Mosquito Control in Tampa, FL

Where Tampa mosquitoes actually come from

Two different problems get called the same thing. Marsh and floodwater mosquitoes hatch in large numbers after heavy rain or a tidal push and travel a long way, and those are what Hillsborough County Mosquito Management Services works on across the county. Container breeders hatch in your own yard, in water you could pour out, and nobody handles those except you and whoever you hire.

The daytime biter that ruins a barbecue is almost always a container breeder. It needs a teaspoon of water and about a week. That is why a yard can be miserable while the street behind it is fine.

The containers that matter here

Bromeliads are the local one. The cup at the base of the leaves holds water by design, it refills every rain, and it is shaded, which is exactly what a mosquito wants. A bed of twenty bromeliads can out-produce every other source in the yard combined. Flushing them with a hose on every visit helps, and where you want to keep the planting intact a larvicide rated for water holding plants goes in instead.

After that it is plant saucers under potted palms, bird baths, the flat spot in a pool cover, a wheelbarrow, an upturned bin lid, the bottom of a boat cover, a blocked gutter length, a downspout extension holding a pocket of water, irrigation valve boxes that fill and stay full, and a kids play set with cups in the frame. On the older blocks in South Tampa and Seminole Heights, add french drains and low spots that hold rainwater for days after a storm.

How we treat the adults

Adult mosquitoes do not sit in open sun. They spend daylight hours resting on the shaded underside of leaves, inside hedge growth, in palm boots, under low branches and along the damp north side of the house. Treatment goes there, on the resting sites, applied according to the product label. Spraying open lawn is mostly wasted.

Residual in this climate is short. Heat, ultraviolet light and daily rain break products down faster than they do further north, which is why the cycle is monthly through the wet season rather than quarterly.

What you can do between visits

Walk the yard once a week with the hose and tip everything out. Keep gutters running. Store buckets upside down. Change bird bath water twice a week. Keep the pool chlorinated, because a pool left to go green during a vacation becomes a breeding site large enough to affect the whole street. If a neighboring property has an abandoned pool or standing water you cannot reach, the county takes reports on that.