Q – I seem to have an abundance of mosquitoes in my back yard. How can I get rid of them?

JoAnn in Stockbridge

A – You can move.

Anything else will take some effort on your part.

Skeeters can breed in any sized pool of standing water in your yard. In a bucket or pail, in an old tire used for a tire swing, a bottle top, a sandbox, in your gutters, in your yard itself. Anywhere you have standing water, even the smallest of drops, you have a skeeter breading ground.

And guess what we have had an abundance of lately. Right. Water.

Therefore, the first step is to keep standing water out of your yard.

To help aid in getting rid of them permanently you will have to enlist the help of a pest control company. They can do a monthly spray (the spray is only effective for about 30 days) during peak skeeter season which will help keep down the population.

When I say ‘peak skeeter season’ that means as long as temperatures are over 70 degrees, so we have a lot of those months to go yet.

You want to make sure that the skeeter folks use a spray that won’t harm the little pollinators in your yard, the bees, the butterflies etc. You should also make sure the skeeter company will come back and re-treat if it rains after they spray. Also, that re-treatment should be free.

(It is also good to go with a company that offers monthly service. Frees you and your checkbook up a little, although a good skeeter company is worth their weight in bat poo...)

The spray will help keep the skeeter population down, but you may not ever be totally skeeter free.

What should you use if you are trying to enjoy your deck or patio?

Do mosquito candles work? Ehhhh. Bug zappers? Not really. Smoke? Not like you’d want it to.

The best thing for keeping skeeters away from you on the patio or deck is a good old-fashioned oscillating fan.

That’s right – a plain old oscillating house fan is probably your best bet. Skeeters are notoriously weak fliers so the breeze of the fan will help blow them away from you.

Extra info.

You never feel the mosquito biting you. You don’t feel them until after they have already had their fill of your blood, which is another reason why they are such a pain in the rear. Or arm. Or leg. Or neck…

One more thing.

Know what keeps mosquito population down?

Bats.

Look into building a bat house and maybe attracting some of those up-side-down sleeping, mosquito eating, guano pooping creatures. Might be just what you are looking for.