Keeping Mosquitoes And Mosquito Larvae Away From Your Swimming Pool During Summer

Owning a swimming pool is one of the best ways to keep cool during hot weather, but unfortunately, you and your family aren't the only beings who will be attracted to your pool during the brutal summer months. Annoying, blood-sucking mosquitoes are attracted to large bodies of fresh water throughout the year, but they are particularly intent on finding water during the summer months, as they lay their eggs in water to breed their aquatic larvae. A poorly maintained pool can turn into an inviting breeding ground for these minute pests.

Wandering outside for a morning swim only to find your pool infested with wriggling mosquito larvae is an unpleasant experience at the best of times, so any responsible pool owner will do their best to keep their pools and poolside areas mosquito free. The smartest pool owners will engage the services of a professional pest control company to ensure their anti-mosquito measures are truly effective.

How can I prevent mosquitoes from infesting my pool?

Prevention is always better than the cure, and preventing mosquitoes from accessing your pool's water supply will prevent them from laying their eggs and reproducing. 

Mosquitoes can be kept away from your pool in a number of ways. The most obvious method is to deploy conventional mosquito traps, and the right traps can be just as effective outdoors as they are indoors. To protect your pool effectively, your traps should be able to attract mosquitoes from a significant distance, so they will need to include some kind of lure.

UV light traps are the easiest to maintain, as their lures do not need to be replenished. However, they tend to be more effective at night than during the day and will use a small but significant amount of energy. For adequate daytime protection, you may wish to supplement UV traps with traps that use lures that give off carbon dioxide or special scents (human sweat scent is an effective, if slightly off-putting choice). These traps will need more maintenance to remain effective but can catch incoming mosquitoes at any time of day.

Automated spraying systems are another effective way to keep mosquitoes from reaching your pool. These sprayers are fixed to fence posts, walls and other vantage points surrounding your pool, and work on a timed automated system that releases small amounts of mosquito-killing insecticide at regular intervals. Having a bug spraying system installed professionally will ensure that the spraying nozzles are located in the most effective areas. However, this option may not be suitable for pet owners, as many insecticides can be harmful to cats and dogs.

Physical barriers can also be an effective mosquito deterrent and installing a screen room that encloses your pool can be extremely effective, if expensive. Pool covers can help to a certain degree, but mosquitoes only require a tiny gap in a cover to access your pool water and can also breed in any rainwater or condensation that collects on the surface of a cover.

How can I kill mosquito larvae that have already infested my pool?

If your anti-mosquito measures have not been effective and mosquito larvae are living in your pool water, they must be removed as possible. Larvae only take a couple of weeks at most to grow into fully fledged mosquitoes, so they should be exterminated promptly before they have the chance.

To kill mosquito larvae swimming freely in a pool, chemical larvicides can be added to the pool water; however, some of these larvicides are quite harsh and can damage the lining and filters of some pools. Calling in professional pest control services is the safest option, as they will have the expertise and experience to determine which larvicide will be safe to use in your pool.

If you have spotted mosquito eggs in your pool that have not yet hatched, larvicides may be ineffective. In these cases, you should have your pest control service add microbial growth inhibitors to your pool water, as these prevent eggs from hatching at all if added early enough.  

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