10 Tips for Tick Control This Spring

Ten Tips for Effective Tick Control this Spring:

  1. Avoid the areas of your yard most likely to be hosting ticks. Ticks don’t fare well in sunny well-manicured areas of your landscape, but they survive nicely where there is shade cover and taller vegetation particularly if there is leaf clutter or other plant debris on the ground.
  2. Clean up leaf litter and other landscape debris. See comment 1 above.
  3. Protect yourself by wearing appropriate clothing. Light colored clothes will make it easier to spot ticks. Long sleeves and pants maybe impractical but can reduce your risk of getting a tick.
  4. Limit the number of hiding places for rodents. Deer get all the glory and are the preferred host animal for breeding, but it’s actually rodents (led by the white footed mouse) that give ticks lyme disease and carry them from the woods to areas where humans are more likely to come into contact with them. Woodpiles and stone walls are prime candidates.
  5. Move your bird feeder further away from your house, Or just stop feeding them altogether this time of year. Bird feeders bring rodents, and rodents bring ticks.
  6. Use a tick repellent. I personally prefer to use the Permethrin based repellents because they go on the clothes and not on the skin. Sawyer’s is the brand name of a product I prefer for my own kids.
  7. Treat your yard with chemicals judiciously. If you didn’t treat your yard last Fall for ticks then you probably want to hit them in early Spring (April). If you did treat last Fall, then you can probably wait until May before treating.
  8. Don’t over use chemicals. Some “pest management companies” will advise that for tick control they want to put you on a “program” and treat your yard 5-6 times per year (and maybe more) for ticks. I challenge you to show me the publication that suggests this is more effective than a handful of well-timed treatments.
  9. Check for ticks. Get a piece of white corduroy fabric and drag it around the edge of your yard, and “flag” it over bushes and shrubs in areas where you have seen deer or rodent activity. Corduroy is easy for ticks to grab on to and the white makes it easy to see them.
  10. Get a Fox. Sounds funny, but some studies have shown that high populations of rodent predators such as foxes reduce tick populations.

Finaly Call PesTecs and let us worry about it. We are dedicated to Responsible Pest Management  (203)-898-3556 or info@pestecs.com