Three houses in a row would be a sample site. All houses would agree to be part of the same treatment group with the majority of mosquito and bee collection taking place at the center house of the site.
We are a team of researchers from The Ohio State University (OSU) looking for you and two of your neighbors to participate in our project: Healthy Home Habitats. The purpose of this study is to identify mosquito control methods that are also pollinator friendly!
We are looking for households that want their yards sprayed for mosquitoes AND those who wish to keep their yards pesticide-free to help us answer two major questions:
- Do commercial sprays reduce mosquito abundance? How do mosquito sprays
affect pollinators? - Are mosquito control traps a viable, pollinator-friendly alternative to sprays?
For households that would like their yard sprayed:
Unless you have opted-out, residents are enrolled in their local health department’s
(LHD) integrated mosquito sprays. This means neighborhoods are sprayed when mosquito
abundance is high or West Nile virus (WNV) is detected. All our participants in these treatments will receive LHD sprays. Half of our households will randomly be selected to receive FREE private additional mosquito sprays from a licensed commercial company.
For households that would like to keep their yards pesticide-free:
All residents in these treatments would be placed on a “do not spray” list with their LHD, meaning mosquito spray trucks would be turned off 150 feet from your home. Half of these households will be randomly selected to receive FREE mosquito control traps that will be provided and maintained by OSU during the summer. Unlike the rest of our treatments, mosquito traps in the No Spray: TREATMENT group will have traps placed at ALL THREE houses for the entirety of the summer. No pesticides, including turf-based applications, can be made for participants in these treatment groups.
To be considered a research site, we need three houses in a row that agree
to participate so please talk with your neighbors about joining!
From June-October of 2025 and 2026, OSU researchers would collect bees and mosquitoes using surveillance and control traps primarily at the center house. For a No Spray TREATMENT group, mosquito traps would be placed at ALL THREE houses for the duration of the summer.