Ticks in Willow Grove

Ticks are hot in the news already preaching a bad season. Bucks County, Montgomery Country, and all the communities within these counties are not safe.

If you stroll the streets of Willow Grove, Hatboro, Warrington, or Holland, all you’ll see are well-manicured lawns. Consider yourself halfway there when it comes to tick control. Ticks love unkept, high grass and overgrowth. They climb to the top of a blade of grass or weed, and like you see pictured above, they “quest” or wave their “arms” just waiting to grab onto any unsuspecting human or animal.

So I mentioned a well-manicured lawn. What else can you do limit the risk of ticks becoming an issue for you this season? One technique might not be the easiest, as it requires eliminating or deterring host animals from visiting your yard, and deer come to mind. It not uncommon here in Willow Grove to look out your kitchen window and see deer running across your back yard. Doing your best to eliminate that visit will help. Then there are the little visitors. Mice scurry about looking for seeds and other good stuff for their young, all the while picking up tick nymphs. What’s a homeowner to do? There is a product that Grove Pest Control integrates into their tick control program called tick tubes and tick boxes. The product inside these tools is treated and kill the ticks on the mice. The mice take this treated material to their nests and the nymphs die as the mice sleep in their nest. This effectively crashes the tick population. Along with this, there are chemical, both traditional and organic tick sprays that help. Lastly, there are granules that can be used to get to hard to reach places the sprays can’t. An effective and comprehensive tick suppression treatment implemented monthly or a few times a season will go a long way.

So why do we care? The word that comes to most people’s mind is Lyme Disease. Ticks carry a bunch of bad stuff and when they attach themselves to us they can cause some trouble. This is why it is important to consistently check yourself and your children, especially if you work outside, hike, or spend time in parks or forests. Be sure to wear tick repellent. Talk to your vet if you have pets for advice on keep ticks off of your dogs and cats. Be vigilant! It will pay off.

For information on Grove Pest Control’s comprehensive tick control program. Please give us a call at 215-237-6831.