Buzzkill we all need against summer's itchy invasion

The lawn signs began popping up here and there this spring.

"Life is great outdoors!" shouts one.

"No mosquitoes. No ticks. No kidding," promises another.

Both tout new companies itching to sell Hampton Roads homeowners on a fresh concept - for a fee, they'll fight one of summer's enduring pests: the mosquito.

The business owners live in Norfolk within miles of each other and came up with the idea around the same time for the same reason. They hated that their kids ended up covered in welts after spending time outside.

"We couldn't even let him out last year to play in the yard," Clay Winn, who lives in West Ghent, said of his 2-year-old son.

A few miles away, in Lochaven, Mary Crawford had the same frustrations for herself and her three daughters.

"I never sat on my deck. I never had people over to sit outside," said Crawford, who launched a Mosquito Squad franchise with a partner in February. Her friends have the franchise in Virginia Beach.

Winn hatched Mosquito Joe in March with three partners. He runs the business out of an office at Winn's Nursery, his family's business in Berkley.

Last summer, both he and Crawford learned that Mosquito Squad franchises had taken off in Richmond. Hampton Roads then had no private firms devoted to mosquito-spraying services, so they saw a chance to go after a bug-embattled market.

Now they're competing for sales in cities that might help residents with their mosquito morass for free - or at least with tax dollars.

The owners won't disclose numbers but said they've had strong response so far.

"Lots and growing," Crawford said of Mosquito Squad's customers.

"We're in the black," Winn said. "We're ahead of our projections."

The two companies specialize in the "barrier spray," the application of a pesticide to all plants and foliage around a customer's home. The pesticide clings to leaves where mosquitoes take refuge during the day and, once dry, kills the adults for about three weeks, the owners said.

"They hide," Winn said. "They get out of the sun and wind, and they feed on the underside of leaves to get the energy to seek out their blood meal at night."

That scenario is what consumers pay the mosquito companies to prevent.

Mosquito Joe charges $59 to $99 for an application, depending on the size of the customer's property, every three weeks through mosquito season - from mid-April to the end of October. A one-time visit costs $79.99 to $125.

Mosquito Squad's prices also are based on property size but average $550 to $650 for the season for sprays every three weeks, said Randolph Hoover, Crawford's partner. Customers can order a one-time spray, averaging $89, which costs more per visit than if they commit to the seasonal package.

Both companies use a pesticide called pyrethrin, derived from a substance found in chrysanthemum flowers that's common for combating mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. Mosquito Joe uses a synthetic version, known as a pyrethroid.

Both companies also offer an "all-natural" treatment.

The businesses tout the environmental safety of their sprays for people and animals. Mosquito Squad even said it won't harm honeybees.

Mike Weaver, a professor of entomology and director of pesticide programs at Virginia Tech, said pyrethrins can be toxic to bees and other bugs.

"Insecticides are insecticides," he said. "If you have enough insecticide in the right situation, you're going to kill insects."

Residents in South Hampton Roads already get mosquito treatment from their cities. Each has a mosquito-control agency tasked with protecting the public from diseases, such as West Nile virus, as well as the pure discomfort of bites.

The city agencies seek the biggest bang for their bug-blasting buck. They'll fog neighborhoods and large public areas and apply larvae-killing chemicals in swamps and ditches.

Some cities will treat homes, too. In Chesapeake, for example, residents can call the city's Mosquito Control Commission, which will send a worker usually the same day, said Kirby Foley, the commission's operations director. They'll check for breeding areas, dump standing water and fog not only that property but neighbors' yards.

Fogging lasts only a day or two, but Chesapeake will also barrier spray if it can't otherwise squash a homeowner's mosquito problem, Foley said.

"Why anyone in Chesapeake would have someone else come in and treat and pay more money, I don't understand," he added.

Charles Abadam is acting president of the Virginia Mosquito Control Association, made up mostly of municipal agencies and some academic experts who gather to share information and spread awareness of mosquito activity. He questioned whether the new companies treat homes unnecessarily just because a customer is willing to pay.

They might not need to spray every three weeks if the mosquitoes haven't resurfaced in that time, Abadam said. Or they might tip over water-filled pots and tires, killing the mosquito larvae, and solve that homeowner's problem without a costly spray, he suggested.

The owners of Mosquito Squad and Mosquito Joe said they've spent months studying the mosquito - where it lives, how it feeds and when it breeds. Their technicians must undergo training to become certified by the state in pesticide application and assess every customer's property before they spray, they said.

One morning last week, Gillen Elder buzzed around a backyard in Virginia Beach wearing a backpack that carried a tank of chemicals and blasting plants with a nozzle that looked and sounded like a leaf blower.

A mechanical engineering student at Old Dominion University in the offseason, he's one of 12 Mosquito Joe technicians who work mostly in the morning hours, some between shifts as local firefighters.

Drenched with sweat by 10 a.m., Elder shot the pesticide at hydrangeas and ferns, rose bushes and herbs surrounding a brick ranch-style house on Plantation Drive. In a small stone-framed pond, goldfish swam and cattails stood tall. Nearby, a fountain gurgled in an old whiskey barrel.

The homeowner, Bob Queary, had grown weary of the winged predators in his carefully crafted summer sanctuary - near a lake and the Lynnhaven River, which dries to a "mud flat" in the summer, he said. Friends recommended Mosquito Joe.

"It's being able to sit outside and enjoy outside," he said. "I don't have to do the work. This makes it easy."

Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com