Mosquito Identification & Prevention

Mosquitoes are some of the most common insects in the world, and Georgia is no exception. We spend around $125,000,000 annually just to control these pesky mosquitoes – and not just because they can ruin a fun summer barbecue. Our warm, humid climate allows these disease-spreading little denizens to thrive, which means we have to control over 60 different species of them here in our home state just to keep a handle on the illnesses they can transmit.

Female mosquitoes are the reigning global queens sitting firmly at the top of the world's most dangerous animals list, all thanks to their well-known habit of transmitting dangerous diseases, the most deadly of which is malaria. Because they spread this disease, mosquitoes are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people per year, most of them children under the age of five.

Luckily for Athens residents, mosquitoes in Georgia don't transmit malaria. However, they do transmit a host of other potentially dangerous diseases, including:

• West Nile virus
• Eastern equine encephalitis
• La Crosse encephalitis
• Dengue fever

The forms of viral encephalitis that mosquitoes spread are especially dangerous and a good reason to avoid mosquito bites whenever possible.

Most Georgia residents develop a mosquito problem thanks to our warm and wet climate. Our winters are mild, and our summers are humid, which means mosquito season can run as long as three-quarters of the year. Mosquitoes breed in standing water and moist soil.

While you can take care of these problems on your own property, the likelihood that you are living near a body of water or wet soil is high pretty much everywhere in Athens. This means for effective mosquito control, you will need to rely on a combination of resource reduction and mosquito treatment to truly free your property of these pests.

Mosquitoes don't fly very far from where they were born, which means they often breed in or near the same spot they hatched. Thus, you will find them near moist soil or standing water. You will also find them hiding out in deep shade during the day because they cannot stand the ultraviolet radiation of direct sunlight. This is why mosquitoes are most active at dawn and dusk.

Getting rid of mosquitoes in your yard is, unfortunately, not an easy task once they start breeding. A lot of this issue stems from the fact that it is very difficult to find every single spot in which a female mosquito could lay her eggs. You might get rid of the water in your bird bath, for instance, and miss the rainwater collecting in your flower pots. And that's to say nothing of the fact that you might live next to a pond or stream where mosquitoes can breed with impunity.

This is why you will likely need professional treatments to get rid of mosquitoes. Here at American Pest Control, we have a battery of products that can help regulate mosquito reproduction and send them packing for good. So don't just live with a mosquito problem until they give you or your pets a disease. Visit our contact page or give us a call to get started with our mosquito elimination programs.