BROOKINGS – Matt Bartley has a simple way to cut down on mosquitos in your backyard this summer: don’t let water stand for more than a few days. And the time to get in the habit is now.
Bartley is the superintendent of the Brookings Street Department, and his people are the ones working all summer to hold down the mosquito population. The trouble is there’s only a few guys in mosquito control and a lot to do, so he’s asking the public for help.
“We’ll get a lot of calls from people that’ll say, ‘Hey, the mosquitos are bad in our backyard, what’s going on?’” Bartley said.
It’s a necessity for homeowners to monitor their own property, Bartley said, adding a little peer pressure – “neighbor to neighbor” – can help. You should start dumping water out every few days, then talk your neighbors into doing it because mosquitos don’t care about property lines.
“With these mosquitos that are coming from people’s backyards, they’re directly affecting your evening. It’s not like they got 3 miles to fly in from where we haven’t treated yet. These things are popping out right next to where you’re grilling,” said Josh McClain, head of mosquito control for the city.
“If they seem really bad in the backyard, that’s what I’m trying to get people to realize, you might have those little breeding ground areas near you, and you can easily get rid of them,” Bartley said.
Oftentimes, his crew will find very fixable problems. “They have standing water right there in their backyards … (things that) will hold water and keep it there for a few days tend to do a lot of backyard mosquito damage.”
The time to take care of those things is before you start getting bit.
“Guarantee you, in general, a lot of people aren’t thinking about it,” Bartley said.
His crew sure is.
Control starts now
The colder spring weather, snow and heavier rains meant there was a lot of water running through the area last month, McClain said.
“Moving water is good for us,” McClain said. “Mosquitos can’t be in the moving water, they drown then.”
When the temperatures started rising, he started monitoring water.
“We’ve been finding larvae (since the end of April),” McClain said.
It doesn’t take much water to hatch a whole lot of mosquitos.
“It can be as small as a (bottle) cap,” McClain said.
Even water sitting in the bottom of a gallon pail can breed hundreds of mosquitos, Bartley said.
“Our numbers haven’t exploded yet because of the lower temperatures. Once the temperatures start rising, we’ll definitely have a bloom,” McClain said.
What you can do
Bartley said they won’t be fogging for a couple of weeks yet, but it’s important to control water so you can control the mosquito population.
Any water sitting for longer than 10 days can be problematic, McClain said.
“If they have something sitting for longer than 10, that’s gonna give the mosquito more than enough time to drop its eggs and hatch them out,” he said.
As the weather gets warmer, that window of time gets much shorter.
“The warmer it gets, shortens it up to as short as six to seven days,” McClain said.
“If it starts to really warm up, we’ll be in for it,” Bartley said.
The two warned residents to look for anything where water could collect.
Fill in low-lying spots. Look for children’s pools, buckets, a tire or tire swing, and sandboxes that collect water and dump them out regularly. Bartley suggested punching a hole in the bottom of tire swings so the water can drain regularly.
“Gutters is another one people don’t think of, plugged up gutters. Tarps are so much bigger than people think, too,” because water pools in the dips and creases, McClain said.
“A big one is the short decks with stuff under them,” McClain said.
“Rubbermaid totes – everybody loves them,” McClain said. A lot of people have them for outside storage under decks, but the lids have an indent in them that holds water.
Bartley said a daycare provider called once about all the mosquitos.
“Her yard was just full of toys that hold water, but she didn’t realize it,” Bartley said.
Adult toys like boats can hold water, as well, the two mentioned.
Even birdbaths and pet dishes need to have the old water replaced with fresh.
“You don’t need (to clean with) soap or water, just get rid of the water. It doesn’t even have to involve a chemical or treatment, it just needs to be dumped on the ground. That’s how we do a lot of it,” McClain said.
The city crews can’t treat privately owned areas.
“We can’t treat people’s backyards. That’s why we’re asking people to try to help us out and make sure we’re not creating those breeding grounds,” Bartley said.
Crew is on the go
McClain says he tries to make alley runs to check for problems, but with only him and one other guy on mosquito control, time is a problem.
Checking water and nine mosquito traps, as well as fogging the whole town takes a lot of time. McClain recently mapped out all the areas that have to be checked and sprayed. It’s a complicated system of where they treat and don’t treat; some portions of Dakota Nature Park fit both categories.
Fogging will start next month, and they now have three foggers, but the fog only works if it touches the mosquitos.
“If we fog and they’re underneath the leaf of a tree, they’re not getting killed,” Bartley said.
They have to keep fighting all season. The mosquitos out in the early summer are nuisance mosquitos, but they give way in later summer to the mosquitos that carry West Nile, which can be dangerous.
That’s why it’s so important to keep the mosquitos under control, even now, Bartley said, because you never know which mosquito may carry a deadly infection.
“Take care of your own area and then it would really benefit the community in general,” he said.
Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.
Register photo: Above, Justin Kahler checks a mosquito trap at Hillcrest Park last September. The Brookings Street Department has already started its work this year to hold down the mosquito population.
Brookings Street Department photo: Below, Kahler drives the mosquito department’s UTV while treating water containing mosquito larvae with a granular application.
