The Ultimate Guide To Tick Control: Protecting Your Home And Family In Western Massachusetts

Ticks are an ever-present issue in Western Massachusetts, and it can seem as if there isn't a lot you can do about them, but there are many ways to avoid ticks. Today, we will explain how tick protection works and give you some smart tips to help you and your family prevent tick bites.

Before we start, we want to quickly remind you that your American Pest Solutions team is here to offer direct guidance regarding tick control in Western Massachusetts. Contact us at any time to get quick answers to your questions. We're here to help.

An Introduction To Ticks: Understanding The Basics

The best way to understand how tick control in Western Massachusetts works is to follow the journey of a tick. Let's start with a baby tick. A tick starts out as a six-legged bug called a seed tick. A seed tick is about the size of a dull pencil tip.

While baby ticks can crawl across the ground, they don't typically get into Western Massachusetts yards by crawling. They hitch a ride on furry and feathery wildlife. And, since they're so small, one little mouse can have as many as a hundred baby ticks on its body.

When a seed tick grows, it develops another set of legs. The eight-legged tick falls off its host animal and looks for a larger animal, which is when it climbs onto a cat, dog, or person. While a tick won't take a human as a host, it can bite you to get a blood meal or use you to hitch a ride into your house. But, most of the time, cats and dogs bring ticks indoors.

Before you or your pets pick up ticks in your yard, those ticks will likely spend time hiding on your property. They will look for shaded and humid places because they need moisture for survival. A tick will climb to the top of vegetation in these habitats and hold its front legs up. When a tick does this, it is called questing. A questing tick waits in this position and clings to animals or humans that pass by. It may also crawl across the ground, climb up onto your foot, or cling to your pant leg when you kneel on the ground.

When ticks inadvertently enter your home, most will not live to create offspring. There is only one tick species in our area that can complete its entire life cycle indoors, and that's the brown dog tick. All other ticks will infest your home by routinely attaching outdoors and hitching a ride in.

When ticks bite you in your yard or hitch a ride into your house and bite you, they can pose a medical concern. But not all ticks do this. Let's take a look at how tick-borne diseases spread and evaluate the risks and symptoms.

The Dangers Of Tick-Borne Diseases: Risks And Symptoms

We don't need to tell you that Lyme disease is a serious concern in our area. But not all ticks carry this disease. It is primarily black-legged ticks (also referred to as deer ticks) that can transmit it. It is also possible to have a black-legged tick bite you and not get Lyme disease. The tick must contract the infection first.

Tick-borne diseases are zoonotic. That means the tick picks it up from animals before passing on the infection to you. It is helpful to understand this, particularly if you find seed ticks attached to your skin. If you are the first meal a tick has ever had, your risk of contracting a tick-borne disease is quite low. Once the tick grows and develops its last pair of legs, the risk of infection increases substantially.

Lyme disease is far from the only disease spread by ticks to humans. Some other common diseases spread by ticks are Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, Powassan virus disease, Borrelia miyamotoi, and many more.

Many tick-borne diseases have symptoms that resemble the flu. You may also see a rash on your skin. Lyme disease is associated with a bullseye rash, but this rash is not always present when Lyme disease is transmitted. It is also important to note that a tick has to stay attached for more than 24 hours for the disease-causing bacteria to transfer from the tick. After transmission, it takes 3 to 30 days for early symptoms of Lyme to manifest.

As you can see, ticks are no small problem, particularly in Western Massachusetts. It is wise to take steps to get rid of ticks in your yard and guard yourself and your family members against tick bites. Let's turn our attention to some of the many ways you can get control of ticks on your property and avoid tick bites by applying proactive tick bite prevention.

Preventing Tick Bites: Essential Tips For Your Outdoor Space

There are many ways to avoid contact with ticks. The easiest and most logical is to avoid areas where ticks are found, such as tall grass, wooded areas, and weed coverage. If you have these habitats in your backyard, consider how you might alter the conditions to make your yard less habitable for ticks. Cut your grass. Remove woodpiles and wood debris. Trim tree canopy and address weed issues.

Once you've considered habitats, take a little time to think about the animals that bring ticks into your yard, like those tiny little mice. What makes animals want to come onto your property? A big factor is the availability of food resources in your yard.

Here are some suggestions:

• Many animals eat bird seed, so perhaps it is best to remove the bird feeders in your backyard or, at the very least, move them to the edge of your property.
• Another source of food is your trash receptacles. Make sure your containers have covers, and secure the covers so raccoons and other wildlife aren't able to lift them.
• Consider trees that drop nuts on the ground. Many animals eat nuts. It is essential to keep ahead of cleaning nuts up.
• Do you have fruit trees? These can attract animals. Consider installing guards around the trunks of your fruit trees to stop animals from climbing up.

All of these methods will decrease animal traffic and reduce the number of ticks brought onto your property. Once you've taken steps to do this, consider what allows ticks to survive. As we pointed out above, ticks need moisture. When we have dry spells in Western Massachusetts, ticks die off. You can make your yard resistant to ticks by keeping your landscaping and perimeter dry. Clear out gutter clogs and repair any damage to your gutter system. Water plants in the early morning and keep things trimmed in your landscaping. Once again, make sure to keep your grass cut and remove unwanted grass from landscaping.

Along with altering conditions in your yard, perform routine checks when you come in from being outside, and learn how to get a tick off you and your pets. It isn't quite as straightforward as you might think. It takes time for ticks to transmit disease-causing bacteria. If you squeeze them during removal, you increase your chances of getting sick. Use a tick removal tool if you have one. If not, you can use needle-nose tweezers. Make sure to pinch the tick near the head and close to your skin. Avoid squeezing the body.

It takes effort to make your yard resistant to ticks and to do routine tick checks when you come in from outdoors. If you want an easier and stress-free solution, professional tick control is the way to go. Let's take a look at how this works.

Professional Tick Control Services: Stress-Free And Effective

It is not commonly understood, but mosquito control also provides tick control for your yard. When you hire American Pest Solutions to perform seasonal mosquito treatments, you get the added benefit of tick control services. Not only do these treatments allow you to put tick prevention out of your mind, they work to reduce vector-borne disease transmission by 92 percent.

So how does tick control work? Your pest specialist visits your yard every three to four weeks from April through October when mosquitoes and ticks are most active and when you're most active outside as well. We apply the treatments to key areas of your property where ticks and mosquitoes hide from the dry conditions that eliminate them. We sustain these treatments so you can enjoy your yard for backyard cookouts, pool parties, yard work, graduations, birthday parties, and more.

Want to take your backyard back? Contact American Pest Solutions today to get Mosquito Guard and say goodbye to mosquitoes AND ticks! You can get this as a standalone program or bundle it with Pest Guard, our premier pest management service that addresses spiders, wasps, centipedes, carpenter ants, sow bugs, mice, and more. Find out how much better life is without pests. Connect with us today to get started and to learn more about our residential and commercial pest control services in Western Massachusetts.