Keeping mosquitos out of your home isn't always as simple as keeping your basement try and your gutters unclogged. These tenacious insects can infiltrate any room of your home and can live and breed in areas you might not expect.
If you are finding mosquitos in your home, or waking up in the mornings with painful, itchy bites, your laundry room may have become a breeding ground for these unpleasant insects. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to rid your laundry room of mosquitos and their larvae, and prevent the infestation from reoccurring.
Why Are Mosquitos Attracted To Laundry Rooms?
Mosquitos, like all insects, are cold-blooded and rely on high ambient temperatures to provide their bodies with warmth and energy. They also prefer humid environments, as dry air can kill them by drying out their exoskeletons. Most importantly, mosquitos are attracted to puddles or pools of standing water, because they need to lay their eggs in water in order to reproduce.
A busy laundry room can therefore become the perfect habitat for mosquitos. The heat and humidity created by washing machines and dryers are ideal for adult mosquitos, and they can lay their eggs in any pools of standing water underneath sinks, appliances, or leaking pipes.
How Can You Keep Mosquitos Out Of Your Laundry Room?
If you have a mosquito problem in your home, and you suspect they may be living and breeding in the laundry room, you should call in a pest control service that specializes in mosquito prevention and extermination. These services will inspect your laundry room and any other parts of your home where mosquitos can be found, and come up with an action plan to eliminate the mosquitos and their larvae.
Effectively keeping mosquitos out of your laundry room is a multi-step process. These steps include:
Exterminating Mosquitos
Adult, flying mosquitos will need to be destroyed first. Your mosquito prevention service can deploy a variety of measures to quickly destroy any infestation. Sprays and foggers using commercial-grade insecticides will kill mosquitos more effectively than anything you can buy at the hardware store.
Blocking Access Points
Mosquitos are tiny and can enter your laundry room through the smallest access points. Open windows, cracks in the walls and floors, and damaged dryer vents and hoses can all serve as entryways for mosquitos. Your mosquito prevention service will find and seal these access points using insecticidal sealants and foams.
Remove Standing Water
Any standing water in your laundry room must be cleaned up immediately, before the eggs and larvae within can mature into flying mosquitos. If there are living larvae within the water, they will need to be exterminated first by your pest control team.
Make sure to fix the cause of the standing water to prevent future mosquito problems. Check pipes, window frames, and appliances for water leaks. If your laundry room is in your basement, check that the sump pump is working, and look for cracks in walls and floors that may be allowing groundwater to leak inside.
Reduce Humidity
Keeping ambient humidity in your laundry room low will make it less attractive to mosquitos. Consider investing in a dehumidifier, and have any HVAC and ventilation ducts cleaned to improve airflow.
Reach out to a pest control company for more extermination and prevention information.