SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — It’s that time of year, now that the weather has warmed up, the bugs are back.
The City of Sioux Falls is now spraying for mosquitoes. Five out of 18 zones throughout the city are being sprayed Monday night.
It’s that familiar buzzing sound of summer you may soon hear in your neighborhood as mosquito control sprayers are out and about.
“It’s good to know you can walk outside and not have to worry about mosquitoes and keep trying to have to slap and lather up with too much spray,” Taylor Stacey said.
Taylor Stacey was out enjoying McKennan Park with his fiancé Monday, and he says he’s noticed more and more bugs the last couple weeks.
“I was dog sitting for my parents just kind of outside in the neighborhood, and just having to swipe flies away from my face and kind of getting at my legs and my arms,” Stacey said.
That’s where Vector Control comes in. Program Coordinator, Denise Patton, says they just started hitting the thresholds in their traps around town to justify a spraying.
“That means either 100 or more of our heavy biting mosquitoes or 10 or more of our highly competent disease carrier mosquitoes. And right now, we’re seeing a little bit of both,” Patton said.
Patton says they usually start spraying around the first or second week of June, so they are right on track this year. While they are just getting started, they don’t always know what the day-to-day will look like.
“I don’t know what the rest of the week will look like. We try not to spray on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, you know, try to focus on the earlier part of the week. But of course, our efforts are really really intertwined with weather, so if it’s too windy, it’s raining, if it’s too cool, or whatever, you won’t see us out, but [Monday night] should be a really good night. So I think there’s a few people that will be happy that they’ll see the trucks finally coming through the neighborhoods,” Patton said.
While this specific spraying is for mosquitoes, Patton says they’re also hearing a lot about gnats right now.
“They just breed in different water sources. So gnats are breeding in the flowing water, and then mosquitoes in stagnant water and that’s what we’re treating. But when we go out to spray, we will inadvertently get some of those gnats because they kind of occupy the same airspace,” Patton said.
Monday night, sprayers are focused on zones 7, 10, 11, 15 and 16. To keep up to date on when they might be in your neighborhood, check the city’s website or text SPRAY to 888-777.