Mosquito treatments work. They just don't work for long if the yard is manufacturing replacements faster than the treatment can knock them down. A mosquito can go from egg to biting adult in about a week — in water as shallow as a bottle cap. So before treating anything, I walk the yard. Fifteen minutes, same order, every time.
The audit, in order
- Standing water, obvious: buckets, toys, plant saucers, tarps pooled with last week's irrigation, clogged drains, low spots in the lawn.
- Standing water, sneaky: the AC condensate line drip, the recycling bin that collects rain, bromeliads and dense ground cover holding moisture at the base.
- Resting sites: the undersides of leaves in dense shrubs, shaded patio corners, and ivy walls — where adults wait out the heat of the day.
- Water features: fountains and ponds are fine when the water moves or is treated; still and forgotten is the problem.
Then treat — in that order
Dump or drain what can be drained, treat what can't with a larvicide, and apply the barrier treatment to the resting sites the audit just mapped. The treatment list comes from the audit, which is why two yards on the same street can get two different services.
What I tell every customer
You are the weekly maintenance crew. One tipped-over saucer after I leave restarts the cycle. I leave a short list of what I found and fixed, and the yards that stay on that list are the ones that call me about anything but mosquitoes.