Once you have a flea or tick infestation in your home, it can be a real monster to deal with. There are bug bombs and chemicals you can spray. You can bathe the pets, your family, and yourself, but they always seem to come back. As summer gets going, flea and tick season is in full swing, so let’s go through a few ways to keep fleas and ticks from getting in your home in the first place by preventing an infestation.

Tend to Your Yard

If you have a lawn, you have a potential flea and tick infestation waiting to happen. That doesn’t mean you have to pave over your grass and chop down your trees and bushes. Rather, you can prevent ticks from latching on to you and your kids by regularly mowing the lawn and keeping the hedges pruned.

You also want to avoid over-watering your yard, as fleas and ticks love moist environments. So, while you love lush, green grass, make sure you’re not giving it too much water.

Don’t Let Them Come In With You or Your Pets

Whenever you come inside from doing yard work, check your clothing, including your shoes and socks, for any ticks that may have crawled onto you while you were in the yard. At the same time, it’s advisable to take your shoes and socks off at the door and immediately go to the shower. Once you’ve showered, grab your socks and the clothes you were wearing to work in the yard, and wash them immediately.

You’ll also want to make sure that your pets aren’t bringing fleas and ticks inside with them. Comb your pets regularly. Keep them up to date on flea medication, like Frontline, and make sure that you check them for fleas and ticks before you let them back in the house.

Protect Your House

In addition to limiting breeding grounds and places where fleas and ticks can jump onto you, your family, and your pets, you can ensure that they don’t find their way into your home by applying a pesticide spread around the foundation of your house. This creates a barrier that fleas and ticks won’t be able to cross to get inside.

If you aren’t a big fan of pesticides, you can spread cedar chips around your house instead. Cedar won’t kill fleas and ticks, but it’s very repellant to them. It’s also an attractive ground cover around the house and around trees and shrubbery.

 

Sources:

http://www.bayeradvanced.com/articles/10-easy-ways-to-rid-your-lawn-of-fleas-and-ticks

http://pets.webmd.com/features/stay-pest-free

http://www.homesessive.com/view/natural-ways-keep-fleas-ticks-and-mosquitos-away-summer

http://www.petag.com/get-rid-of-fleas-and-ticks/

No one likes finding a tick crawling on their leg or arm or, worse yet, latched onto their skin. It would be bad enough if the little bloodsuckers were harmless, but they can carry a number of severe and even deadly diseases. The best way to protect yourself from these is to know the facts about the diseases ticks carry, how to avoid ticks, and how to remove one if it has latched on.

Tick-Born Diseases in the United States

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), ticks in the United States carry a number of diseases, including:

• Babesiosis
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever
• Tularemia
• Q fever
• Colorado tick fever
• Anaplasmosis
• Lyme disease
• Powassan encephalitis
• Ehrlichiosis
• Tick-Borne relapsing fever
• Southern tick-associated rash illness

You probably already knew that ticks could carry Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but you may not have been aware of some of the others. This list should be a pretty big eye-opener for anyone who’s ever thought that tick-borne diseases weren’t serious or thought, “They’re rare. It couldn’t happen to me.”

Fortunately, the early symptoms of most tick-borne diseases are very similar. If you’ve been bitten by a tick, and you experience any of the following symptoms within the next two weeks, seek medical assistance immediately:

• Stiff neck
• Joint pain and/or muscle/body aches
• Headaches or fever
• Unusual fatigue
• Rash (usually in the area of the bite)
• Facial paralysis

Removing a Tick

If you notice that a tick has latched onto your skin, you should remove it as quickly as possible. The less exposure time you have, the less like you will be to contract any disease the tick may be carrying.

With a pair of sharp, thin tweezers, firmly grip the tick by the head, as close as you can get to the skin. Do not squeeze. Rather, pull straight up away from your skin. Try not to bend or twist to avoid breaking off part of the mouth. If the mouth does break off, remove it with clean tweezers. Don’t worry if you can’t get all of it; just clean the area thoroughly with rubbing alcohol after removing the tick.

Remember to dispose of the tick properly and without crushing it, as this can expose you to bacteria or viruses.

Old wives’ tales tell us to paint the tick or suffocate it so that it will detach. This actually leaves you exposed to potential disease longer than if you just quickly and cleanly remove it. If you do develop symptoms within two weeks after being bitten, seek medical help and be sure to tell your doctor that you were recently bitten.

Sources:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/tick-borne/

http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/removing_a_tick.html