and bushes in our yards we can notice problems early. Unfortunately, we have less control over the areas outside of our yards and we know mosquitoes thrive in those areas as well. That is why in Spokane, it's often necessary to use ongoing pest control assistance, especially for reliable mosquito control.
Spokane has several kinds of biting insects and our experts at Alta Pest Control set up an intuitive pest control plan for whatever might be in your yard.
If you start noticing mosquitoes in your yard, or if they were a problem in previous years, reach out to the professionals at Alta Pest Control today. We'd love to help.
