Tips to Minimize Your Exposure to Disease-Carrying Ticks

Female deer ticks lying in wait for their next "meal"

Here in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, many of the ticks carry the Lyme Disease spirochete. All it takes is one tick to infect a person with the disease.

While a thorough skin and clothing check after being outdoors is helpful in finding any ticks that you’ve come in contact with, the best preventive measure is to minimize the chances of being exposed to ticks in the first place.

What You Can Do To Reduce Tick Exposure At Home

Below are landscape practices that will help minimize tick exposure and reduce your risk of getting Lyme Disease.

• Keep grass mowed.
• Remove leaf litter, brush and weeds at the edge of the lawn.
• Restrict the use of groundcover, such as pachysandra, in areas frequented by family and roaming pets.
• Remove brush and leaves around stone walls and wood piles, which are prime tick habitats.
• Clean up and seal stone walls and small openings around the home to discourage rodent activity.
• Move firewood piles and bird feeders away from the house.
• Manage pet activity; minimize activity in the woods to reduce ticks brought back into the home.
• Use plantings that do not attract deer or exclude deer through various types of fencing.
• Move children’s swing sets and sand boxes away from the woodland edge and place them on a wood chip or mulch type foundation.
• Trim tree branches and shrubs around the lawn edge to let in more sunlight.
• Create a 3-foot or wider wood chip, mulch or gravel border between lawn and woods or stone walls.
• Consider a least toxic pesticide application as a targeted barrier treatment. 

We specialize in Organic Tick Control solutions.

Please call us at 908-309-6611 to see how we can help minimize exposure to ticks around your home and property.

>> SEE OUR TICK & MOSQUITO CONTROL PROGRAMS

Many thanks to chief entomologist, Kirby C. Stafford III, Ph.D., of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, for the above recommendations.