Tick Infestation

We've noticed ticks more this year that ever before. I see them on the sidewalk and when I see them I see 5 or 6 at a time. Yesterday the wife tells me we have them on the side of the house and they are in the crevices of the brick. Sure enough it is bad. I went to Lowes this morning and bought a gallon of Spectracide and it seems to have made them dizzy. I finally swept them into a pile, poured some alcohol on them and lit them.

i have never seen them that bad only on the dogs never on the walk or house i would call a pro they have stuff you cant buy

WOW or YUK, I'm not sure how to respond.

We are seeing them too, but nowhere in those quantities. My 2 dogs have not had any problems, but I do protect them with tick repellent. My sister-in-laws dogs have have had ticks on them already and I picked one off of me one day, but it had not attached itself to me. It seems very early in the season (we're a lot farther north than you) for us to find several ticks so early. But I've never seen anything like your photo with accumulations of them.

That's pretty bad. You may want to look for some perimeter sprays with Permethrin (sp?) in them and spray your whole yard.

I had to spray the yard of the place I rented in Florida. It was pretty bad. After a few months of spraying the ticks were much better (and a lot of other bugs were gone too).

Try this website. They've got awesome stuff (ever try to kill Boxelder bugs?)

http://www.pestproducts.com/index.htm

Even though we have the Tick Preventor on our dog we are pulling two or three a night out of her ears..

thcri said:

Even though we have the Tick Preventor on our dog we are pulling two or three a night out of her ears..

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Not sure what you are using, but most animal treatments kill the ticks after they attach. Frontline and other products that is.... Amazingly, ticks have not been too bad at our place this year, but the ants are AWFUL!

So far (knock on wood ) I haven't had any issues. All appears normal. No ticks on the dog yet and we've even been out to the farm which is where we usually have to be extra careful.

JP...I've resigned myself to the existance of boxelder bugs.....

rback33 said:

Not sure what you are using, but most animal treatments kill the ticks after they attach. Frontline and other products that is.... Amazingly, ticks have not been too bad at our place this year, but the ants are AWFUL!

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I've noticed the same; ant populations like I've never seen before. I generally spray the ten acres around my house with malathion when I apply 2-4-D for weeds. That has always seemed to keep the tick, ant, and even beetle and fly populations down. This year has been so wet that I've been unable to spray yet. Maybe that's why the ants are so bad. I don't know. As soon as it drys out I'm going to carpet bomb our yard with malathion.

Dargo said:

I've noticed the same; ant populations like I've never seen before. I generally spray the ten acres around my house with malathion when I apply 2-4-D for weeds. That has always seemed to keep the tick, ant, and even beetle and fly populations down. This year has been so wet that I've been unable to spray yet. Maybe that's why the ants are so bad. I don't know. As soon as it drys out I'm going to carpet bomb our yard with malathion.

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I ran a border around the house and playground equipment Sunday with diazanon granules. I was so happy that it rained last night to activate it... hopefully this will knock them on their heals.

When I started spraying the poison yesterday the ticks seemed to be dorment. You had to look hard to find any moving. When I sprayed them it was like I woke them up. Then they were everywhere. They started dropping from the wall and crawling all over the porch. I had on shorts and my Crocs. My brother calls me on the cell phone and I am explaining the situation and finally told him I had to go because I was surrounded. I didn't see them dropping dead like I wanted to I went in the house looking for instant gratification in an aerosol can. I found the fuel for my R.C. monster truck. It is alcohol with a little oil in it. I squirted a line of fuel along the edge of the brick where it meets the concrete. I lit it and jumped back. Instant toasted ticks. That fuel is around $20 a gallon so I had to revert back to my Spectracide. I kept spraying and spraying but they were still alive. I got my big push broom and swept them off of the brick and then swept all the ticks into a pile and hose them down with fuel again and lit them. It was like tick popcorn. I pop a few stragglers with a hammer. I put out 2 bags of granual insect poison with my spreader all the way around the house. Later that evening I was on the back patio grilling some pork tenderloin and I guess the poison I put in the back yard was driving them on to the patio. I bopped about 20 with my trusty hammer while grilling. This morning there were no signs of survivors.

Next time keep a propane hand torch handy. That's what I do to rid bugs and insects (if the application is fitting of course).

Makes my skin craw just looking at them. My dogs started picking them up already first of march when it was still freezing out. Heard on the news tonight that it was going to be a great season for the nasty things

The ticks are terrible this year. We finally put the tick gel on our dog. It bothers our dog terrible so we usually don't put the gel on but this year we had to. Now I think they get on her and when she gets in the house they drop off of her and find their way to one of us people figures.

Before we put the gel on she was having up to 6 a night on her.