How Effective is
TRUCK MOUNTED MOSQUITO FOGGING
– Hi, I’m Paul Sherwin, and I’m with Darrell Mather of BUGCO®, and today, we’re going to be talking about mosquito fogging effectiveness. Go ahead, Darrell.
– The reason that the mosquito fogging, or the truck-mounted mosquito fogging is more effective is because how fine the particulate is, how long it stays in the air, and the timing of it. So, the all-important factor when we’re talking about mosquito control and especially after like now, we’re having these flooding rains or every year, Houston has these flooding rains.
– Was it Ultra Low Volume, is that right?
– Yeah, that’s the type of delivery system that we’re utilizing. So when we say truck-mounted mosquito fogging, that’s just kind of a generic term for the, the machine that we’re using on the truck, so it’s considered a ULV fogger or Ultra Low Volume, so what it does is it breaks down the chemical into the, it’s finest points, creates that fog or mist that allows it to suspend in the air longer as opposed to something like a mosquito misting system, which, while it does help to break down the chemical to a, a finer mist, this breaks it down into a fog, so think of it, think of it in the difference of rain and fog. One’s actually a liquid application. The other is much finer.
– Most of the truck spraying or the truck spraying is, is mostly at night or is that right? At dusk?
– So mosquitoes are going to become more active at sunset from dusk till dawn is their more active periods, so we typically do it between midnight to two a.m., sometimes even a little bit later into the morning around four, but we try to reserve it for those areas around midnight. That’s when they’re going to be most active, and that’s going to be for all of the mosquito species that we find here in the Houston Metro area that are really prominent.
– Could you talk a little bit about the safety?
– Well, yeah, not so much as emphasize the safety, but it’s going to be the same whether we’re doing general pest control in a home, flea treatments, or any of the services that we provide, it’s similar with the truck-mounted mosquito fogging for communities. We don’t anyone to touch the wet chemical application, of course, so if we come in and do a residential pest control, we advise people, give it time to dry. So we take into consideration things like weather, has it been raining? Is it foggy out? Because there’s certain conditions that could, not compound the issue, but certainly, it’s not beneficial for the mosquito fogging. So yes, everyone tends to be indoors. know, I wouldn’t suggest running behind the truck (Paul laughs)|while, while we’re fogging. However, it is safe when utilized as per the label with what chemical we’re using, so as it settles, it’s such a, a fine low volume application that there are no health concerns for, say, breathing it in, know, the residual application that’s, you don’t have to worry about touching anything, so no worries there, and it also is, you know, we talked once before about this, it’s also applied when the other more beneficial insects not active, so you’re talking bees, butterflies, and other things that are actually environmentally beneficial.
– Is there anything else that you’d like to say about that?
– Well, a lot of the questions that we get when communities reach out to us is how often do we need to do this? So the city, often, what they’ll do is, they’re looking for factors like has there been reported disease in our sampling of the mosquito population? Because there’s a difference between a positive sample in a mosquito and then a confirmed case of a human having something like Zika, dengue fever, yellow fever, or other things that you can contract from mosquitoes, so the difference between a positive sample and a confirmed case, that’s really important to emphasize and how mosquito fogging plays into that. What ends up happening is they’ll do a standard, it could be as low as once a month, during mosquito season, which is, if it’s above freezing. So the, say for instance, Harris County Mosquito Control program, what they end up doing is, they’ll do it as frequently as once a month, and then communities hire us to do it more frequently as per the request of their homeowners. So we could do it as often as twice a week after heavy flooding rains or as infrequently as once a week or once every two weeks, dependent on the needs of the community. And the reason that is is because we’re trying to kill or reduce the population of the nuisance pest, the mosquito, where the county’s, they’re doing it for disease control. So they’ll spray when active disease is found but not to control the mosquito population.
– So they’re kind of reactive to reports of disease?
– Certainly reactive. That’s a really great way to phrase that as opposed to being proactive and keeping the actual population down, they’re, they’re trying to control disease. We’re trying to control mosquitoes.
– Right, okay, okay, that’s a great distinction. I hadn’t, hadn’t realized that. Is there anything else that you want to add?
– No, I, I’ll leave it with if anyone has any questions, wants a quote, they can always reach out to our office. And, you know, we, we can discuss some of these details face to face, person to person.
– Okay, and, and BUGCO® serves communities all around the Houston area, I guess. Is that correct?|
– Oh, yeah, certainly. I mean, you’re talking Galveston to Angleton and Freeport all the way up to Todd Mission, Magnolia, Pinehurst, and then we wrap across the, the northern territory to Conroe over to Porter and everything in between. Mont Belvieu across the channel there, so yeah, we, we’re greater Houston Metro area and surrounding.
– Okay, okay, I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much, Darrell.
– All right, thanks Paul.
