Richmond County Mosquito Control
Our Mission:
To incorporate strategies of integrated mosquito control management that are effective, practical, environmentally safe, and protect the health of Richmond County residents. To prioritize public education, we aim to equip citizens with the knowledge they need to be our partners in personal protection against mosquitoes. We serve to prevent large populations of biting mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit.
Our Program:
Our Team:
Director of Mosquito and Vector Surveillance: Mindy Kruty-Crothers
Mosquito Control Program Manager: Jerry Albea
Pond Program Manager: Sheri Edwards
Pond Technicians: Sean Durkin and Joel Marlow
Larvicide/Education/Surveillance Technician: Shelby Toon
Administrative Assistant: Kathy Martin
Part-Time Seasonal Mosquito Spray Technicians: Chad Carter, Steve Cooper, Dwain Copeland, Raymond Gurley, and LaPrecious Smith
Important Mosquito Information:
- Only female mosquitoes bite. Females need the iron in blood to produce their eggs. Mosquitoes do not drink blood for food. Males and female mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers and are pollinators!
- Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water. To keep mosquito populations low, please remove standing water in your yard and local parks if possible.
Dump bird baths and pet bowls once per week, dump or turn over wheelbarrows, recycling bins and kiddy pools weekly. Toss tires, and any trash in your yard that can collect water. Clear out debris in gutters to prevent standing water and ensure that potted plants have a hole in the bottom for drainage (dump out water from collection plates underneath potted plants). Ensure that pools are treated with chemicals and filtered properly. If you have a bad pool, fill it in so that it does not become a mosquito breeding ground. Mosquitoes only need 1 inch of standing water to lay their eggs. (Water collected in a bottle cap can produce mosquitoes.)
Tip and toss any item that can hold an inch of standing water to prevent mosquito problems near your home.
- Wear repellents that contain DEET or Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus to effectively protect yourself from mosquitoes.
- Avoid activity at dusk and dawn as most mosquito species are most active during this time.
- Wear protective, lightweight long sleeves and pants to protect yourself from mosquito bites.
- Ensure that screens on windows and doors are in good repair to prevent mosquitoes from coming into your home.
2025 Letter to Residents:
April 15, 2025
Richmond County Residents:
In previous years, our department has responded to most customer service requests submitted through 311 by visiting residences and treating adult mosquitoes with a truck-mounted spray. Starting in 2022, we changed the way we respond to service requests for multiple reasons:
1) The product we spray is designed to kill mosquitoes flying in the immediate area at the time of treatment, but it does not continuously kill mosquitoes for days or weeks at a time. Consequently, sprays will not continuously prevent mosquitoes on your property. As a result, we will use sprays in cases where extremely large numbers of mosquitoes occur to help break their life cycle and reduce their numbers until a longer-lasting solution can take effect.
2) Overuse of these sprays encourages resistance in our local mosquito populations when over-applied or applied in areas where they are not needed. If the mosquitoes develop enough resistance, then sprays will not work in the future. We are currently working to establish how much resistance exists in the area, as the development of resistance to these products is common.
We will still use sprays, but we have stepped up the many other tools in our mosquito control toolbox to provide more effective service to our customers:
1) Inspections. We are excited to offer a free residential mosquito inspection service to our customers. Moving forward, our technicians thoroughly inspect each property they visit before taking any other action.
2) Consultations. Our technicians will consult with you about their inspection findings. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, so for instance, if a technician were to find standing water on your property, they would advise you to dump it out; this is source reduction. Doing so would eliminate a potential breeding site, which would prevent biting adult mosquitoes, eliminating the need for future mosquito control treatments such as truck-mounted sprays.
3) Larvicides. Alternatively, if the technician finds immature mosquitoes, called larvae, he/she can treat them with larvicide, which kills immature mosquitoes in water and prevents biting adults. Source reduction and larvicides are much longer-lasting actions than sprays, as source reduction can permanently eliminate a breeding site, and larvicides continuously kill immature mosquitoes for up to a month.
4) Adulticides. Finally, we may spray your property to treat mosquitoes, but only if the number of adult mosquitoes is large enough that our technician determines a spray will substantially reduce the number of adult mosquitoes present. The technician will not spray your property if the best way to reduce mosquito numbers is through source reduction or a larvicide treatment, or if they do not observe enough adult mosquitoes to warrant a spray.
One of the goals of our department is to keep mosquito populations low enough to prevent mosquito-borne illnesses. However, we cannot eliminate all mosquitoes, so as always, please remember to adopt the following healthy habits to protect yourself from mosquito bites:
1) When possible, limit your time outdoors during dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active.
2) Wear light-colored, long-sleeved shirts and long, loose-fitting pants.
3) Wear a CDC-approved insect repellent when outdoors.
4) Ensure that window and door screens are tightly fitted and in good repair to prevent mosquitoes from getting into your home.
If you have any questions, comments, or requests, please call 311 (706-821-2300), or contact Mindy Kruty-Crothers at Mindy.Kruty-Crothers@dph.ga.gov, and we will gladly do our best to help.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we refine these new policies to better serve our community.
Sincerely,
Mindy Kruty-Crothers, MPH BS
Director of Mosquito and Vector Surveillance
Richmond County Mosquito Control/ Georgia Department of Public Health
Upcoming Events:
Check back for announcements for upcoming appearances of RCMC at local events! Or check our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ECPHD/
LINKS TO WEBSITES
Georgia Mosquito Control Association
South Carolina Mosquito Control Association
Mid Atlantic Mosquito Control Association
American Mosquito Control Association
Call “311” or (706)-821-2300 to request a free mosquito property inspection.
