I enjoyed 7 years of tick-free frolicking while living in Seattle with dogs. This is one drawback of moving to New England, where ticks and anaplasmosis and lyme disease are real threats. The first summer I lived in New Hampshire, I would find 10-15 ticks on each dog every time we walked in the woods.
C'mon science... let's kill these little assholes.
It's simple: baby ticks feed on little critters, like mice. If you provide mice nesting materials treated with tick poison, ticks die before they can grow up and feast on big critters like me & my dogs.
Since I put out lots of them, I assembled my own rather than purchasing them online. It's neither complicated, nor expensive. Do this in April and July, to coincide with the nesting and mating patterns of mice.
- Collect the supplies:
- Save up your toilet paper tubes.
- Big fluffy cotton balls.
- I paid $22 for a 32 oz bottle of 36.8% Permethrin SFR solution from Amazon.
- Trash bag/drop cloth, or some container in which to spray
- Dilute the permethrin in a household spray bottle. The concentration of permethrin in tick tubes is 7.4%, so my dilution is about one part permethrin to 4 parts water.
- Spread the cotton balls out on a drop cloth. (Alternately, Organic Daily Post suggests using a closed container which can be shaken.) Spray cotton with the permethrin dilution and allow to dry.
- Stuff a few cotton balls in each tube, and place every 10 or 15 feet where mice are active. I put mine at the base of trees all along the hiking trails behind my house.
You can buy 6 Thermacell tick tubes for $25.
- Sawyer makes a fabric spray (makes your clothes insect-repellant for up to 6 washes), and their website has lots of good information about use and safety of permethrin.
- Organic Daily Post includes more detailed instructions and safety information.
After a few cycles of treating the woods with tick tubes, I now find one or two ticks a month. It's not none, so I still have to stay vigilant... but it's not nearly as disturbing.