Mosquito Squad Uses Tick Tubes for Long-Term Tick Control

The most effective tick control only starts with a mist. For long-term tick elimination in all life cycles, you need tick tubes

You probably know that Lyme disease is pretty bad in Pennsylvania. Chances are, you or someone you know have been personally affected by it. But how bad is it really? The WORST. We’re not going to sugar coat anything here at Mosquito Squad — according to PennLive.com, in 2017, Pennsylvania had more reported cases of Lyme disease than any other state (10,001), which is nearly as many cases as all the New England states combined. And, because not all Lyme cases are actually reported, the general rule of thumb is that actual cases of Lyme disease are actually ten times the reported number of cases, which would bring Pennsylvania up to 100,010 people getting sick from Borrelia burgdorferi-infected ticks.

Yikes. That’s a lot of sick Pennsylvanians from a lot of infected ticks.

Because of widespread prevalence of ticks and the high concentration of Lyme disease in our state, we cannot stress enough the importance of implementing an effective tick control strategy in your own yard. Mosquito Squad’s tick control methods go above and beyond what other outdoor pest control companies provide. While most of them stop at a mist, we go a step further and implement a longer-term solution to controlling ticks on your property with tick tubes.

The same barrier treatment that we use to control mosquitoes works just as effectively on adult ticks — up to 90% elimination for nearly three weeks — however, our tick tubes are a “bonus round” of tick control designed to eliminate ticks in their younger stages as well. While most ticks in their larva and nymph stages appear in springtime, the reality is that their life cycle is year-round, thus there’s no “bad time” to implement tick tubes on your property.

See, ticks have a four-stage life cycle that goes egg —> larva —> nymph —> adult. And it’s in the larva and especially nymph stages that ticks are actually the most dangerous. These little suckers are tiny — no bigger than a poppyseed — and can easily hide anywhere. Most often, they’ll be hanging out in a dark, moist environment in your yard like a leaf pile, wood chips, woodpiles, and other such areas looking for their blood meal to progress to the next stage of their life.

Contrary to their name, deer ticks (or blacklegged ticks), the ones primarily responsible for carrying Lyme disease, don’t get infected with Lyme from deer most of the time. Nope, it’s from small critters that frequent your yard often, such as field mice, bunnies, and squirrels. That’s why we use tick tubes, which cleverly enlist the help of these furry friends.

So what are tick tubes? They’re small biodegradable tubes that are stuffed with a cotton treated with permethrin, a mild insecticide. Mice, bunnies, and squirrels all love to use cotton to make their nests cozy. They find these tubes and extract the cotton, and in the process of taking it back to their burrows or nests, the permethrin gets all over their fur. (Don’t worry — this chemical is harmless to the animal.) Since younger ticks are most likely to get their blood meal from one of these critters, when they find their way onto their bodies and attempt to feed, they’re shortly eliminated because the permethrin is fatal to them. It is with this strategy that Mosquito Squad can eliminate ticks in all life stages, thus halt life cycle of ticks in your yard, which is a much more effective long-term strategy than a mere barrier treatment, which is where most companies leave off.

There’s no shortage of Lyme disease and no shortage of ticks in Pennsylvania. But, as you also know, there’s no shortage of cute, furry creatures like mice, bunnies, and squirrels, either. So it only makes sense to use them to our advantage to fight the spread of Lyme disease and ticks in general. Eliminating the adult ticks by nearly 90% is pretty good, but why not go further and make sure the younger ones never get a chance to infect us while we’re at it?

Give Mosquito Squad of Chester and Delaware Counties at (610) 463-0507 to get started on halting the tick population in your yard and protect yourself and your loved ones from the dangers of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. It’s a jungle out there, but it doesn’t have to be on your own property!