Mosquito season is back in Western North Carolina and experts say it's already worse than last year. (Photo credit: WLOS staff)

Mosquito season is back in Western North Carolina and experts told us it's already worse than last year.

So far, that is due to the amount of rain we've seen this year - specifically in the month of May.

Nicholas Todd owns the mosquito squad and he's definitely been busier than usual these past few weeks.

"Now that they're out, it's worse than last year," he said.

The rain has caused a lot of standing water which is a mosquito's favorite place to settle in.

"Sometimes they'll settle way up high. They'll lay eggs after a flood, and then the water will go back down and the eggs will go dormant. Then, it'll rain again more and it'll flood out those eggs and those will hatch. So, you'll have the old mosquitoes as well as the new mosquitoes and then there's just more to breed," Todd said.



The more mosquitoes, the more stocked the shelves need to be at businesses like Ace Hardware.

"Yeah, definitely, with the summer people have been buying more and more of this stuff because mosquitoes are everywhere- especially my mamma. She goes crazy," said Eli Ledford, Ace Hardware sales associate.

He showed us the assortment of items they carry to keep the insects away.

"There's different things for different uses and depending on what you need, we got it," Ledford added.

It's important to know though that no matter what you use to get rid of mosquitoes, the pesky little guys will find a way to make anything "home."

"The bottle caps that you see in any soda bottle, one of those full of water will hatch 300 mosquitoes," Todd said.

There are a few easy things you can to protect yourself:

-Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts.

-Tuck pants into socks.

-Use an insect repellent that contains DEET.