{"id":11352,"date":"2018-12-20T14:21:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T19:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/ticks\/?p=11352"},"modified":"2021-03-21T13:21:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T17:21:28","slug":"ways-ticks-get-into-your-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/tick-notes\/ways-ticks-get-into-your-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Ways Ticks Get Into Your House"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"cl-wrapper cl-hero-wrapper\"><div class=\"cl-hero  \"><div class=\"cl-hero-proper\"><div class=\"overlay\"><\/div><div class=\"still\" style=\"background-image:url(https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/in-and-out-dog.jpg);\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m pretty sure no one wants to find a tick \u2013 either engorged or unfed &#8212; crawling across their floor or furniture. Even the TickGuy really doesn\u2019t like finding loose and wandering ticks inside where they don\u2019t belong and are just not expected. We\u2019ve written previously about the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/tick-notes\/whats-the-difference-between-inside-ticks-and-ticks-inside-plenty\/\">difference between inside ticks and ticks inside<\/a>\u00a0and talked about some easy and effective\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/tick-notes\/there-are-two-types-of-ticks-on-your-dog-or-cat\/\">solutions to loose and wandering ticks<\/a>. It\u2019s really important to correctly identify any ticks found in a home. Brown dog ticks (<em>Rhipicephalus sanguineus<\/em>), for example, actually thrive in indoor environments where there is easy access to blood meals, while most other types of ticks find the indoor environment <strong>too dry for long term survival<\/strong>. Tick prevention products for pets that exhibit quick tick-knockdown action can incapacitate loose and wandering ticks on pets to the point that those ticks are no longer a threat to other pets or unsuspecting humans. Similarly, wearing clothing pre-treated with permethrin can incapacitate ticks that latch on to people wearing those clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a previous blog, we\u2019ve also addressed people\u2019s concerns about bringing ticks inside on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/tick-notes\/do-you-have-christmas-tree-ticks\/\">Christmas trees<\/a>; the tick look-alikes coming from Christmas trees are really not ticks at all, but instead a type of insect called an aphid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, we\u2019re inundated with reports from people with tick bites who firmly proclaim their lack of outdoor exposure; these folks are left wondering and making sometimes-flawed assumptions about where their tick might have come from. That got me thinking about all of the possible ways ticks can and do get inside, and I started to make a list that I would welcome people to add to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Their&nbsp;<strong>out-and-in pets<\/strong>&nbsp;carry loose and wandering ticks inside; &#8211;that\u2019s probably the most common way. Followed closely by:<\/li><li>out-and-in kids, husbands, wives, partners\u2026you get the idea; &#8211;ticks riding inside on shoes and clothing worn when outside in tick habitat.<\/li><li>on gear that\u2019s been outside like backpacks, bags, or blankets;<\/li><li>on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/tick-notes\/exotick\/\">exotic pets<\/a>, especially reptiles, coming from breeding facilities.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people are afraid that they bring ticks inside on their firewood. It\u2019s possible, I suppose, but probably ranks lower down on the list of ways ticks get inside. Spiders and other wood-loving beetles maybe, but ticks, not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I once live-captured a mouse in an upstairs closet that had a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/fieldguide\/tick-growth-comparison-charts\/\">3-day engorged nymph tick<\/a>&nbsp;attached to it. While that tick wasn\u2019t a risk to anyone inside (because it already had its blood meal from the mouse), it was still kind of a surprise. I\u2019ve always thought that the mice I caught in the house were mostly adapted to indoor life. This one was either an \u201cin-out-in\u201d mouse, or a very recent transplant from outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/ticks_in_house_2.jpg\" alt=\"American dog tick on a window screen\" class=\"wp-image-11355\" width=\"282\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/ticks_in_house_2.jpg 500w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/ticks_in_house_2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/ticks_in_house_2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1713\/ticks_in_house_2-364x364.jpg 364w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>There are probably even rare times that ticks just make it inside on their own&nbsp;<strong>eight legs<\/strong>.  American dog ticks, in particular, are attracted to the heat and carbon dioxide emanating from houses, and are sometimes encountered <em>en masse<\/em> <strong>literally climbing the outside walls and screened windows<\/strong> probing for a way indoors. This scenario is generally encountered mostly in the spring, when hungry adult American dog ticks have recently emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No doubt, there are other ways ticks make it indoors, and I sincerely invite you to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/contact\/\">send us your indoor tick encounter experiences<\/a>. But one thing we\u2019ve learned by listening to thousands of people sharing their tick encounter experiences is how commonly people underestimate how long a tick has been attached. When they find an attached tick, they may believe it couldn\u2019t have been attached since they had last been outdoors in tick habitat. A common scenario is a self-report of hiking on Saturday but finding the tick on Tuesday or Wednesday, and their being \u201ccertain that [they] would have seen the tick\u201d had it really been attached that long. Well, surprise!! Ticks masterfully go unnoticed thanks in part to their tiny size, and compounds in their saliva that prevent pain as they bite and feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next time you find a tick, we encourage you to take a look at our&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/fieldguide\/tick-growth-comparison-charts\/\">tick growth comparison chart<\/a>&nbsp;to get a better estimate of just how long that tick was likely attached. It may help you pinpoint the source of your tick encounter so that you\u2019re better protected the next time you go to the same or similar places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m pretty sure no one wants to find a tick \u2013 either engorged or unfed &#8212; crawling across their floor or furniture. Even the TickGuy really doesn\u2019t like finding loose and wandering ticks inside&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1338,"featured_media":11358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[536,448],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-tick-notes","category-tick-notes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11352"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19899,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352\/revisions\/19899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/tickencounter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}