Some insects, like dragonflies and fireflies, have a special place in our imagination, but there are very few people who are fascinated by ticks. These arachnids, commonly misidentified as insects, pose a real threat to humans. Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tularemia are all diseases that can be spread by ticks.
If you have pets, are an avid outdoors person, or live in an area susceptible to tick infestation, you need to know about At Home Pros. When you’re in the midst of an infestation, or are faced with very real threats from ticks in your favorite outdoor locations, you’ll need to find a professional as quickly as possible. Think of At Home Pros as your one-stop shop for pest control services.
Here are some key details about ticks, including ways to prevent them. If you’ve seen ticks or have been bitten, it’s time to reach out to our professionals at At Home Pros
What Are Ticks?
These parasites feed on blood from an assortment of birds, amphibians and mammals, including humans. There are a few different species of tick, such as deer ticks (otherwise known as blacklegged tick) and the wood tick, which is also known as the American dog tick, both of which can transmit some nasty pathogens.
Male ticks are smaller than female ticks, and have slightly varied coloring. When female ticks feed, they swell up, and can get as big as a raisin. Most ticks don’t naturally enter your house, but you or your pets can easily encounter them in the wild and carry them into your indoor environment. A lot of the time, the host doesn’t even know the tick has bitten them, and can carry the tick around for multiple days.
There are two types of ticks: soft and hard. Soft ticks usually infest birds and aren’t as interested in humans. Hard ticks, on the other hand, are the ones of which humans have to watch out for, and some, like brown dog ticks, even live most of their lives indoors. (These pests are especially aggressive — even more so than bed bugs — as they can sneak into vents, requiring difficult structural solutions.)
Ticks have specialized legs to climb and hold onto hosts, and the design of their legs makes them hard to brush off, which is why these arachnids are so adept at holding on to large mammals for long distances. Their legs aren’t the only parts of them that are specialized; some ticks insert barbed mouth-pieces into their victims, and use a glue-like liquid from their salivary glands to keep them even more securely adhered to their host animal.
Sometimes a feeding session can last from days or weeks, and a female tick can swell up to 300 times her original body weight. After this gorging session, a female tick will push out a mass of 3,000 to 6,000 eggs in a single go before expiring, meaning that there can be tens of thousands of ticks on your property at any given moment.
Ticks will live anywhere from four months to two years, but late spring and summer are their main active times. Each year, cases in tick-transmitted diseases spike in the warmer months.
Ahp's Bug Pro Chelle Hartzer says:
Always wear a CDC approved repellent when outdoors in tick areas.
Different Types of Ticks
Most U.S. homeowners have to worry about four main types of ticks – American dog tick, blacklegged tick, brown dog tick, and lone star tick. Here’s a little more about each of these ticks — how to spot them, their habits and the diseases for which they are vectors.
American dog tick: This type of tick is found all over the eastern part of the United States, mostly centered east of the Rocky Mountains. Also called wood ticks, these ticks keep to grasses, trees, and more naturally untended, wild areas. This tick can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia, the latter causing swelling, localized pain and fever.
Blacklegged tick: Found throughout the eastern part of the U.S., this small tick can transmit many diseases, the most common of which is Lyme disease. Symptoms start small with Lyme disease and can be hard to diagnose, but then this disease’s symptoms can escalate quickly into rashes and fevers. Left untreated, Lyme disease can even infiltrate a person’s cardiovascular and nervous systems.
Brown dog tick: Along the U.S.-Mexico border and in other southwestern areas, brown dog ticks like to live indoors in the comfort of a human home where it’s warm and their food source — blood — is plentiful. This tick is transmitter for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, one of the deadliest of all the tick-borne illnesses. Dogs are the most common hosts for these pests, so keep your dog’s flea and tick meds up to date at all times.
Lone star tick: Throughout the southeastern and eastern parts of the country, all the way up the coast of Maine, the lone star tick strikes fear in the hearts of gardeners, hikers and dog owners alike. As an aggressive biting tick, the lone star tick serves as a vector for a number of dangerous diseases like Ehrlichiosis and the Heartland virus.
Although ticks can be daunting, there are ways to keep your pets, your family, and your property tick-free.
Ways to Deal With Ticks on People
To prevent a tick from aggressively biting you or your pets, and feeding on you as well, possibly transmitting a potentially fatal disease in the process, it’s critical to be vigilant before and after time spent outdoors, and when landscaping your property. Here are some helpful ways to prepare yourself before entering into ticks’ territory — and how to check yourself thoroughly when you get back.
Before Your Hike: Wear clothing that has long sleeves and pants, and is light-colored so that ticks are visible. As an extra precaution, tuck your pants into your socks, especially if you’re headed into tall grass. You can also apply tick repellant to your clothing. Look for one that is EPA-approved. Avoid hiking through tall grass, and stick to the center of the trail.
After Your Hike: Before you even get into your car, check your legs (and as importantly, your pet) for tiny black dots. It’s difficult to feel all but the largest of the ticks, so you must use your eyes to combat these crafty pests.
As soon as you can after exposure, wash your clothes in a hot cycle (not warm or cold as those temperatures are too low to kill ticks), then take a hot shower after a full-body inspection.
Your full-body inspection should involve some time and effort. Pay special attention to warm, moist, dark areas, like the folds of your skin or your joints. Unfortunately, these are the areas that ticks favor.
The same places a tick may favor a human, they will favor on any other warm-blooded mammal on which they’d like to feed. Check your dogs’ and cats’ armpits and behind their ears, especially if they spend the majority of their time outdoors. Flea and tick medications are a must if you have an active lifestyle that you like to share with your animals, and keep it all up-to-date for the most effective preventive measures.
A pet that spends any time outdoors could be bringing ticks into your household. The longer the fur, the more opportunity ticks have to latch onto your pets. So, thoroughly check your animals on a daily basis if you live in tick-prone areas.
Ahp's Bug Pro Chelle Hartzer says:
Ticks are rarely found indoors. Prevention and treatment should be focused on the outside.
Tick-Proof Your Yard
You can easily take measures that will make your yard and grounds less attractive to ticks. Reducing any tick habitat that exists on your property will make it less likely that you’ll be bitten. Here are some tips to make your home the last place a tick would like to live.
- Remove debris and leaf litter, especially tall grasses that are ticks’ favorite habitat.
- Between your lawn and the wild, wooded areas, create a 3-foot wide barrier of wood chips or gravel to deter any natural tick migration.
- Mow frequently.
- Keep firewood stacked neatly and free from dampness to deter rodents, which in turn cuts down on the number of ticks coming onto your property.
- Place playgrounds and other play structures well away from wooded areas.
- Remove any old trash or furniture, which again is a prime habitat for rodents, and in turn the ticks that live and feed on rodents.
- Use fencing to discourage wild animals like deer, raccoons and strays from coming into your yard.
Ticks are part of the environment and have their part to play in the natural order of things. That means pest control specialists will not be able to completely eradicate ticks from your property.
With integrated pest management methods including habitat suppression, wild animal control, and tick-proof landscaping, you can greatly reduce your risk. Some areas are impossible to treat, however. If you have any rocky features on your property, for example, these areas are prime real estate for chipmunks, which means they are also a prime location for ticks as well.
Keeping your home and grounds as unattractive as possible to ticks, as well as using a variety of methods to further decrease the number of ticks able to enter and exit your property, are the most effective ways to keep you and your loved ones as safe from tick-borne illnesses. Expert pest control companies are often well-versed in the ticks typical to your area, and can help you prevent a tick infestation.
At Home Pros is a great first step if you are looking for consistent, long term solutions to your tick issues. Contact us today to begin your stress-free journey to a tick-proof property.
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