In the fall season, many of us are spending more time outdoors to maintain our yards and to go hiking on scenic trails to see the colorful foliage. But while this is certainly a beautiful time to be outside, it is also a prime time for ticks to affect your family and your home. Ticks generally live outdoors, but they can invade buildings in the fall to find warmth when the temperatures drop.
Here are some tick control strategies to protect your family from ticks this fall.
Diseases Spread by Ticks
Ticks carry diseases that could put your health and the health of your kids and pets at risk. To do so, ticks consume blood from hosts while transferring pathogens directly into the bloodstream or through excrement.
Lyme disease is the most well-known disease spread by ticks, but these are some others that you should be aware of too.
- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
- Colorado tick fever
- Q fever
- Tick borne meningoencephalitis
- Hemorrhagic fever
How Ticks Can Enter Your Home
Ticks tend to live in humid and moist environments, and especially near wooded and grassy areas, in the spring and summer. But in the fall, ticks seek shelter and warmth and often find their way into damp attics, basements, and crawl spaces, and walls.
There are many ways that ticks can enter your home, especially during the busy fall season when your family is spending lots of time in the yard. Ticks love to take up residence in piles of leaves, and if you are gathering leaves or your kids are playing in them, ticks could come inside when you do.
If you have pets, your house may be at an even greater risk of ticks. Every time you let your dog outside to go to the bathroom, he could bring ticks into your home that he picked up in the leaves or bushes.
Preventative Measures for Tick Control
Fortunately, there are some preventative measures that you can take to keep ticks out of your life. Before going outdoors, use repellents that target ticks and be mindful of the types of places where ticks live.
After spending time outside, check your skin and clothing for ticks. This goes for your dog’s fur too! On humans, ticks tend to find their way to the underarm area, in and around ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, in the hair, and around the waist. Promptly remove any ticks that you find with a tweezers, and place dry clothes in a dryer with high heat for 10 minutes to kill ticks. To prevent your risk of contracting a tick-related disease, shower shortly after returning home.
Preventative measures for your yard include modifying your landscape to separate grasses and wooded areas from your home, removing fallen leaves frequently, and discouraging deer from entering your yard. It’s also a wise idea to hire a pest control professional to use a chemical control agent for tick control.
Bergen County Pest Control for Ticks
In Bergen County, Precise Pest Control is the name to know for tick control. Our professional tick control exterminators will come to your home to apply treatments to your lawn and any buildings on your property.
We’ll conduct a thorough inspection of your area to identify tick target areas, such as rodent and bird nests and gaps and crevices in building materials. Keep your family safe and healthy this fall with Bergen County Pest Control and by preventing ticks before they become a problem!