Ticks, bees, termites: What Long Islanders should do about insects on properties

About five years ago, Michelle Lake's two children were playing on their 2-acre property in Medford when they stepped in a tick nest.

"They were swarmed, covered with hundreds of them," she said. "I had to pull them off them."

She had tried several tick companies but none did a good job of killing ticks, and her kids, now 10 and 12, and two dogs, were always at risk of being host to the bug.

"We're very outdoorsy — my husband splits wood outback, we have quads, we're always outside," she said.

Since then, she has hired North Fork Tick and Mosquito Control in Centereach, whose owner, Peter Lupo, comes to her house monthly with a hose attached to his truck and thoroughly sprays the property, moving things around and spraying in the wood pile.

Previous companies sent workers with a backpack filled with pesticide and didn't spray thoroughly.

"Of course they couldn't cover my yard in a backpack worth of spray," she said.

Why were ticks spotted earlier than usual?

Customers like Lake started calling Lupo in February, asking him to spray their properties for ticks and mosquitoes, a full month or two earlier than past years.

Lupo attributes the early calls to a warm winter when, instead of hibernating under leaves and mulch, ticks were visible, even making their way to hosts.

Summer is always a big time for insects, but when bugs make their appearances earlier in spring, people may fear an infestation. Lupo and others say that by taking careful steps early on to prevent, and strategic action later on to treat, pests can be easily eradicated.

While Long Islanders may have seen ticks earlier than usual in the season, the population this year isn't larger than years past, says Moses Cucura, an entomologist and laboratory director for Suffolk County Vector Control.

Tick activity is temperature dependent — if it's a sunny day above 38 degrees, you can expect ticks to make an appearance.

"Any chance they get to try to quest and find a host, they'll take advantage of that," he said.

New York winters don't produce the steady below-zero temperature needed to impact tick populations.

And with an unseasonably warm, sunny day, ticks come out, are spotted by people, who start calling professionals like Peter Lupo. But these earlier spottings don't correlate to a higher population, Cucura said.

"We're just encountering them more because our paths overlap."

Are ticks a problem in the house?

Marianne Koke, an agent in the Smithtown office of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty, has been showing houses for 39 years and knows to check for ticks. One day two years ago, she missed a tiny one.

The property on the East End had tall grass, and when she got home, she saw a tick on the floor of her bedroom and killed it.

She contracted babesiosis, a tick-borne illness that infected her red blood cells and caused body aches, high fevers at night and a rash.

While plenty of insects like to take shelter inside, experts agreed that ticks have no desire to live indoors. In fact, they can't survive very long because the humidity is too low, so they dry out and die.

But you will never find ticks seeking shelter in a home, they have no motivation to do that.

— Dr. Lisa Filippi

That doesn't mean an occasional tick won't find its way inside, like when Dr. Lisa Filippi spotted one on her couch after her husband forgot to check his clothes.

"But you will never find ticks seeking shelter in a home, they have no motivation to do that," said Filippi, a behavioral ecologist who teaches biology and entomology at Hofstra University.

Koke said a common bug problem she sees on Long Island is termites. However, it's one that is very treatable in most cases.

She has never seen a house that had significant structural damage but some people "get very nervous if a termite is detected in a home in a home inspection," she said. Some buyers have backed away from purchasing homes if there's any sign of termites at all.

"I think that's foolish, because every area has some sort of pest," she said. "You just have to be aware of them" and treat them, as needed.

A house with a basement that has termites will have visible mud tunnels, and can be treated with bait stations, she said. It's harder to detect in a house on a slab with no basement.

Houses with a history of termites should keep a termite contract with a reputable exterminator to check regularly, she suggested.

The cost of services vary, depending on how large the house is, how extensive the infestation is, which chemical is used and how much, how many bait stations are needed and more.

Low-cost treatments can be a few hundred dollars, while higher cost solutions, like tenting and fumigation, can cost a few thousand dollars.

How to outsmart insects

While a tick carried indoors will die within one or two days, Lupo said, it may scare a homeowner into action.

"If your dog's outside and the dog is protected with an oil or collar, it'll drop on the dog and won't embed but it'll come into your house and drop off," he said.

There are several important steps to take to make your yard an unwelcome space for ticks and other bugs.

First, minimize the amount of leaf litter on your property where people walk, said Filippi.

While it's natural fertilizer for soil, leaf litter attracts ticks and should only be allowed in undisturbed areas of your property.

To prevent your yard from becoming a mosquito haven, remove all standing water, even in small amounts, like a pail that collected rain water, or a pet's water bowl.

To prevent ants, make sure there's no moisture in your house and don't leave food out. If they do make their way in, bait traps work well, Filippi said. If store-bought bait traps don't do the trick, exterminators can be called for less money than it costs to treat termites, averaging $150 per treatment.

While a wasps nest high in a tree should be left alone, one in a place where people walk can be dangerous and should be sprayed and removed, Filippi said.

Similarly, a bees nest low enough should be destroyed, something she had to do recently when she found one on her property where her dog walks. If homeowners don't want to remove a nest themselves, professional removal costs an average of about $400.

Applying pesticides is key

Lupo says a monthly application of pesticides to kill ticks and mosquitoes is the best way to reduce their populations.

Clearing leaf litter before spraying is key so ticks have nowhere to hide. While spraying the pesticide, the focus should be on plants close to the ground.

Lupo suggests to begin spraying once temperatures are regularly in the low 40s — usually in March or April — spraying monthly through the first week of November.

He prices the service by the size of property — a quarter-acre costs $120 per month, while a half-acre is $140.

The first spray is most important because it clears the property of any ticks that have burrowed over winter.

If a homeowner misses the early spring window, they should start spraying as soon as possible, Lupo said. Starting later is better than never.

Deer ticks and lone star ticks are the most prevalent ticks on Long Island, Cucura noted, and suggested spraying May through October.

It's a misnomer that pesticides will kill off all ticks and mosquitoes — it won't, Cucura said. Sprays can have an 80% or more reduction of tick population but never 100%.

Those who opt for pesticide-free products can use the popular essential oils such as citronella, cedar oil, cinnamon oil, lemongrass oil or peppermint oil.

But Cucura noted that they don't have an Environmental Protection Agency registration number and are not required to provide control data.

He has done field efficacy testing with various products and found that certain so-called 25B natural products can control populations up to 60%.

But not all the products on the markets are tested, so the efficacy of all are unclear and must applied more often than regular pesticides, Cucura said.

Non-pesticide steps

If you know you'll be in long grass or an area with leaves, both suggest spraying your clothes with DEET or permethrin, wearing long sleeves and tucking your pants into your socks. Doing a tick check afterward is key, looking closely to see if any adhered to clothing or skin.

Cucura also suggests taking a shower and putting your clothing in the dryer, where ticks can't survive the heat.

If you do find a tick on your body, remove it with tweezers, Cucura said, getting as close to the tick's mouth as you can.

There are a lot of recommendations for other methods for removal — "They're things you don't want to do," Cucura cautioned, like coating the tick in anything to make removal easier. That will irritate the tick and could lead to a potential secondary infection, he said.

Save the tick in a small container of bag, so if you develop any symptoms, you can bring the tick to a doctor and the species will determine what you should be tested for.

Filippi, the behavioral ecologist, wears boots whenever she plans to walk in an area with tall grass, leaf litter or mulch, a haven for ticks.

You don't fear them, you just prepare for them.

— Dr. Lisa Filippi, behavioral ecologist, biology and entomology professor at Hofstra University

She doesn't use pesticides, opting for tea tree oil on her clothes, which are always light colors — not appealing to ticks and mosquitoes. She does routine tick checks after returning from a trip outside.

Ticks hunt for a host, or quest — climb plants and extend their front legs and wait to attach to a passing human or animal.

While two-thirds of their time is spent on the ground and under brush, one-third is spent questing.

"I don't brush against anything green" when outside, Filippi said.

She runs educational programming at the 17+ acres of Hempstead Plains, a prairie on the campus of Nassau Community College. Offering field experience to students, she cautions them to wear proper clothing, spray it with bug repellent and tuck in pants.

"You don't fear them, you just prepare for them," she said.