So my mom was saying something about contacting someone in California officialdom about reporting a tick infestation.

Does anyone know about this? Is there a place/agency to report tick infestations to? If so, does anyone know how I would go about doing it?

Oh, the irony. I've been trying to get diagnosed with Lyme disease and we have ticks coming out the wazoo. Although I don't remember my wazoo or any other body part for that matter ever being bitten.

Anyway, any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

I know vector control here in Northern CA will come out if you call and report bees, or a possible hive, and treat the area. I think they also come out for mosquitos reported too. But I have never heard of ticks being treated, or reported to this agency.

Where have you been in the past couple of days? Hiking? Camping? Do you have inside/outside animals?

Have you had company come to stay at your house? Have they been camping or hiking before they came to stay at your house? Did their luggage lay on the floor of the room they slept in? Have you done their laundry in your washer/dryer?

If you said yes to any of the above, then you may have brought the ones you found on you, home. Or, your animals brought them in the house. Or, ticks hitch-hiked into your house on someone else's stuff, and came to find a tasty meal on you!

I know my outside-only cats have NOT had any ticks on them lately. I mean since maybe early June? They both are Frontlined (Plus) each and every month, whether it's "tick season" or not, because I don't trust whoever calls it tick season here in CA. We live in semi-rural area in NO. CA, and we have ticks in this neighborhood. I have found fleas (dead and about to be dead) on them all thru the summer months, so I know those pesty insects are alive and kicking. I think it's too dry right now (where I live) to have much tick movement happening. (and where my cats move about outside during the day).

If I were you, I'd find a good pesticide (Diazinon is still found on ebay for sale, but boy, at what a price!)and spray the perimeter of your house. Get any animals on Frontline Plus, and do not skip a month. No matter what season it is.

Then, sadly, I'd stop hiking in the brush, and camping would be severely limited. The last time I took my boys camping, it was at a lovely, beautiful, stupendously gorgeous place called "Costanoa" on the coast of CA near Santa Cruz "tick capital of the west coast". Found ticks crawling in our hair, down the backs of our shirts, and my oldest son had a nymph tick embedded behind his ear, found at 10p.m. our first night at this place.

No one told me then (summer of 2000) about tick country here in CA. I had NO IDEA that this area we were in was so badly tick infested (central CA coastline). I would never had gone camping at this area, but it was right before our Lyme diagnosis, and I had not a clue. Yet.

Big education in the past 5 yrs. We no longer camp, or hike, or mountain bike in the open space areas near where we live.

Some people never reach this point, but I've seen plenty of people here on this site that have.

I think it depends on how badly you and your family has been affected by ticks, and bites, and debilitating, expensive treatments that have no guarantee that they will work, attached.

If you find of a reporting agency that is willing to take down info, please post it here, as I will be 2nd in line (behind you, of course ) caling them up and reporting my backyard as a mighty fine place to get started.

Julie

I just had to giggle because the thought of me doing anything more strenuous than watering flowerpots is just not possible in my current condition. Usually my biggest activity is laying out by the pool. So no, I don't really ever leave my house. I do spend time in the backyard watering afrementioned flowerpots and also watering a small patch of vegetables.

Our yard here, though, on the other side of the fence are open hills where the deer come through every day. So it's also semi-rural with lots of deer.

But the weird thing about these ticks is that my husband hasn't been anywhere outside except for the deck. And other ticks we found inside our house hanging out on the screen door. Yipes! Oh wait, maybe it's the dog, like you said. She has been Advantaged, but she's in and out of the house a lot and in the yard.

Well, I did some searching with the California Department of Health, vector diseases, Lyme, yadda yadda yadda. I definitely agree with you that it looks like they have no setup whatsoever for tracking ticks or monitoring their presence/infestation.

They also discourage people from having ticks tested for Lyme, big surprise, but they did give some vague info as to how you could go about doing it.

It seems that they are of course way interested in testing mosquitos. It amazes me what ges publicity and what doesn't. You think Lyme as an epidemic, vector borne disease would be more in the news. Sigh.

Thanks for your reply. That's just amazing about your experience in Santa Cruz (where I lived a few years ago...hmmm.....and went hiking...hmmmm)

Cheers,

Only Frontline, and Frontline Plus kills ticks.

Sorry to have to tell you this, no one told me, I had to figure it out on my own, but if you read the box of both Advantage, and Frontline, you will see it in black and white.

So, your dog may have brought them into your house, or even close enough to your backdoor for them to attach to the screen.

And geez, your place sounds like my place-deer behind the backyard fence. If we did not have chain link (oh so lovely, not) that the original owners had put up in the immediate perimeter of this backyard, we would have deer literally at our backdoor.

My guess would be your dog. And, the Frontline (Plus as well) does not kill the ticks immediately-it takes up to 2 days of the tick to be embedded/attached to the animal for the tick to finally die. Little buggers! But, I have done my own research on this fact, and it is true. If the tick is just hopping on the animal (dog or cat), has not attached yet, it will not be killed just by walking over the animals fur. It has to bite, and be attached for 2 DAYS for the Frontline to kill it.

I have pulled ticks off of my cats that have not been attached for those 2 days, and of course the #$%^ ticks were still alive! I then had my "tick jar" ready-I bought a dozen Mason jars at the supermarket (the smallest size), filled them with rubbing alcohol, wrote "tick jar" with a black sharpie marker, and then, when I pull a tick off of a cat, I put it in my tick jar, and keep it tightly closed until I have a few in there. Then, I toss the jar in the garbage on garbage day.

It's too bad that we have to deal with this in the beautiful California state, but I guess the East coast has it worse than us.

In fact, we have no fence in our front yard so the deer DO come right up to the front door and hang out in our front yard. Ay carumba!

I remembered that I didn't use Advantage because they don't sell it in the store. I got Sergeant's PreTect which CLAIMS to "kill and repel fleas and ticks for up to a month". Although now with what you told me I Think I'm just not going to bother with the rest of this pack and go out and get some Frontline.

Yes, it's amazing that we have to deal with this here - I was just thinking that last night...it's so beautiful here. What a bummer that the ticks are everywhere. Siiigh.

Thanks for the info, though.

People around here are just catching on about Lyme and I intend to make sure they do.

When I got Lyme, followed by my daughter getting Lyme, I made a point of having a long talk with my County Vector guy. Then I had a talk with our County Health Department. I told them how badly our local neuro misdiagnosed people. How supposedly "rare" they think it is. I asked them, "How rare can it be, if both of us have it???" I made sure they don't dismiss Lyme-ish people on account of a stupid ELISA (they vow they do not).

Then I talked to my radiologist, who read my brain MRI. I told him how brilliant he was. He thought I had Lyme. He usually doesn't give an opinion on the films, just the facts. But he did that day, thank God. Lesions in wrong place for MS, too big for migraine lesions. Sure looked like Lyme to him and he said so. He said it was baffling to him 'cause he thought Lyme was rare here too. Now he says, "Hmm, maybe it's just misdiagnosed a lot...?"

Now. About camping. I'm sorry, I just can't give it up. Take along the 25% Deet spray. Last weekend a 500-600 lb Black bear terrorized the campground. I chased him (cautiously of course) with my Nikon through the woods until I found him hunkered down with some cooler loot. Would I give this up for concrete? Not as long as I can still move!

Michelle