Top Tips to Hosting a Pest Free Party in Your New Jersey Backyard

The summer party season is in full force on the New Jersey shore. As you plan to enjoy a gathering of your family, friends, and neighbors in your backyard, consider how you will manage pests. Nothing can cut a party short quite like the annoyance of being bitten up by mosquitoes as you try to enjoy an evening outdoors.

Let’s start by taking a look at the common summer party spoilers then we’ll give you some tips from the pros on keeping them at bay.  Mosquitoes, bees, hornets, and other stinging insects can quickly put a damper on your party plans. According to the National Pest Management Association, stinging insects send more than a half-million people to the emergency room each year! Another common uninvited guest at outdoor parties is the fly. Flies are more than just pests, they can pose a serious health threat to your guests. We talked about how flies can transmit disease and how best to control them in our recent blog post. And finally, let’s keep that army of ants away that seems to march out of nowhere to attack a lost bite of food. So how do you avoid these pesky party blunders?  Here are some top tips from the pros to reduce the number of pests at your next backyard barbecue:

• Regularly clean your gutters.  Built-up sludge and backed-up water in the gutters around your home will attract mosquitoes and other insects in search of moisture.  Regular gutter maintenance will help to reduce the number of insects around your backyard.
• Inspect your yard and home perimeter for standing water.  Water sources around your home including birdbaths, pools, and ponds will attract insects.  Eliminate water sources that attract these pests or at the very least change the water at least once a week.
• If decorative ponds, pools, or hot tubs are a part of your backyard you can work with a pest management company that can treat the water with a professional use an only larvicide to control mosquitoes.
• One of the dangers of stinging insects is they love sweet beverages.  Serve up your drinks in a clear glass so your guests can see a stinging insect if it happens to get into their drink. 
• Consider serving food indoors or at least do your best to minimize the time food is left to stand outdoors.  Mesh food nets will reduce your risk of flying insects landing on the food and possibly contaminating it.
• Keep garbage pails sealed and store them as far from guests as possible. 
• Keep your lawn and garden beds trimmed.  Reduce overgrown vegetation to reduce your risk of insects in the area. 
• Burn Citronella candles. The smell will help keep flying insects away at least to a certain extent.
• Have a few bottles of a good, DEET-based insect repellant available for your guests to apply. 
• Clean up spills quickly!  The less time that food and drink spills lay around the less likely you are to see a trail of insects.  So keep those paper towels handy and clean up spills as they happen. 
• Consider a perimeter treatment of your home.  Preventative measures to knock-down bug populations around your home can reduce your risk of dealing with a pest problem when you have a backyard full of guests.