How is your mosquito situation??? (Dallas, Allen: houses, live in, moving)

[loves2read]

I live in Mid-Cities Tarrant Co area--husband played golf yesterday at Bear Creek by DFW and had to stop because of mosquitos--and while he usually walks in morning before breakfast had to come in early because of mosquitos--they are bad out here---I sprayed the yard w/something I get at Home Depot because part of flower beds are just staying so damp under the asian jasmine...but if city does not spray soon, we will really be swamped...

Please--check your yard/gutters for any standing water situations -and get rid of them to keep mosquitos down...make sure your pets are protected from heartworms as well...

[TXprincess]

My husband and I played at Twin Creeks in Allen yesterday, but fortunately our sunscreen had repellent as well. We both still had a couple of bites. I think the golf courses need to take an active role in spraying as well. Most courses have water hazards with standing water.
Pets need the heartworm prevetion here.

[HeadingtoTexas]

This is a good point and something I had not thought about before. Do kids have a hard time playing in some yards in Dallas due to Mosquitoes? Are they ravenous down there?

[Spree]

There must be an issue as when we were looking at houses recently, several of them had an outdoor mosquito repellent system in place in the backyard entertaining areas. Coming from FL that has a lot of water, the system is something I haven't see around here (yet) - possibly because many of the outdoor entertaining areas are screened in a lanai?

[lh_newbie]

With the wet, wet spring we've had, I've noticed mosquitos are quite plentiful. My wife and I are discussing getting a bat house. We'd have some fat bats this year!

[HeadingtoTexas]

A system? I wonder how effective they are. I'd be all over that, like a mosquito! I worry about those bugs eating my child.

[momof2dfw]

They have been worse this year and it is because of all of the rain and water saturated grounds along w/ the warm weather. Hubby has had more problems than myself. The kids have not gotten many at all and they are out a lot more than myself. Even over Memorial Day weekend at the lake I typically spray the fogger all over the property from the house to the lake but did not (forgot ) and we still did not get eaten alive. But we did use repellent on ourselves. I don't have the whole repellent system installed in the backyard but there are also portable repellent products that can be used that I believe run on propane. I do have lots of tiki torches w/ citronella oil in them that we use starting in mid afternoon (used to be from dusk on) till we go inside. I also plant marigolds all around the backyard in different places as they are supposed to repel mosquitos. I have not seen the arm/ankle bands this year but those work great. They are made out of rubber and look just like the rubber coil bracelet/key rings you see people put around their wrist.

Check your flower pots too and make sure they are not standing in water. If you have puddles of water still standing in your yard you may need a french drain.

[GoPadge]

One thing I had heard on a nightly news story last month on a DFW woman who was recovering from West Nile, was that West Nile is typically carried in a species of mosquito that prefers standing water. With all the rain we've had, we're getting a lot of mosquitoes, but they're mostly a moving water species. So while the mosquito population is booming right now, the risk of West Nile is actually fairly low.

[loves2read]

mosquitos can't breed in moving water--which is why you see so many golf courses and developments with water features using the aeration pumps--not just a pretty thing but because it breaks the surface tension of water does not allow the eggs to mature and hatch....
just takes a little bit (like 3 tablespoons !) of water to hatch a bunch of mosquitos---which then go on to breed hundreds more...
bat houses are great--wish cities would do more to put out them and purple martin houses really instead of spraying but some people don't view bats as healthy --purple martin houses are probably more acceptable and they eat thousands of mosquitos each day---nests get a little yucky to clean out at end of season--think it might be too late to get any in if you bought a purple martin house--not sure about their seasons---other birds might roost there and not really do anything for the mosquitoe problem...but it would be great to see cities spending money on purple martins--a natural predator--instead of spraying which kills good bugs as well as bad---that is why we don't have fireflies any more...

Academy had those slinky bracelets to repel mosquitos and so did CVS I think---

[GoPadge]

Thanks for the info loves2read, as I said, it was several weeks ago, perhaps what they meant was that the mosquitoes most likely to carry West Nile, prefer stagnant water, and what we are seeing now are mosquitoes coming from still, but relatively fresh pools of water.