When you're a landscaper in the mosquito control business, clouds really do have silver linings.
"It used to be that when it rained, we couldn't get work. Now when it rains, we get work," says Andy Vande Hey, owner of Vande
Hey Co., a landscape firm in Appleton, WI.
The company's services range from design/build and landscape maintenance to exterior lighting and, for the past six years,
mosquito control. They work in most of the state and part of Michigan.
More homeowners are concerned about mosquitoes because of West Nile Virus and because they're spending more time outdoors,
Vande Hey says. He has used various mosquito control products and sold them retail for years. The breakthrough products for
him are based on pyrethrins, a synthetic product that's similar to the insecticide from chrysanthemum flowers. Pyrethrins
work, he says. "It's the same product as in flea and tick shampoo for dogs. You just mix it with water, spray and the mosquitoes
drop." He uses one pyrethrin-based product for a one-time spray, for example, when customers are having a party. He uses another
in a mosquito control system, called MistAway.
System installs
The misting system dramatically reduces the number of mosquitoes on a property, Vande Hey says, and training to install it
is basic. Still, "you can't just go in and throw these systems in."
His outdoor lighting crew does the installations because they're familiar with cabling and installing wires. Irrigation installers
could do it just as easily, he says.
The system includes a large drum that contains water and the solution, a pump, an agitator that mixes the solution, and a
timer. Lines connect the drum to stainless steel nozzles around the perimeter of the property. Homeowners set the timer according
to their need.
"When you install the system properly, you don't know it's there," Vande Hey says. The installers start up the system with
water, so they don't deal with any chemicals. Once it's installed, it's easy to maintain.
Although the company already has a pesticide license, they have to pay an additional $50 when maintenance people spray,
Vande Hey says, even though pyrethrins "aren't even close to some of the things that are sprayed for insect infestation."
Benefits
It's a good retail business, he says. When customers need more solution, they buy it from the Vande Hey garden center and
refill the drum themselves.
But demand for the system hasn't been as great as Vande Hey anticipated. In the last few years the dry weather has kept the
mosquito population down. During mosquito season, from June to September (usually), they install only a handful of units each
year.
"In the northern states it would be difficult to recoup costs if you had to buy all the equipment you'd need," Vande Hey says.
"It needs to be an add on."
In states that are getting a lot of rain, like Texas, though, he says, business is booming.
— The author is a freelance writer living in Altadena, CA. She can be reached at janet.aird@earthlink.net
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