Tick Management Around the Home

Prevent ticks from breeding in and around your home.

Modify your landscape

You can prevent ticks around your home if you reduce the size of wooded areas, and increase the size of open lawns.

It is important to shift children's play areas, picnic tables and lawn furniture as far away as possible from any woods, shrubs, and undergrowth.

Create a three foot wide distance between your yard and the woods, using mulch, woodchips and gravel. 

Decrease the amount of tick habitat around your home

  • Keep grass mowed and other vegetation trimmed close to the ground, about 2 inches or less. Ticks are less likely to survive if the humidity is low at ground level. This will also help prevent small animals such as mice in your area, which host ticks. 
  • Remove all leaf litter and cut away undergrowth from trees and shrubs. 
  • Prune plants, shrubs, and bushes to let in more sunlight, making it less attractive to ticks.

Decrease the habitat of hosts that carry ticks (deer, mice and chipmunks)

  • Reduce wood piles and stone walls where small rodents hide and nest. 
  • Reduce the plants in your yard that deer love to eat (azaleas, rhododendrons, arbovitae, and crabapple)
  • Increase deer resistant plants (Scotch pine, boxwood, American holly, daffodils, pansy, sage,  marigolds, etc.). Local extension agencies and nurseries can offer more suggestions for your area. 
  • Move bird feeders and birdbaths as far from your house as possible. Birds can spread immature ticks over great distances as they travel. 

 

Additional Resources

Help Us Improve Mass.gov  with your feedback

Please do not include personal or contact information.
Feedback