What if your roof or gutters is the cause of your mosquito infestation?
Staten Island is famous for its mosquitoes. It doesn’t matter where you live in the region – you are at risk, and if you walk outside during dusk or dawn, there is a good chance that you’re going to get bit. But there are things to do to reduce your risk, with one activity in particular that is likely to have the greatest impact. According to Mike DeLautre of Adapt Pest Management in Rocklin, California, “trimming your bushes and mowing your lawn can help, because it can make your yard less desirable for mosquitoes. But…” he adds “the absolute best thing you can do is eliminate sources of standing water.”
What is Standing Water?
Standing water is, as the name implies, water that isn’t flowing. Streams and waterfalls are not sources of standing water, nor is rain that gets immediately soaked up into the ground.
However, if you have poor drainage, or you have a water feature that isn’t working, or you left a cup outside and it has gathered water after the rain, that is standing water.
Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, and only require water the size of plastic bottle top to lay a considerable number of eggs. The reason this matters is that female mosquitoes bite before laying eggs, and baby mosquitoes prefer to stick within a short distance of where they were born.
How Could This Be a Roofing Issue?
“Sometimes, you have standing water that you don’t see,” says Mike, “and since very few people go up on their roofs, that means that any water up there you are unlikely to notice.”
Broken roofing, old roofing, roofing that has indented, or roofing that was poorly installed can all lead to dips and holes that allow standing water to sit for long periods of time unnoticed. Your gutters can also be an issue. If your gutters are clogged or unable to drain properly, the water may be flowing off your roof, into the gutters, and then not draining properly, leading to standing water.
At Christian Construction, we often see roofs that are in years – sometimes decades of disrepair, because as much as we don’t think about our roofing, every roof needs to be given the proper attention in order to stay in the best shape possible. Sometimes, it helps to have reminders that it’s time to check your roof and gutters, and one of those reminders is if you’re noticing more mosquitoes without a clear cause.
In Staten Island, it is very difficult to know where your mosquitoes are coming from. But if you have mosquitoes, and you’ve dealt with all the standing water, and your friends and neighbors aren’t having problems, then it’s possible your roof or gutters are to blame. Contact Chrisitan Construction today for a roofing assessment, or for roof repair and replacement services.
