Arkansas offers some very nice weather for entertaining outdoors, and luckily it shows up around football season. But all your menu planning and playlist selection will be for naught if the mosquitoes chew through your entire guest list before kickoff. Here are some simple lawn pest control tips to make sure you’re not stuck hosting the entire tailgate party inside your home.

1 Mosquitoes need surprisingly little water to lay lots of eggs, which can hatch in about 48 hours. Depending on the type of mosquito – one of about 176 present in the USA – it can take as little as 4 days or up to a month to fly out of the water and bite you.

2 Address any sneaky spots that may provide water sources: tarps, clogged gutters, leaky spigots, or AC units and anywhere water pools after it rains. Toss and refresh any water for your outdoor pets at least every other day.

3 Consider special minnows, aptly named mosquito fish, for decorative ponds. An alternative for other water features could be new acoustic devices that transmit sound waves in the water to kill larvae before they can mature.

4 Adult mosquitoes don’t swim; they lounge on overgrown vegetation and weeds. So mow the lawn and trim the hedges. Then use a mosquito treatment with pyrethroids on your lawn, low hanging limbs, shaded areas and even the walls around your patio.

5 Don’t invest in these so-called mosquito terminators: bug zappers or ultrasonic designs. Bug zappers kill more good bugs than bad, and those ultrasonic devices affect your bank account much more than they decrease the number of adult mosquitoes in your yard.

Don’t drain the pool or give up on your garden party yet! The EPA has approved DEET and oil of lemon eucalyptus, but there’s more you can do to safely reclaim your space. And if you’re still concerned about the presence of mosquitoes and their harmful effects, call The Bug Man at (501) 663-9464 or contact us through our website. We’re dedicated to making your home comfortable for family and friends inside and out.