Spraying Poisons to Kill Backyard Ticks and Mosquitos Has Exploded. But Does It Work?

Nov 23, 2023

I use Yaya brand "Tick Ban" spray around my feet and ankles if I’m going outside in the yard for any period of time or walking at a park, etc. It works great! I made a pet-safe spray blend when I had a dog which worked well, too. You can look up studies on what essential oils actually are effective against ticks like this one here – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28645519/ which notes, "Clove bud, creeping thyme and red thyme essential oils were the most efficient – repelling 83%, 82% and 68% of ticks when diluted to 3%, respectively. The mixture of creeping thyme and citronella containing 1.5% of each showed higher repellency (91%) than individual essential oils at the concentration of 3%." It's obviously easier to buy a blend like Yaya Tick Ban (or similar), which has some of the oils from the study in it, than to make your own, but nice to have the option.

To give you some context, I was bitten by a tick walking my dog in a cornfield in my early 20s in upstate NY. I didn't notice it for over a day, and ended up with lyme disease. So I am not a fan of ticks, by any means. Adaptogenic herbs have been very helpful, but it still is no fun. My aunt was also hospitalized in Vermont last summer because a tick nymph got into her skin, developed subdermally, and had to be removed!

Birds are great allies against ticks, and unfortunately they are being hit with all sorts of dangers to their survival: manmade development/habitat loss, increased noise & light pollution that messes with their mating and migration, deadly avian flus, and many other challenges. I can imagine if they ate insects that were treated with these chemical insecticides, there would be some negative impact to them as well, effectively harming one of our only natural solutions to the problem.

This is the most important part of this article, imo: "both synthetic pyrethroids and botanical pyrethrins can be toxic to bees and other pollinators." With the importance of pollinators and their decreasing populations, I think using a personal tick spray when you go outside is a wiser long-term solution. Unless you’re cool with not eating 1/3rd of the foods you currently enjoy that depend on pollinators, that is… not to mention, all the other ways the ecosystem would be effected by their loss. People often just want quick, easy fixes to everything, but those too, have consequences that we don't always feel until later. Better to try to think things through before rushing into a quick fix; to take a wider view of how things connect in the bigger picture. In the words of Levar Burton, "but you don't have to take my word for it."