What you can do Around Your House?
SSCMAD Website“Around The House” Preparedness
Here is a list of some things that you can do around your home to help reduce mosquito populations.
After it rains check your back yard for anything that can hold water. Children’s toys, flower pots and vases, buckets, wheel barrows, anything that can hold water for a few days can breed mosquitoes.
Empty and clean out bird baths once a week.
Check your gutters so they don’t get clogged and hold water.
Fill in or build up low areas in grass that hold water after rains. Maintain drainage systems.
Drill holes in bottom of garbage cans and recycling bins.
Remove items from yard that can hold water after it rains such as tires, buckets, and cans.
Clean out swimming pools at least once a week. Maintain larger pools properly.
Keep ditches and streams next to your property free of grass clippings, garbage, and other debris, which will obstruct the natural flow of the water.
Store boats upside down or with cover to prevent water collecting in them.
Cut grass and weeds to reduce harborage areas for adult mosquitoes near your house.
Stock ponds with small fish to eat mosquito larva.
Contact city or village public works to maintain empty lots so garbage or vegetation does not accumulate.
Check screen doors and windows for holes and rips.
Point out any of these problem areas to neighbors and friends.
If you have a storm drain or catch basin in your back yard, cover with fine screen mesh or burlap to prevent mosquitoes from entering it. If this is not possible please contact us so we can treat it to prevent mosquito breeding.
Bug zappers and mosquito magnets do not kill large percentages of the mosquitoes present in back yards, do not rely on this as a means of protecting yourself and your family from mosquitoes. When going outside, especially in the evening and at night, use mosquito repellent. Also, if you are working in the garden, other heavily vegetated area, or in a shaded area during the day use a mosquito repellent. Repellents that contain 5-10% DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide) are usually the best.
You are most likely to get West Nile late in the Summer. This is when the mosquitoes that spread the disease are most common. Even if mosquito populations are low and you are not being bitten at night you should still use insect repellent. Other diseases spread by mosquitoes in Illinois include Saint Louis Encephalitis and Lacrosse Encephalitis. Worldwide mosquitoes infect millions of people each year with diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Dengue Fever. Insect repellents will protect you from these diseases as well.
Mike Fraider
Public Works Superintendant
