How to Protect Your Yard Against Summer Pests

Summer will be here before you know it, and now is the time to make all the essential preparations for your yard against stinging insects, ticks, and mosquitoes. 

Bites from these insects are all part of summer on Long Island. While you can’t always avoid these annoying pests, there are things that you can do to minimize their impact on your life. And there are a few key pest control services that will help ensure you enjoy the outdoor living to its fullest potential with friends and family this year! 

So, get ready for grillin’ season, watching your kids play outside, and making the most of your backyard with some seasonal pest control! 

Make Carpenter Bees (& Other Stinging Insects) Buzz Off

Carpenter bee season is coming, and quickly. Carpenter bees are a solitary species of bee that can be found making tunnels in the wood of sheds, decks, porches, your kids’ outdoor playsets, telephone poles, wooden lawn furniture, and virtually any other wooden structures on your property.   

While carpenter bees don’t eat the wood, they do create tunnels. They may even repeatedly choose to use the same piece of wood to nest in, year after year, causing repeated damage to the wooden structures on your property. Because of this, unlike some pests, which are more of a risk to the people and pets hanging out in your backyard, carpenter bees are more dangerous to the structural integrity of your property. 

Carpenter bees aren’t particularly aggressive, so it’s rarer to get stung by one than some of the other stinging insects that you may catch in your backyard this spring and summer.   

Preventing them starts with a solid pest control plan. Suburban Exterminating provides effective control for carpenter bees and other stinging insects you may encounter around your home.

How to Prevent Stinging Insects in Your Yard 

Stinging insects like wasps, yellowjackets, bees, and hornets are not only a nuisance, but also send over 500,000 people in the United States to the hospital each year. Here are a few simple tips for preventing stinging insects in your yard this summer: 

• Wear light-colored clothing. 
• Avoid perfumed soaps, shampoos, and deodorants that might attract stinging insects to your skin or hair. Interestingly, the scent of bananas should be avoided at all costs, as it can attract pests! 
• Always wear clean clothes; if you work outside, bathe daily to remove sweat from your body, which may attract pests like bees. 
• Wear long sleeves and pants to provide the most protection by covering your bare skin.  
• Keep in mind that stinging insects like yellowjackets and bees will likely be near flowering plants in your yard; the more flowering plants you have, the more likely you are to see stinging pests.

Protect Your Yard from Ticks

There are several species of ticks on Long Island that you may encounter this spring and summer. In particular, we often deal with American dog ticks, deer ticks, and lone star ticks. As you well know, ticks are external parasites that feed on the blood of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians (most commonly you and your pets). 

Ticks are often found outside, and we’re entering their most active seasons. They’re known not only for their parasitic nature, but also for their regular transmission of harmful diseases like Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.  

Ticks will wait out in grassy areas, sometimes for days or weeks at a time, seeking out hosts. Once they sense the breath, body odor, body heat, moisture, or vibrations of a host, then they will take the plunge and attach themselves. Then, they’ll treat themselves to a blood meal from their host, which provides the nourishment that needed in order to mature to the next life stage.  

There are several ways that you can avoid ticks in your backyard, in addition to a tick control service from Suburban Exterminating:  

• Wear long clothing   
• Tuck your pants into your socks  
• Check yourself, your kids, and your pets for ticks after coming inside 
• Wear light–colored clothing  
• Keep your hair covered and pulled back  
• Shower immediately after hanging out near trees or high grass  
• Avoid wooded areas  

In addition to these DIY prevention tips, the best way to truly ensure that your family and pets are safe from ticks this spring and summer, your best bet is to get a professional tick control treatment.

How to Prevent Ticks

To prevent ticks from invading your yard, you can: 

• Keep grass and shrubbery cut short. The shorter the height of these plants, the easier it is for you to see any activity on them or around them, such as moving shadows or bugs crawling up a wall or fence post. 
• Remove leaf litter. This helps reduce humidity levels in your yard and keeps moisture out of damp areas where ticks may live during dry summer months, when they are less active than during springtime when they’re searching for hosts (spending more time under leaves provides shade).
• Get a tick control treatment from Suburban Exterminating. Our exterminators will come to your home and apply the spray that kills ticks in their larval stage, effectively preventing them from becoming adult ticks and laying eggs.

Eliminate Mosquitoes

One of the biggest spring and summer culprits on Long Island is the mosquito! We have a couple of different species that we see most often: the Culex Pipiens Mosquito and the Asian Tiger mosquito. If you’re seeing mosquitoes flying and buzzing around you and your family, then that’s a surefire way to tell that you could be dealing with a large mosquito problem.  

Not only will mosquitoes gift you with itchy and annoying bites you didn’t ask for, but they’re also well known to spread deadly diseases like West Nile Virus, Chikungunya, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, among others.  

Mosquitoes can be prevented in a few different ways in addition to a regular mosquito control service from Suburban Exterminating: 

• Eliminate any standing water (think about any different areas in your yard which might collect water, such as flower pots, kiddie pools, tires, or toys)  
• Make sure that your grass is cut 
• Remove any overgrowth where mosquitoes might be able to hide 
• Wear long pants and long sleeves (yes, we know it gets hot!) to prevent getting bitten 
• Use deep humidifiers or air conditioners to reduce moisture

How to Prevent Mosquitoes in Your Yard 

To prevent mosquitoes from taking over your yard, you should: 

• Call Suburban Exterminating to discuss how our mosquito control services can make your yard mosquito-free, guaranteed. 
• Clear the debris from your yard. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, so it’s essential to keep the area clean and free of clutter.  
• Remove sources of standing water from your property. Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, so it’s crucial to eliminate any sources on your property that could provide them with this opportunity. This includes old tires, buckets, bird baths, and more!

Stay Protected from Pests Year-Round with Suburban Exterminating

To make the most of every summer day, make sure your yard is protected from summer pests. Feel at home in your backyard this summer now with preventative pest control services from Suburban Exterminating. 

Our tick and mosquito control services, as well as our Annual Pest Protection Plans will make sure your yard is pest-free guaranteed this summer! Call or text 516-864-6900 for a free inspection today! You can also fill out our contact form here.

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