4 Ways to Get Rid of Backyard Mosquitos and Ticks

When I’m not in front of the computer, I love unplugging to enjoy time outside but as we approach summer, warm weather, thunderstorms, and humidity means onslaught of mosquitos that adore me. It’s always been hard to enjoy dinner al fresco when mosquitos are at their prime but even walking from our driveway to our back door or stepping outside to at what’s almost ready to harvest in our backyard garden leaves me with giant red welts. It’s always been a family effort to eliminate standing water in taking back our backyard from biting bugs.

Mosquitoes and ticks are not just a nuisance but they can also carry diseases such as West Nile Virus and Lyme Disease that can be harmful to family and pets. It’s important to eliminate possible breeding sites because many types of mosquitoes have limited flight spans and are slow so they often target their next blood meal within a few hundred feet of breeding site.

With these 4 simple actions, your family can help keep the mosquito population at bay.

Survey your yard.

Identify key places where standing water collects, creating prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Involve your kids.

We all know that many hands make light work so here’s how to work together after a rainstorm to make dumping water fun.

• Go on a scavenger hunt. Walk your yard together in search of items like sand toys, pot saucers pails, and the family kiddie pool that are prime collection points for standing water.
• Race to dump the water. After children get used to spotting items in the yard where water regularly connects, send them outside after a rainstorm for a race! Set the timer for a few minutes and ask them to count how many things they found with dumping water. This gets the competitive juices flowing but they can come together and add up the numbers for a little summer math lessons that requires them to work together.

Let more sun into your yard

By cutting back tree branches, you’re creating sunnier spaces where mosquitos are less likely to thrive.

Spray

I was always a little hesitant to spray because of our pets, backyard vegetable garden, and two kids who love to play outside all year round but last year I hired D.C. Mosquito Squad to come and spray our yard and for the first time in 14 years, I was able to enjoy our yard again. It seemed like an expensive indulgence but hiring a mosquito control company to rid our yard of blood-sucking mosquitos and ticks was well worth it.

Mosquito Squad has two different spray plans to choose from- the regular barrier spray or all-natural option. Both greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes on your property and is effective for up to 3 weeks. Unlike many DIY remedies or candles that lose their effectiveness after a short amount of time, Mosquito Squad’s treatment is a perfect solution that eliminated the need for applying smelly, DEET-containing repellents directly on my skin.

Mosquito Squad’s most popular service is their standard barrier treatment applied by a professional who carries the spray like a backpack and applies it to the front and/or back your yard for maximum coverage. It kills mosquitoes for twenty-one days but is safe for pets (including our backyard chickens who eat bugs and our Labrador, Oliver), kids, and fruit and vegetable gardens.

For more information visit D.C. Mosquito Squad and connect with them on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, or Instagram. Their blog is also full of helpful information, regardless of where in the country you live.

This post was written in partnership with D.C. Mosquito Squad who is providing standard barrier treatment for our yard this summer. Some images courtesy of Mosquito Squad. Others taken by Emily Barr.