Five plain, cheap habits that keep mosquitoes down without a drop of spray. Even if you only manage two of them, your summer gets noticeably better — and if your whole block does them, the difference is dramatic.
Adapted from Washington DC’s Itty Bitty Mosquito Committee for Des Moines yards, Iowa weather, and the fact that the city no longer sprays. Tap through each “T” below.
Toss standing water after every Iowa rain
A bottle cap of water is enough for a mosquito to lay eggs, and a folded tarp can hatch hundreds within a week of a summer storm. Your fastest weapon is gravity — walk the yard after it rains and tip everything over.
- Plant saucers. Dump them, or fill with sand or gravel so they can’t hold water.
- Tarps & covers. Shake out grill, mower, and firewood covers where water pools in the folds.
- Kids’ stuff & boots. Turn kiddie pools, buckets, wheelbarrows, and left-out boots upside down.
- Gutters. Oak and maple seeds clog Des Moines gutters fast — keep water moving.
Treat the water you can’t dump with BTI
Some water has to stay — rain barrels, ponds, low spots that won’t drain. For those, use BTI (sold as Mosquito Dunks or Bits): a natural soil bacterium that kills mosquito larvae and nothing else, safe around people, pets, fish, and bees when used as directed.
- Rain barrels. One dunk floats on top and treats the surface for about a month.
- Low spots & ditches. Toss in Bits granules when rain leaves water standing more than a few days.
- Fishless ponds. Ornamental ponds without fish still breed mosquitoes; dose by surface area.
- Ponds with fish. Skip it — the fish already eat the larvae for you.
Trap egg-laying females with a Bucket of Doom
An ovitrap turns a mosquito’s own instinct against her: it lures a female looking to lay eggs into water dosed with BTI, so her whole brood dies before it can fly. A couple in the shady corners of your yard quietly thin the next generation all season.
- Dark 5-gallon bucket. Dark colors read as prime real estate to an egg-laying female.
- Stagnant ‘tea.’ A handful of grass or leaves left to steep makes the water irresistible.
- A quarter dunk of BTI. Kills every larva that hatches, harmless to everything else.
- An escape stick. A stick leaning out lets any chipmunk or bird that falls in climb out.
Talk to your block — one yard is a dent, ten is a strategy
Mosquitoes don’t respect property lines. Your tidy yard still gets bitten if the tarp two doors down is breeding thousands. The single biggest thing you can do is get neighbors doing the same simple steps on the same schedule.
- Start with what you can see. Offer to help an elderly or busy neighbor tip their containers.
- Share what works. A group text after each storm keeps everyone on Toss Tuesday.
- Put your block on the map. The DSM blocks map will show which streets are covered.
- Recruit a block captain. One organized neighbor per block is all it takes.
Tend it weekly — mosquito season is a marathon
None of this works once. Des Moines’ mosquito season runs hardest from June through August, and West Nile peaks in late summer. A short weekly loop keeps your defenses live when it matters most.
- Walk the yard weekly. Same day each week; after every heavy rain is even better.
- Refresh your BTI. Dunks last about 30 days — swap them so there’s never a gap.
- Restock traps. Top up bucket water and re-dose after big storms flush them.
- Keep going through August. Don’t quit in July; the highest-risk weeks are the last ones.