Spring is here. Homeowners have plenty of opportunities to spend time outdoors, in their yards. Unfortunately, along with warm weather comes a severe boom in tick populations in pretty much all parts of the country.
If your property is home to tall grass and wooded areas, you might need professional tick control services this summer. Ticks are tiny. They go unseen in yards or even in your pet’s fur. Here are some shocking figures about these pests.
Shocking Figures about Ticks
- There are seven tick species found in North America. All seven can transmit diseases.
- According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, every state in the US is home to one (at least) of these seven species.
- The eastern half of the US suffers the most severe tick outbreaks in the spring and summer months.
Thankfully, it’s not hard to remove ticks from your or your pet’s body. According to the CDC, people who spot ticks on their or their pets’ bodies should –
What to do when you spot a tick on you
- Use clean, sterilized tweezers to extract the tick from the skin’s surface.
- Wash the infected area/s with soap; use rubbing alcohol to wash your hands.
- Get rid of the tick/s by flushing them down the toilet.
Removing a tick in this manner from your or your pet’s body as quickly as possible is very important. This step is relatively easy. However, if there’s a tick infestation in your yard, matters get way riskier and more complicated.
Approximately 75% of Lyme disease cases are caused by tick bites that occur inside residential yards. The main victims? The owners themselves. These cases tend to increase between April to September every year – the period when ticks cause the most havoc.
Fortunately, there are several tick control techniques that can help you get rid of ticks without facing such risks. Plus, getting tick treatment will also free your yard of other pests like fleas or chiggers. Let’s explore these techniques.
Organic Tick Control and Treatment in Yards – The Basics
Organic Tick control services are complex, multi-step processes. It’s also an ongoing responsibility. Homeowners can’t get tick spray tick control for the yard today and expect these pests to stay away forever.
The basics of yard tick control:
- Ticks are arachnids, cousins to scorpions, mites, and spiders. There are seven species of ticks in North America – all of them carry diseases.
- All adult ticks have wingless, oval-shaped, and flat bodies. They come in different color such as - reddish-brown, brown, yellow, black, gray, and white.
- Ticks can bite all animals (including humans) at all stages of their lifecycles.
- Ticks can come into your yard via deer, rodents, and other animals. Once they enter a yard, they establish colonies in dark and moist hiding spots.
- Ticks can be found in – tall grass, moist dirt, low-hanging shrubs, and other cool and shaded outdoor areas.
The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) advised homeowners to get rid of ticks as quickly as possible. Ideally, you should eliminate them as soon as you see them. But how do you even know if your yard needs organic tick control?
Identifying Tick Infestations
When ticks feed on blood, their bodies swell. They look like tiny corn kernels on grass. However, the average tick is about the size of one grain of sand. So, spotting these pests isn’t easy.
Many homeowners get tick control just because they have deer in their yards. That’s a good strategy. But, an even better strategy is testing for them every spring (April). Here’s how you can do it –
How to check for ticks
- Check your pets every time they come inside from the yard. Run fingers through their fur to check for any bumps.
- Use a flashlight every night to check different spots inside the yard for ticks. Commonly ticks can be found on tree barks, bushes, rock structures (walls), and in any area full of dense grass.
- You can also get professional organic tick control services. These professionals perform detection techniques like tick dragging to determine if your yard has a tick problem.
Getting Rid of Ticks – The Natural Organic Way
There are many effective organic tick protection techniques that don’t involve chemicals or tools – only household items. Some of them include -
- Spraying cedar oil spray, a natural tick repellent, on your and your pet’s skin, clothes, furniture items, etc.
- Spraying neem oil in tick-infested regions of your yard. Neem oil will instantly kill all ticks on contact.
- Sprinkle diatomaceous earth (DE), an organic pest repellant, in areas of the yard where you have noticed ticks.
Homeowners can also spray EPA-registered foggers or permethrin yard spray in their yards to kill all ticks. However, working with such pesticides is never a safe process. Unless you’re a licensed pest control, you shouldn’t be spraying these chemicals in your yard.
If you’re facing a severe tick infestation issue and natural removal techniques aren’t working, getting professional help is very important. Here’s what happens when you get professional tick spray tick control for the yard.
How Professionals Get Rid of Ticks
Here are the steps involved in a professional tick treatment process -
● Inspection
● Treatment
● Follow-up
Inspection
The trained, certified pest control technicians perform extensive tick inspections. They also sample different areas around the property to identify the potential hosts for the ticks (e.g., small rodents).
Treatment
The next step is performing pest control for ticks. To do so, the pest control experts use power sprayers and backpack sprayers to spray on the infected areas. They use safe, human-friendly pesticides that don’t leave any long-lasting residue on the sprayed surfaces.
Follow-Up Treatment
These steps help the yard become tick free. The pest control experts then schedule follow-up treatments. They also recommend tick prevention steps to homeowners. These steps include- -
- Keeping the grass short. Getting rid of dead leaves and pruning bushes as frequently as possible.
- Regularly spray the tick-prone areas of the yard with sage, human-friendly pesticides.
- Set up a fence to keep deer and other animals (potential hosts for ticks) out of the property.
Never forget the importance of practicing good yard hygiene. If your yard is currently facing a tick outbreak, get premium-quality tick control services as quickly as possible. Emerald Tree & Shrub Care helps thousands of home owners get rid of their tick problems every year. If ticks are hampering your yard, don’t waste time. Partner up with Emerald Tree Care Program and get rid of them now!
