How To Get Rid of Ticks At Home: First Aid & Prevention

Have you ever spotted ticks on your pets? It can be lethally harmful to your pets. If you have ticks in your Perth home, you must act quickly before they infest the whole house. 

Ticks are typically found worldwide, generally in bushes, parks, gardens, and the backyard. In Australia, Ticks are commonly found on the Eastern seaboard due to the moist weather. There are almost 70 different types of ticks found in Australia. The paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) is the most commonly found ticks in Australia. 

Ticks feed on the blood, and their host can be both humans and animals. The tick bite can cause a severe allergic reaction, and also ticks can transmit various diseases. Ticks attach to skins by piercing them, and they usually target soft areas like armpits, groin, scalp, etc. 

If you are experiencing a tick problem at your home, call your local pest control in Perth Australia.

How To Remove Ticks From The Body

As soon as you detect a tick, make sure you kill it safely. By eliminating the tick, you can prevent many tick-related allergies and illnesses. But If the tick has already bitten you or your pet, then keep a sharp eye on the health symptoms. Symptoms can develop even after hours from tick removal. 

If you spot a tick on the skin, you have to remove it safely. At the time of removing, make sure you freeze it but don’t squeeze. If the tick is an adult one, squeezing the tick can worsen the situation. 

You should use tweezers or any pointed hook-like tool to reduce the risk of accidentally squeezing the tick. If you disturb or agitate the tick at the time of removal, it can release saliva into the host’s bloodstream. Tick’s saliva contains bacteria and viruses, which can cause transmissible disease or an allergic reaction. It can even sensitise your skin or tissues to ticks, and next time, you can get a severe tick allergy. 

The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy recommends killing a tick using a freezing product like Wart-Off Freeze or Elastoplast Cold Spray. Due to the ether in these sprays, the tick freezes, and it’s safe to kill them at that time. This way, you can avoid the tick injecting its saliva contents into you. You can get ether-containing freezing sprays at regular pharmacies in Australia. 

Keep in mind that the Australian Department of Health hasn’t recommended this freezing method yet. They were instructed to use fine-tipped forceps and grasp the tick from the closest point of the skin. Then pull the tick upwards with steady hands without twisting or jerking the tick. So, you can use any of the methods mentioned above according to your choice.

After you freeze the tick and kill it, remove it very gently, so no broken part of the tick stays back inside your skin. Once the tick dropped off from your body, use an antiseptic solution to the affected place. 

Eliminate The Tick Larvae Or Nymphs

To handle the tiny tick larvae or nymphs on the skin, you can use insecticide solutions that contain permethrin. Permethrin will kill any larvae instantly and save you from any potential hazards. You can get the Permethrin-based insecticide from any pharmacy. But make sure you keep the Permethrin cream away from your cats, as it is highly toxic for them. 

Do Not Worry About The Broken Tick Mouthparts

As a tick is a tiny insect, breaking off mouthparts is common while pulling it out of the skin. Those broken mouthparts can stay inside the skins even after the tick is removed. But don’t worry, as the toxic saliva gland of ticks is located in the body, and the mouthparts are not dangerous at all. The mouthparts will come off automatically with skin shading. 

What You Should Not Do

• Never use methylated spirits, kerosene, petroleum jelly, nail polish, any kind of oil, or alcohol to remove the tick. Such chemicals are ineffective against ticks. It also can cause the tick to get scared and dig deeper into the skin, injecting more toxins.
• Never use fire or any other hot object to kill or detach the tick from the skin. You might end up burning your skin without any practical result. 
• Using blunt-nosed household tweezers or scissors can be a bad idea. Such tools would squeeze the tick, and it would release the toxin instantly. 
• Never try to deal with the ticks bare-handed. Any pests can contain allergenic bacterias on their skins, so use gloves. Sanitise your hand correctly once you are done with the tick. 

Diseases Ticks Can Spread

Most of the time, you won’t get any symptoms because of a tick bite. But there are many illness and allergies are spread by tick bites, as follows;

• The victim may feel irritation at the affected area of the skin. Swelling and redness also can be seen in such cases.
• In some rare cases, it can cause lethal allergies. Most of the time, allergies start and stop with the symptoms of itching, redness, and swelling around the spot. The dangerous Anaphylactic reaction is very uncommon. But in an Anaphylactic reaction, symptoms like widespread itching, throat swelling, breathing problems can occur. 
• Tick bites can cause Red meat allergies, and Gelatine and these are pretty common. Even after a few months of the bite, the symptoms can start developing. This is also known as tick-induced mammalian meat allergy.
• Tick paralysis is another dangerous hazard caused by tick bites. If the ticks induced certain neurotoxins through the saliva, then such a paralytic condition can occur. However, it is pretty rare in adult humans. Most cases are seen in children. But pets like cats or dogs are quite a typical victim of paralytic neurotoxins. 
• Spotted fever is also a common illness that occurs due to the bites of ticks. Queensland tick typhus, babesiosis, Flinders Island spotted fever are common in Australia. 
• Lyme disease is another tick-spread nerve disorder disease arguably present in Australia. 

How To Get Rid of Ticks Indoor

Indoor tick infestation is a little uncommon. If you notice ticks here and there in your home regularly, you must act quickly and take precautions. You can go through the following steps;

Declutter All The Piles

If you have pets in the house, you can have an indoor tick infestation easily. The brown dog ticks are as hazardous as the other ones and can cause serious health issues to dogs and kids. 

To remove these ticks from your home, start with decluttering all the piled-up clothes and newspapers. Dirty laundry is the perfect hiding spot for the ticks, do let them hang around. Consider this as a litter of season spring-cleaning.

Wash The Clothes With Hot Water

Wash all the clothes and bedsheets using hot water and good quality detergent. Use as much hot water as you can without damaging the fabric. Keep the washed clothes in a clean and dry air-tight container. 

Clean The House Thoroughly

Once you are done with the laundry, now it’s time to clean the house. Use a mop and antiseptic floor cleaner to clean floors and shelves. Use a vacuum cleaner to clean the bedding, sofa, and especially your pets’ bedding. Do clean underneath the furniture very well, as ticks love to hide under furniture. Dispose of the vacuum bag once you are done. 

Clean Your Home With Pesticide

By now, you have removed most of the ticks in your house. Now you have to prevent them from coming back and have to kill the larvae and eggs. Use any pesticide containing Boric acid and Botanical extracts. Also, use pyrethrin-based pesticide spray, which is effective against brown dog ticks. These sprays are harmful to paints, so beware. 

Spray the pesticide on the carpets and curtains as well. Do not forget the chair cushions, sofa, mats, and rugs. Keep your pet away from the places where you used pesticides. 

Treat Your Pets

Your pet can be infested with ticks in various ways. The ticks can get to it from the kennels also from the other dogs in the neighbourhood. Treating your dog and cat is a must, as they are the no one source of indoor tick infestation. 

If you are experienced, then you can try to remove the ticks from your pet physically. Then you can use tick-killing on-skin products available for pets. 

But the best solution is consulting a veterinary doctor for these cases. Vets can guide you effectively, remove the ticks, and look for other tick-related illness symptoms in your pets. 

Homemade Natural Tick Repellent Solution

Making a DIY non-toxic tick repellent solution is possible. To prepare the solution, follow the steps below:

• Citrus-Based Repellent: Ticks do not like the smell of citrus, so it is an effective weapon. First, boil 2 cups of water, and add two chopped lemons to it. You can use limes and oranges and grapefruit together also. After boiling it for a minute, let the solution simmer for an hour. Now you can strain the limes out and let it cool. Once done, pour the solution into a spray bottle, and use it anywhere you want to. You can spray it on yourself, on your kids, and the pets as well. 

• If you do not have cats, you can also use Geranium, lavender, and peppermint essential oils. These are good as outdoor tick repellents, but remember, these chemicals are toxic for cats. 

Call a Professional Pest Exterminator

The last step is calling professional pest control experts to get rid of the infestation properly. Even your pet’s vet would suggest the same. Xterminate Pest Control is one of the most reliable and experienced pest control service providers in Australia. If you are looking for quality Pest Control in Australia, give them a call today. 

Get Rid Of The Ticks Outdoors

Getting rid of ticks outdoors is a hectic job, and not most people can do it. But if you want to try the DIY methods, try the followings:

Look For The Ticks Favourite Locations 

Outdoor ticks are usually found in extended grassy and bushy areas. If you have trees or shades on your property, look for the grasses and bushes underneath. Ticks like humidity but hate direct sunlight. Look for the places which have both the features.

Trim The Vegetation 

Trim the grasses in your backyard. Cut all the bushes and excess vegetation. If you have indoor plants, check them as well for any tick infestation. Remove all the piles of leaves from your property. Cut the foliage neatly so that every part gets direct sunlight because these little vampires do not like the sun.

Mow The Grass Regularly

If you have a grassy backyard and fancy about it, you have put effort into maintaining that. Regular mowing trims all the tall grass and lets the sunlight in. The ticks do not like sunlight; if your backyard is full of sunlight, they won’t venture in.

Cut the grass at the edges of your backyard entirely and create a barren strip of land. The ticks might not cross that sterile zone due to open sunlight, and that line acts as a preventive zone.  

Use Pesticide

Use the approved outdoor pesticides, especially at the time of summer, to prevent the ticks effectively. A single treatment in May can reduce the chances of tick infestation by 50%. Make sure you are using quality pesticides that are effective against ticks. Good quality pest solution contains Lambda-cyhalothrin and Esfenvalerate.

Call For Professional Help

Essentially, outdoor tick prevention is not that easy and can take a lot of time for you. To get rid of stress and to get 100% compelling results call for a professional exterminator service. Professionals can kill all the ticks and also prevent them from coming back after just one day of service. 

Particularly, Xterminate Pest Control has been the top-rated company in Perth in terms of tick removal. Also, they cover a wide range of pest control services.  Their methods are kid-safe and pet-friendly. Hence, they do not use toxic treatments that can harm your health. With their trained and experienced experts, they can make your home completely pest-free. 

For more details, you can visit the Xterminate Pest Control Perth website. Besides, you can visit Google My Business for their customer testimonials. Moreover, you can call them for a free quote or send an enquiry here.