I am a Business Owner
How Mosquitoes Affect Your Business
Mosquitoes can be more than a nuisance for businesses; they can affect the experience customers have on your property. Restaurants with patios, outdoor shopping centers, hotels, apartment communities, recreational facilities, and other businesses with outdoor spaces may become less inviting when mosquitoes are present.
Frequent bites can discourage customers from spending time outdoors, create uncomfortable experiences, and even influence whether they choose to return.
Your Business Property Plays a Role
Business owners and property managers can help reduce mosquito activity by keeping properties well maintained and eliminating potential breeding sources.
Standing water in planters, drains, gutters, buckets, fountains, or poorly maintained landscaping can provide mosquitoes with places to reproduce. Taking proactive steps to identify and remove these sources helps create a more comfortable environment for customers and employees while supporting broader community efforts to reduce mosquito populations and protect public health.
Your Weekly Maintenance Checklist
- Walk the entire property and look for standing water, especially after rain or irrigation.
- Empty and scrub containers such as buckets, planters, trays, and outdoor décor that can collect water.
- Check gutters and drains to make sure they are clear and draining properly.
- Inspect irrigation systems for leaks, broken sprinkler heads, or areas where water is pooling.
- Check landscaping for low spots, clogged drainage, and overwatered areas.
- Refresh or drain decorative water features and make sure they are properly maintained.
- Check trash and recycling areas for containers that may collect rain or irrigation water.
- Keep pools and spas maintained and properly filtered and treated.
- Inspect outdoor equipment and storage areas for anything that can hold water.
- Check parking lots and walkways for puddles or areas where water consistently collects.
- Address standing water immediately, even small amounts can become mosquito breeding sites.
- Report persistent mosquito problems or suspected breeding sources to your local vector control district.
A good rule for businesses: Tip it, toss it, or fix it every week.
Other Tips:
- Routinely prune and thin out the undergrowth of dense bushes, heavy hedges, and ground covers like English Ivy.
- Opening up the canopy allows wind and sunlight to penetrate the plants, drying out the humidity and destroying their resting habitats.
Clear out leaf litter and dead debris caught inside dense shrubs, as these trap moisture and create hidden pockets for water to pool.
Hidden sources can include:
- Rain gutters
- Rain barrels
- Pipes
- Tires
- Fountains
- Tarps
- Storm drains
While no plant completely repels mosquitoes on its own, transitioning to California native plants and landscaping mosquitoes out drastically reduces the factors that attract them.
California Native Plants Attract Less Mosquitoes
California native plants are beneficial and natural solutions for reducing the amount of mosquitoes that bite while you're working in the yard. While they don't repel mosquitoes, they certainly provide less factors that mosquitoes love in traditional yard plants.
- Less Water, Less Breeding: Native plants are drought-tolerant and require significantly less water, meaning fewer puddles and less stagnant runoff.
- Open Canopies: Many native species naturally have more open, airy structures that don't trap windless, humid air the way dense, non-native tropical tropical plants do.
Try incorporating these beautiful, low-water California natives into your next landscape design:
Other California native plants to look into:
- White Sage (Salvia apiana)
- California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
- Deer Grass (Muhlenbergia rigens)
- Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia)
Mosquito Repellent Product Myths
- Repellent Plants - Plants that have repelling "odors" don't work effectively. Unless you grind the plants to release the smell, and apply it to your skin, the plants will not keep mosquitoes away from you.
- Repellent fans and candles - There is no scientific proof that in a real-world setting that these repellents work more effectively than applying repellent to exposed skin. A breeze through your backyard can carry the effectiveness away of the candle or fan away from you.
