How Can I Keep Ticks Out of My Home?

Ticks can be a difficult problem to deal with. Tick bites don’t hurt, so they often go undetected. However, ticks carry harmful diseases such as Lyme disease that can be harmful to your kids, your pets, and you. Because ticks are a risk to you and your family, many homeowners want to take steps to keep them out of their homes. To help keep ticks out of your home, check out these tips below.

Treat Family Pets

Your pets are highly susceptible to ticks, especially if you have outdoor cats or dogs that spend a lot of time outside. To protect your pets and prevent them from bringing ticks into your home, be sure to use flea and tick products. For the most effective tick control, get your product straight from the veterinarian. These pest control products will eliminate any ticks that make their way onto your pets and repel any future ticks from biting your pets.

Dress Appropriately

If you’re going to be spending time outside, be sure to dress appropriately to protect yourself from ticks. Avoid exposing skin and wearing particularly loose-fitting clothing that ticks can hide in. Wear light colored clothing to identify ticks on you more easily. It’s especially important to dress appropriately if you’re going to be walking through high grass or in the woods. To avoid tick bites and bringing ticks back into your home, dress appropriately when spending time outside.

Keep Grass and Plants Trimmed

Ticks like to hide in tall grass, lush plants, and shade. For this reason, it’s important to cut your grass frequently and trim your plants. You can still keep plants around your home, but it’s important to maintain them. Keeping your grass cut and your plants trimmed will eliminate hiding places for ticks, making them less likely to spend time around your home.

Check for Ticks

After spending time outside, it’s important to check your kids and yourself for ticks to avoid bringing them into your home. Because tick bites don’t hurt, you can easily bring ticks into your home without realizing it. For this reason, it’s important to carefully check your body for ticks, especially areas like your ankles, ears, and other places they can hide. Fortunately, if you find a tick and remove it immediately, your chances of contracting a disease are very low. Checking for ticks after you go outside can help prevent disease and keep ticks out of your home.

Use Cedar Chips

Cedar naturally repels ticks and other insects. For this reason, it’s a good idea to use cedar mulch or cedar wood around areas you want to keep ticks away from. Consider placing cedar chips around your home or around your plants to keep ticks away. If you have a fenced in areas where you let your pet out, you might consider placing cedar chips around the area to keep ticks away. Finally, if you have woods on your property, placing wood chips between the woods and your yard to separate the two areas can help keep ticks out of your yard. Cedar chips can create a helpful barrier between your home and ticks to keep them out.

Stack Your Wood Neatly

Stacking your wood neatly and in a sunny area is a great way to keep ticks out of your home. Ticks hide in shady, most areas. Sloppily stacked woodpiles in shady areas therefore create the perfect hiding spot for ticks. When you bring wood inside for your fireplace or woodstove, you will then bring the ticks into your home. To prevent this issue, keep your wood stacked neatly and in a sunny area that will keep the wood dry. Stacking your wood this way will dissuade ticks from hiding in your woodpile, keeping them out of your home.

Use Professional Tick Treatments

If none of the above solutions are effective enough, you might consider professional tick services for maximum protection. Barrier sprays can help eliminate all pests on your property and repel ticks from entering the area. These sprays are long lasting with minimal environmental impact. A professional tick control company might also use tick tubes, which are biodegradable cardboard tubes filled with cotton balls. These cotton balls are treated with permethrin, which does not harm mice or mammals but does eliminate ticks. Mice will crawl into the tubes and collect the cotton to build their nests. In the process, the mice will become covered in permethrin, eliminating ticks on your property. Tick tubes are environmentally friendly and will eliminate ticks while protecting other animals, making them a safe and effective solution to your tick problem.

Mosquito Squad | Tick Control in NY, NY, and CT

Mosquito Squad is proud to offer a variety of solutions to control ticks on your property. Whether you’re interested in a natural or synthetic solution, we can help you handle your tick problem. We can assess your property then come up with the ideal solution for your unique property, implementing barrier sprays, tick tubes, and more. If you’re in need of tick control services, contact us today.