Mosquito bites, tick bites, and stinging insects are all part of summer on Long Island. While you can’t always avoid these annoying pests, there are things that you can do to minimize their impact on your life.
Read on for tips on how to prevent pesky insects from invading your yard.
How to Prevent Stinging Insects in Your Yard
Stinging insects like wasps, yellow jackets, bees, and hornets are not only a nuisance, but also send over 500,000 people in the United States to the hospital each year. Here are a few simple tips for preventing stinging insects in your yard this summer:
- Wear light-colored clothing.
- Avoid perfumed soaps, shampoos, and deodorants that might attract stinging insects to your skin or hair. Interestingly, the scent of bananas should be avoided at all costs, as it can attract pests!
- Always wear clean clothes; if you work outside, bathe daily to remove sweat from your body which may attract pests like bees.
- Wear long sleeves and pants to provide the most protection by covering your bare skin.
- Keep in mind that stinging insects like yellow jackets and bees will likely be near flowering plants in your yard; the more flowering plants you have, the more likely you are to see stinging pests.
How to Prevent Mosquitoes in Your Yard
Mosquitoes are another common summer pest you don’t want in your yard. These insects are known to transmit a number of serious illnesses to not only humans, but pets, too, including West Nile virus, Zika virus, yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, and malaria, just to name a few.
To prevent mosquitoes from taking over your yard, you should:
- Call Suburban Exterminating to discuss how our mosquito control services can make your yard mosquito-free, guaranteed.
- Clear the debris from your yard. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, so it’s essential to keep the area clean and free of clutter.
- Remove sources of standing water from your property. Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, so it’s crucial to eliminate any sources on your property that could provide them with this opportunity. This includes old tires, buckets, bird baths, and more!
How to Prevent Ticks in Your Yard
Ticks are external parasites that feed on the blood of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Ticks are typically found outdoors and are most active during the spring and summer. In addition to their parasitic nature, ticks often carry harmful diseases including Lyme Disease (which a reported 300,000 people contract each year) and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, to name a couple.
To prevent ticks from invading your yard, you can:
- Get a tick control spray from Suburban Exterminating. Our exterminators will come to your home and apply the spray that kills ticks in their larvae stage, effectively preventing them from becoming adult ticks and laying eggs.
- Keep grass and shrubbery cut short. The shorter the height of these plants, the easier it is for you to see any activity on them or around them, such as moving shadows or bugs crawling up a wall or fence post.
- Remove leaf litter. This helps reduce humidity levels in your yard and keeps moisture out of damp areas where ticks may live during dry summer months when they are less active than during springtime when they’re searching for hosts (spending more time under leaves provides shade).
Protect Your Yard from Summer Pests
To make the most of every summer day, make sure your yard is protected from summer pests. Our tick and mosquito control services, as well as our Annual Pest Protection Plans will make sure your yard is pest-free guaranteed this summer!
To schedule your service now, call or text (631/516) 864-6900.