Connect the Dots to Mosquito Control

Have you ever noticed the different colored dots that mark our sewer grates? I bumped into a man applying them on grates along Cortelyou Road last week, who explained it’s all about mosquito control (and not from a paintball bandit, which is what he said one Long Island town suspected).

The Department of Health sends out not city workers, but exterminators from Kingsway Exterminating to address the standing water at the bottom of each of these drains. As New York magazine explained in a recent article about mosquitoes, into each drain they drop:

…tea-bag-like packets of crystals, which release a bacteria that is eaten by mosquito larvae, lodging lethally in their gut; in the U.S., it goes by the brand name VectoMax WSP.

After they drop it, they mark the grate with two dots–the different colors represent different months, the exterminator told me.

As for the city’s other method of mosquito control, there’s no schedule for spraying in Brooklyn just yet, but we’ll keep you posted. In our area, they usually circle Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, coming as far south as Caton Ave.

Finally, for those who thing they’ve got “sweet blood” that’s super-attractive to mosquitoes, an interesting fact from a summer myth story in the Washington Post today:

It turns out that it probably has more to do with their breath than with anything in their blood…. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, heat and lactic acid in the breath.