Stagnant water, especially in private swimming pools, has been the cause of mosquito breeding.

"If you don't maintain your pool, obviously you're going to attract mosquitoes to the area," said East El Paso resident, Patty Hernandez.

Health Department inspectors obtained writs of entry from a judge in order to get to private swimming pools that need treatment.

"It was completely covered with mosquito larvae, you can imagine how many eggs were out there laid," said Mario Sandoval with Vector Control.

Vector Control sprays a chemical to suffocate the mosquito larvae. It's a treatment that costs hundreds of dollars, a cost irresponsible homeowners never paid, until now.

"We're going to go ahead and take the homeowner to court to recover our cost, because many times these homes do this year in and year out. We come in and treat and that's it," said William Wolff with the City/County Health District.

For years, Vector Control has lost thousands of dollars in taxpayer money because they've had to treat private properties in order to control the mosquito.

"Unfortunately at times if you don't take these measures, people will not take you seriously until there's a fine involved," said Wolff.

Wolf said mosquitoes transmit various types of diseases like West Nile, yellow fever and Malaria."

And those are the types of health issues Hernandez has made an effort to prevent in her neighborhood.

"We've done everything we can, paying people to come and maintain the lawn and pool for the benefit of our children. If people in the area are not keeping up, that's unfair," said Hernandez.

As of now, the Health District is only asking for the cost of the chemical and labor, but in the future, they're hoping to strengthen the mosquito ordinance in order to impose more fines.