The Mosquito Guy

By: Anne Kaiser

*“There is no yard too big or too complicated, for Successful Treatments”*

The Mosquito Guy offers customized insect management plans to businesses and homeowners throughout Southeastern Wisconsin and Northeastern Illinois. The Mosquito Guy General Manager Erik Esser noted that his company prides itself in this specialized approach to service for each of its customers. Through the thoughtful creation of individualized treatment plans for each of its customers, The Mosquito Guy establishes a foundation of trust that fortifies multiple long-term client relationships.

Esser maintains a tradition of quality care and customer satisfaction established by his family business. When working with more complex properties, the Esser family carefully trains its crew; in this way, subtleties of insect treatment plans are effectively maintained over time. Esser is pleased to work with longtime customers Dan and Tracy Pearson, owners of a unique, lovingly tended hobby farm in southeastern Wisconsin. Erik Esser’s uncle, John Esser, originally helped to provide the treatments for the Pearson property; he introduced Erik to the Pearsons and thoroughly familiarized Erik with the details for the property treatment prior to passing along this responsibility to him.

The Pearson property includes a combination of features that contribute to the complexity of managing insect pests there. In addition to an orchard, the farm is home to bees, chickens, a pond with swans, and pet dogs.

According to Erik Esser, the Pearson’s farm is one of the larger properties that his team regularly treats, as well as one of the most complicated jobs. He and his team generally spend about one-and-one-half hours on the property’s annual treatment, a process that is both thorough and detailed in nature. Dan Pearson was grateful that Erik and his team “were able to reach the back of our property, around the pond, and did this from day one. Others cannot provide this. Also, when we have had early spring, they always accommodate getting to our property when we need them. Again, in the fall, when we have extended summer with more rain, which causes outbreaks of mosquitos, they rush out and get us covered again.”

The Mosquito Guy team is careful to navigate around areas inhabited by any of the Pearson’s animals, as well as the beehives. The team works around the Pearson’s flock of chickens; because the product they use is safe for both mammals and birds, the chickens can return to free range on the property, including the orchard, as soon as one hour following a spray treatment. According to Pearson, “We have swans, bees and chickens. Erik made sure the treatments would not hurt them, and he is careful not to disturb them. He and his team [also understand] that our swans have little ones, cygnets, and the parents can be a bit bothersome, [as] swans are protective.”

Laws dictate that insect spray treatments must leave a 75-foot protective margin around beehives, in protection of these insects’ vital role as pollinators. Esser and his team are also meticulous to leave the required 20-foot space around the water on the Pearson property. The team meticulously avoids spraying flowerheads and fruit trees, both during the flowering season, when pollinators are actively visiting blooms to forage for nectar, and also when trees are fruited. Instead, the spray is applied selectively to leaves and green areas of the property, as well as to the trunks and bases of trees.

The Mosquito Guy applies their effective insect treatment spray with care, moving slowly enough to target only necessary areas that might house a greater density of either mosquitos or ticks, such as cooler, shady areas where mosquitos frequently rest, or tall grasses and wood lines where ticks gather. Deer ticks, the tick variety that pose the greatest concern, are tiny, and therefore difficult to see.

The treatments provided by The Mosquito Guy are essential to allowing the Pearsons and their animals to remain safe and free of tick- or mosquito-borne illness while tending to and enjoying their property, which is half wooded. Because the Pearsons must regularly monitor the safety of their swans, especially when the birds are in open areas, the absence of biting insects is essential to their comfort and wellbeing. Pearson explained, “Our property has a pond with a marsh (swamp) behind it. Without the insect treatments, we are unable to go outside without being fully covered with mosquito repellent. The treatment also helps with ticks, which is great because we have dogs and we all love to enjoy the entire property.”

The Pearsons have been very pleased with the results of their treatments. “Usually, we e nd up with maybe five mosquitoes instead  of the thousands we would have, and did  have that first year we moved there, as we  were late to reach out when we moved,”  Dan Pearson explained.

The Pearsons enjoy the friendship they’ve built with Erik Esser and his team over the years, describing Esser and his team as  “super nice people.” Dan Pearson explained, “If they come at the end of the day, [we]  usually end up keeping them late just talking, and the time flies.”

This personal connection has benefitted both parties. “We have recommended them to all of our friends and neighbors,” Pearson explained. “Of course, our neighbors do have [fewer] mosquitos when we get sprayed.  So they are fans as well!”

Erik Esser summarized the benefits that The Mosquito Guy provides to each customer, including long-term clients such as the Pearsons: “We know how to apply our procedure to maximize protection to work with creatures on the properties…There is no yard too big or small, or too complicated, for successful treatments.”