Ticks Control Services
North Houston, TX Tick Control
When the weather warms up in Houston, there is no shortage of fun activities to partake in with your family and pets. Whether it’s spending time at the park, going to a pool, camping, hiking or outdoor sports, Houston is a great city to enjoy spring and summer.
If you are located in the North Houston Area’s of Kingwood, Atascacita, Humble, Porter, New Caney, Cleveland, Splendora, Conroe, Texas we can eliminate your tick problems.
Unfortunately, spending extended time outdoors puts you and your family at risk of encountering a tick. If you or someone you love become bitten by a tick, you may be in for a lot of discomfort or even worse, an illness that may make you regret stepping outside in the first place. The mere presence of ticks is enough to make you want to stay indoors, which is no fun.
You shouldn’t have to be confined to your homes out of worry that a tick will bite you and you should be allowed to enjoy your own backyard. This is why it’s important that if you have noticed a tick problem in or around your home to enlist the help of professional tick control specialists to protect your home and yard so you can have peace of mind when you decide to spend time outside.
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Ticks Are A Rising Problem In Houston, Texas
Ticks are a nationwide issue but they have become especially troublesome in Houston, which largely may have to do with our part of the country having much longer and hotter summers with shorter and milder winters. This weather pattern makes it so that ticks are practically active all year round.
With the rise of ticks due to the Houston’s favorable weather, this also means the rise of harmful diseases that ticks bring along with them. Ticks are carriers of over ten different human diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tick paralysis and anaplasmosis. But perhaps the most serious and common disease that ticks spread is Lyme disease which infects over 300,000 people in American every year according to the Centers of Disease Control.
These illnesses are all significant health hazards which further stresses the importance of addressing tick infestations and preventing tick bites. Side effects of tick-borne diseases often start off minor with a fever, migraine, chills, and muscle pains but can degrade into something much more serious if left untreated such as heart complications, joint issues, difficulty breathing and a threatened nervous system.
Ticks are among the top vectors of disease because of how easily they can attach to a host and the subtle way they feed that they may not be detected for long periods of time. This is especially concerning for pet owners and parents of young children because a tick bite can result in drastic effects to their pets and kids. Over half of these diseases can be transmitted from pet to human.
The problem is so serious that even our government has taken notice. The congressional advisory committee presented a report to congress issuing a statement for people to be more aware and take precaution, calling the tick population explosion a, “serious and growing threat to public health.”
These threats alone should make you want to jump into action and hire an experience professional that can treat your home and yard of tick problems.
What Are Ticks?
Much like fleas, ticks are bloodsucking parasites that are actually part of the arachnid family with eight legs. Contrary to what some may believe, ticks cannot fly, jump or drop down from trees onto a target host, they simply crawl.
They attach themselves to their hosts and remain attached for an extended period of time, often several days. During this time, the tick will become engorged with blood. This extended feeding period is what makes the tick an ideal carrier for various blood-borne diseases like Rocky Mount spotted fever and Lyme disease.
Ticks attach themselves very firmly onto their host that it can be very difficult to pull them off without the help of tweezers. While pets are usually the main target of ticks, tick-infested environments not only put pets at risks but also their owners.
The Most Common Ticks In Houston, Texas
There is believed to be nearly 900 species of ticks found worldwide with 90 of those species being found in the United States. Most of these ticks don’t mess with pets or humans but the few that do cause a lot of trouble. Houston’s heat and humidity makes the city an ideal breeding and feeding ground for ticks.
The most common ticks in Houston are the Lone Star Tick, Black Legged Deer Tick, American Dog Tick and the Brown Dog Tick. Most of these ticks are similar in size and shape but there is some difference in their tendencies and the diseases they carry and spread.
The Lone Star Tick is a fitting name but it’s not because of this hard-shelled tick being fond of the state of Texas. Lone star ticks can be easily identified by female ticks having a single white mark in the center of their back that some say looks like a star and others say it looks like the shape of Texas. It is in the nymph stage that this tick is most usually found on a host.
Aside from spreading diseases, the lone star tick is also known for spreading a very rare allergic reaction where when bitten you can become life-long allergic to eating any kind of red meat. If you are a red-blooded American, that is a pretty horrifying side-effect of a bite.
American Dog Ticks are dark brown with white splotches on its back and is one of the larger species of ticks found in the United States. However, the larvae and nymphs are very small and can not easily be detected. American dog ticks are most known for spreading Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Tick paralysis.
Black Legged Deer Ticks are one of the tiniest types of ticks you can encounter. They are about an 1/8th of an inch long when they haven’t had a blood meal and can grow to 3/8th of an inch when engorged. Because of just how small they are, they can often go totally undetected when they have attached to people or their pets. Deer ticks are the primary tick species known to spread Lyme disease.
Brown Dog Ticks get their name because they are mostly brown color and are most often found on dogs. While they prefer to have dogs as hosts, they will bite and latch onto humans in the absence of a dog. This tick species is especially unique because it is a tick that thrives and even prefers to live indoors rather than outside. Unlike other tick species, it can complete its entire life cycle indoors.
Though they rarely cause diseases to humans, they are especially threatening to dogs because of spreading dog diseases like canine ehrlichiosis and canine babesiosis
Tick Infestation Warning Signs
A tick infestation usually starts with a tick latching onto you or a pet from outside. Ticks are usually found in woody areas and places where they benefit from a lot of cover. Bushes, tall grasses and shady areas give them plenty of hiding spots to lie in waiting for a potential host to brush up against them so they can hitch a ride and feed.
The prime times of the year for tick activity in the country are between the months of April up to July. In Houston though, their window of activity is even longer and can even be all year round if the weather is above 45 degrees.
The biggest give away of a tick infestation is to thoroughly check the body of your pet, your child or yourself if you’ve been outdoors for long. When a tick bites, it’s usually painless so a host may not even realize that a tick has latched onto them.
Another sign of a tick infestation is if one of your pets or family members becomes ill and showing signs that they’ve contracted a tick-borne illness. Some of the symptoms that are commonly associated by a tick bite includ
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Fever
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Body pains
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Pet paralysis
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Headaches
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Fatigue
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Rashing
If any of these occur, see a doctor or vet right away and they may uncover a tick on your body.
How We Inspect For Ticks in Texas
When ticks are in your yard, it’s usually a matter of time before they latch on and get themselves into your home and depending on the species, once they get indoors and start laying eggs, their population can get out of control very quickly.
Our Full Scope Pest control experts are specially licensed and trained to inspect for and control tick infestations. When hired for inspection, we take our time to do a detailed check of your yard and home perimeter to locate ticks and the conducive conditions that are attracting them to your yard. We also check to see where they are breeding and laying eggs to ensure that a new generation of ticks doesn’t continue the infestation.
We will also examine your pet (if you have one) and your home to see where ticks could be since they enjoy hiding out in areas where there is warmth and moisture. Doing an inspection yourself often is not that effective because you may miss prime areas where they can be found.
After an inspection we will then report to you the issue and its severity, what we can do to treat your home and yard and what you can do moving forward to reduce the likelihood of a tick reinfestation.
Tick Treatment Methods
For successful elimination and control of ticks in your home and yard, there are three areas that need to be focused on: your pet(s), your yard and your home. Often the tick problem will be first tackled by checking your pet, locating a tick on them, and then removing them either by using a tick spray that can be sprayed safely on the pet or by doing it the old-fashioned way and grabbing a pair of tweezers and pulling the tick carefully off.
Once ticks are off of any pet or human bodies it is then important to treat the inside of the home with professional pesticides designed to kill and repel ticks from the area. The chemical treatments that we apply inside the home are designed to not only kill the adult ticks but also the eggs and larvae to put a stop to the tick life cycle and wipe out the upcoming generation of ticks.
Lastly, we treat your yard which is likely where the ticks came into the house to begin with. A treatment of professional tick control pesticides and growth regulators is combined with habitat modification to make your yard less appealing to ticks (cutting grass low, reducing shade, trimming bushes etc).
Don’t Do DIY Tick Control, Call a Professional Pest Exterminator
You may be tempted to save money by purchasing DIY tick control products and sprays from your local hardware store or big box store. These products are usually ineffective and do not have the level of power needed to handle a tick infestation.
A tick problem requires the expertise of a licensed professional and professional quality chemical products. We have been taking care of tick issues for homes and businesses for a long time and guarantee that by hiring us for tick control, your home and yard will be a tick-free zone.
Schedule Us For A Tick Extermination
You shouldn’t have to be stuck in your home when the weather is perfect for outdoor fun because of the risk of a tick bite and that is exactly where we can help. We want to provide Houstonians with peace of mind so they can play sports, host parties, have BBQs and play fetch with the dog in their yard without being the target of a tick.
Contact us today, 832-898-0190, to have one of our professionals come over to your location and inspect your home for ticks and come up with a treatment plan that will eliminate the entire tick population. If you are located in the North Houston Area’s of Kingwood, Atascacita, Humble, Porter, New Caney, Cleveland, Splendora, Texas we can eliminate your tick problems.
