We aren’t the only ones who like the warm weather. Pests and insects of every kind, including ticks, enjoy multiplying and spreading out during the warmer days. Should you happen to find yourself or someone in your household with a tick, there are some tried-and-true methods of tick removal. However, there are also a few to skip, including:
- Burning– Many people have heard this piece of advice for tick removal before- simply place a burning match head by the tick and it will crawl out! In actuality, the only purpose this will serve is for the tick to either burrow in further or to regurgitate whatever it just ate inside of you. Talk about gross! Not only does this method not work, but you could burn yourself and risk infection.
- Smothering– Soap, petroleum jelly, nail polish . . . there are lots of different solutions people recommend to put on the tick to suffocate it and let it crawl out. However, ticks don’t breathe like we do. They barely breathe, and suffocating them would take over a week, during which disease could spread.
- Twisting– Ticks do not spin themselves into your skin like a corkscrew, so removing them by twisting will not work. In fact, trying to twist a tick out might cause its head to break off.
The best tick removal method is to use pointy tweezers. Clean the surrounding area with some rubbing alcohol, grasp as close to the skin as possible, and steadily pull the tick straight out. Once removed, clean the area with soap and water, and resist the urge to squish the tick, since that can cause infection. For questions on tick removal and control, contact us at NC Pest Control today.