Can Mosquitoes Infest My House Or Apartment?
Contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes can establish breeding populations indoors. These parasitic insects don’t need a lot to set up shop. Mosquitoes only need two things to thrive: food and stagnant water. It’s common for them to find these things in your house plants. For example, if you have flowering plants in indoor pots, there’s the perfect food and water source right there!
Mosquitoes can feed on the nectar in the flowers and breed in the water that collects in plants’ dishes. Some mosquitoes can even breed in the moist soil inside the pot itself. Of course, when female mosquitoes need a protein source to lay their eggs, they don’t have to look very far to find one. Your house is full of bloodmeal sources like your pets, kids, and you. This, of course, opens you up to exposure to the viruses carried by mosquitoes, including Zika, viral encephalitis, and West Nile.
How Do Apartments And Houses Get Infested With Mosquitoes?
Your home or apartment gets infested most of the time when you inadvertently let mosquitoes inside. For instance, if a couple of female mosquitoes come inside your house or apartment while you’re walking through the door and find an excellent spot to lay their eggs, you could have a breeding population of mosquitoes in as little as a few days. It’s that easy.
What Is Attracting Mosquitoes To My House?
The same things that attract mosquitoes to your backyard can attract them to your house. Mosquitoes are attracted to ideal breeding spots and accessible food sources. That means if you have lots of still water sitting around your property and lots of flowers mosquitoes love (like water lilies, hyacinths, and other high nectar producers), you’re going to attract lots of mosquitoes.
Naturally, the more mosquitoes attracted to the outside of your property, the more mosquitoes are likely to wind up indoors. The best thing you can do to make sure mosquitoes don’t wind up inside your house is to make the outside of your property less attractive to them. There are quite a few tried and true ways to repel mosquitoes outdoors:
- Get rid of all the standing water around your home that you possibly can. Common sources include kiddie pools, birdbaths, pet bowls, etc.
- If you cannot get rid of the water sources, change them at least every other day.
- Make sure you fix moisture problems that could lead to standing water, such as clogged gutters or poor drainage.
- Trim back shade sources to dry out the soil and encourage evaporation.
- Plant flowers and herbs for mosquito protection, like lavender, rosemary, citronella, and lemongrass. Mosquitoes hate the smells of these aromatic plants.
Taking measures like these can make your outdoor property less attractive to mosquitoes and reduce the number of these insects flying around trying to get inside.
How Can I Keep Mosquitoes Out Of My House?
We talked above about how making your outdoor space less attractive can help keep your indoor space safer from mosquitoes, but there are a few measures you can take specifically indoors:
- Ensure all window and door screens are well-fitted and free of holes.
- Don’t leave water sitting in plant dishes.
- Plant potted plants in well-draining soil to prevent moisture buildup.
- Keep plants mosquitoes hate inside your home.
If you have an infestation either inside or outside, don’t panic. Just contact us here at BUGWORKS Termite & Pest Control Co. We can help get rid of the mosquitoes bugging you no matter where they’re hiding!