Effective tick control on a budget

 It's spring in Maine and the crocus and daffodils are starting to come up and it's time to start thinking about tics.  Last year I purchased a product called Thermacell Tick Control:  (Click here to purchase on Amazon - As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

It's basically a cardboard tube with cotton balls soaked in permethrin - the stuff that kills tics on contact and you typically spray it on your clothes.  You get six tubes for roughly $20. You tuck these tubes into nooks and crannies in the yard around your home.  The theory is that small rodents will use the cotton as nesting material and get permethrin on their bodies which will kill tics on contact and reduce the breeding population.  When I used this product last year, I saw dramatic reduction in the amount of tics I found on my body.  While I did find a few ticks on me in the early spring, there was almost nothing after that and I walk around in the tall grass on my property quite a bit.

 I realized when I was opening a vitamin bottle recently that I could use the cotton packing and just spray it with permethrin myself.  This stuff is really nasty, so I took it outside and sprayed it on to the cotton on-site and then tucked it into the bottom of my woodpile.  I wore surgical gloves when I did it because I don't want to get any of that nasty permethrin on my hands.  I have done this a few times now and every now and then I will see bits of cotton tucked into different places in the bottom of my woodpile and elsewhere, so I know that chipmunks and mice are using it.