Community
Dengue is the pest problem in Sri Lanka that no single household can solve on its own. A treated garden next to three untreated ones stays a mosquito problem. This page is the practical part of that, free to use and free to pass on.
Where mosquitoes actually breed
Aedes mosquitoes, the ones that carry dengue, breed in clean standing water close to buildings rather than in drains or marshland. A week of water in a small container is enough.
The places that catch people out are the ones nobody thinks of as water: the saucer under a potted plant, a discarded tyre, the fold of an unused tarpaulin, a blocked roof gutter, the lip of a septic tank cover, an ornamental pot with no drainage hole, and the water tray at the back of a refrigerator.
Half an hour once a week emptying and scrubbing those, across a whole lane, does more than any single treatment. Scrubbing matters as much as emptying, because the eggs stick to the sides of the container and survive it drying out.
Before and during an outbreak
When the public health inspector announces an inspection round in your area, the checks are the ones above. A property found holding breeding water can be issued a notice, so the week before an inspection round is a good week to do a proper sweep.
Fogging is a response to adult mosquitoes already flying, not a substitute for removing where they breed. A lane that is fogged and then leaves its containers standing is back where it started within two weeks.
If someone in the household has a fever during an outbreak, that is a matter for a doctor immediately, not for a pest control company. We say that plainly because delay is what makes dengue dangerous.
Talks for schools and community groups
If you run a school, a temple, a residents’ association or a workplace committee and you want someone to walk the site and talk through breeding sites with the people who use it, ask. There is no charge for a talk and a walk-round in the districts we already cover, and no sales pitch attached — a group that goes away and empties its own containers is the point.
Ask for it by calling 0117 149 149 or through the contact form, and say roughly how many people and whether you want the site walked as well as the talk.
Using this page
Copy any of this, print it, translate it, put it on a noticeboard. No permission needed and no credit required. It is more useful on a wall in a lane than it is on a website.