It’s summer and the family is getting geared up to enjoy their fun in the sun. Everyone is excited to be able to go swimming in the family pool. With the summer heat also comes the potential for mosquitoes making your family and guests miserable. What you really need are a few sure-fire ways to keep the buzzing, uninvited pests from the pool area. The following four tips should help you to achieve a mosquito-free swimming zone.

Eliminate standing water

Mosquitoes are always on the hunt for areas of standing water around your yard and pool area to lay their eggs and produce more mosquitoes. If you don’t live adjacent to a swamp or close to water you have no control over, it might be a good idea to take a simple survey of your surroundings. It is critical to fill in holes, empty out buckets, clean stopped gutters and rain spouts, and make the area around your home inhospitable for a mosquito breeding ground. What about that big pool of water you’re trying to enjoy? Circulating the water and keeping it well chlorinated will be important and a screened enclosure can make a very large difference. Most of all, remember that mosquitoes need stagnant water to breed, so always be on the lookout for places where standing water might collect.

Using citronella candles

When the mosquitoes are busy invading the area around your pool, it’s time to bring out the citronella candles. Among the many items that mosquitoes do not like, citronella has a proven scent that tends to repell mosquitoes in droves. Before you light your citronella candles, you will want to be sure to place them well beyond the reach of children. This will help to ensure that your kids do not knock the candles over, get burned or accidentally start a fire that burns out of control. Tiki torches with the citronella scent can be lit outdoors, but close enough to your enclosure to give you some protection and coupled with some light use of insect repellent, can prevent you from being the most attractive target.

Using mosquito traps

A mosquito trap is a device that is, by nature of its design, intended to trap and kill mosquitoes. It might not always be the most effective way to keep them from invading your space, but once they do, the traps can keep numbers down. There are a number of different types of traps, but typically, the trap releases carbon dioxide which attracts nearby pests. If other methods fail, killing the ones that are already there might be the best way to deal with the situation. Depending on the area you want to protect, the size of the mosquito population in your area, and the amount of money you’re willing to spend, this can be a viable option.

Blowing them away

Mosquitoes do not fight fair, and neither should you. Placing fans that stream air over your pool is going to make it difficult for mosquitoes to fly in areas of rapidly streaming air. There are also some brands of citronella scents that come with a method to attach or hang in front of box or oscillating fans. Disrupting air flow may be the cheapest and easiest of the methods. You can also build your own bottle traps to save some money. To make a homemade trap without using caustic chemicals:

1. Cut a soda bottle in half.
2. Fill the bottom with a mixture of hot water, about 1/4th cup of brown sugar and a gram of yeast.
3. Turn the top of the bottle upside down and place over the opening of the bottle.

When the mosquitoes fly in, they will find it to be very difficult to find their way out. You should place these bottle traps out away from where people congregate for optimal results and be ready with insecticide for the trapped mosquitoes when you’re through using the pool area. Be careful not to leave them in an area where the trap can get knocked over and become an instant attraction for another pest—ants.

These are just a few tips, but wearing sprays and oils that protect you against mosquitoes are another layer of protection for people who can apply it. Not everyone can, of course, as small children and those with allergies might have to look for alternative methods, but new methods, such as wearable wrist bands and clip-on fans are being developed. Of course, once you have taken steps to get rid of the mosquitoes in and around your pool area, the final order of business is to get down to having loads of summer fun!