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 at your business, 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.
SGV Mosquito_Business Checklist.pdfBite-Free Tips for Staff_Poster.pdfMosquitoes Can Thrive Near Your Business
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
There are plenty of products marketed as ways to keep mosquitoes away, but not all of them provide effective mosquito protection. Here are a few common myths to keep in mind:
- Repellent Plants – Planting mosquito-repelling plants around your property is not a reliable way to prevent mosquito bites. While some plants contain compounds that may repel mosquitoes, simply having the plants in your yard does not release enough of these compounds to provide meaningful protection. Repellent compounds typically need to be extracted and formulated for use on skin or in a product designed to disperse them.
- Repellent Fans and Candles – Fans and candles marketed as mosquito repellents may provide some localized protection, but they should not be relied upon as a primary method of preventing mosquito bites. Outdoor conditions, including wind and air movement, can disperse the repellent effect. For more reliable protection, use an EPA-registered mosquito repellent on exposed skin and follow the product label.
- Bug Zappers – Bug zappers are not an effective way to control mosquitoes and can kill beneficial or harmless insects instead. Mosquitoes locate potential hosts using cues such as the carbon dioxide (CO₂) we exhale and the warmth and other signals associated with our bodies. Bug zappers primarily attract insects using light, which does not effectively mimic these cues. As a result, mosquitoes are generally not attracted to bug zappers. For businesses with outdoor dining areas, patios, or other customer spaces, bug zappers may kill non-target insects without meaningfully reducing mosquito populations. Instead of trying to zap mosquitoes, focus on eliminating the sources where they grow. Remove stagnant water, maintain landscaping and drainage, and address potential mosquito breeding sources around your property.
