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19 Comments

1. Great article, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the rest.

2. Thank you for this information; the how to and recipes are helpful.

3. The International Lyme and Associated Diseases does not recommended the single dose of Doxycycline. Any tick regardless of how long it was attached needs 30 days of Doxycycline. Doxycycline alone does NOT kill the malaria type tickborne illness Babesia. Malarone and Doxycycline combined for three to six months does. Trials on Disulifram are very promising for people who have chronic Lyme and Babesia. Bartonella is treated best with Doxycycline, Rifampin and Bactrim combined. I highly recommend sending clothes worn for outside use to Insect Shield. The clothes they treat with permethrin is good for 75 washes.

4. Have several friends with children who contracted head lice (from what they say, usually at school). Solution started with a couple who found a product called Clear Lice on line. They ordered it and were happy because the lice were eliminated. Seems word spread and quite a few of their friends encountered the same problem and tried the product and were very pleased with the results. Rid and Nix were mentioned but they said the results with Clear Lice were significantly better. Never had them myself so I can only go by what they said for what it’s worth. Good luck cause they all agreed the head lice were horrible.

5. Permethrin, the active ingredient in Nix and Rid, is available OTC in powder, cream, and concentrated liquid form in many farm and livestock supply stores. It is effective against lice, scabies, ticks, and mosquitoes. It can be used on both humans and animals, and also on crops. The downside is that it is toxic to cats, fish, and bees.

6. As a very poor parent of 4 school age children, living in dairy farming country, winter lice outbreaks at school were commonplace. ” There is no shame in contracting lice, just in keeping them.” Close contact with large numbers of cows that are confined for weeks at a time inside barns and the result is going to be contracting lice. Add to that school bus transport, outdoor playtime, coatrooms, well you get the picture. with 4 children and 1box of RID costing $6, I had to come up with a CHEAP solution. Enter vegetable cooking oil and saran wrap. I slather on the vegetable oil, wrap the head turban style in saran wrap. Leave it on about a half hour to an hour depending on how much time you have. I strip the beds and put into large trash bags with lots of dog flea and tick powder and tie them off, then roll them around a few times while they wait their turn in the washer. Then back to the kids, wash their hair with dish detergent, DAWN works well, wash, rinse about 3-4 times in a row to get the oil out, may take a few days to get it all. Then repeat the process in 10 days. Don’t forget to treat yourself along with the kids, and any indoor pets.

7. Tics are not just in the wilds; I have found them in city, county and state parks as well as fishing access sites. While walking a path to a creek with my daughter, I asked her if she saw the ticks. Her reply was what ticks? There were six to eight ticks stacked on top of each other and looking like dried branches intruding into the path. There were hundreds of these “dried branches”. Brushing them with a cloth, you could see the stick dissolve and try to find a place to tuck in. This was in town. Thankfully, this was unusual even if it is not terribly uncommon.

   Good article, definitely will try some of the organics as repellents.

8. Along with plain veggie oil, mayonnaise works great too. Had to use it to treat multiple teenagers at summer camp. It’s an old folks remedy.

9. The best thing in the world for tick prevention is chickens. During the three years I was building my house I would get over 200 ticks per year, sometimes 7 per day. I kept track by dropping them into a small bottle of alcohol I kept next to my tick forceps. The alcohol doubled to sterilize the forceps. After we got free-range chickens, the tick population dropped to zero. I only rarely get them any more.

   I’m dying to try your DIY mosquito repellent on no-see-ums this summer, my most annoying pest when I’m hiking around in my woods. If all else fails, sounds like I can add oil and try is as a salad dressing?? 🙂

   Thanks for sharing!

10. Great info, as usual from the author and comments.

    My two cents: I have successfully treated Lyme Disease with colloidal silver. Always begin treatment as soon as you notice a tick or symptoms.

    In addition to repelling mosquitoes, I kill them. Organically. Simply. I place five gallon buckets under the eaves of my garage and shed. That saves rainwater for later use. I watch them carefully, which is key here. When I see mosquito larvae, I dump the water onto whatever plant looks like it would like a drink. I have, I admit, slacked off and found the critters breeding from the water. Vigilance is so important.

    Carry on

11. During tick and chigger season, I shower daily with Pine Tar soap. I never get a tick, flea or chigger bite as long as I take my shower. No poison, spray or special treatments. Unfortunately, it doesn’t effect mosquitoes.

12. As a kid, My dad, who grew up in Missouri, had us use Oil of Citronella as a mosquito repellent. It worked great, but the odor would cling to your skin for days and was an excellent people repellent also. The smell would fill a car and stay in it for several days.

13. Keep in mind:
    Permethrin is deadly to honey bees and cats.

14. Good article. One additional item I’d highly recommend stockpiling for crawling insect control is Diatomaceous Earth. It stores almost forever as long as you keep it dry, and it can be used to kill almost any kind of crawling insect with a hard exoskeleton. Since it kills by slicing open their shells they can’t develop a resistance to it, and it’s completely safe for humans and animals. You can even mix it in with your food storage to kill any insects that might get into it. Just one note on using it in your garden – it can also kill beneficial insects, so be very targeted in your application there.

15. I hadn’t heard of tick tubes, thank you! Back on the east coast we used deer feeders that applied permethrin to the deer with paint rollers while they ate.

    I love diatomaceous earth, use it all the time to stop ants and roaches. You can literally eat it.

    For mosquito control I’m a big fan of the Bt bacteria cakes. Similar to Once a Marine, I try to eliminate standing water except for a few select containers that I spike with the Bt.

16. I still miss readily available Diazinon. Used properly, It worked.

17. Growing up in the swamps as a child, then working in a tropical third world country with the WHO as an adult, I have slept many nights under mosquito nets. Talk about HOT! Ugh! You can’t use a fan – not even a ceiling fan- because the mosquito net acts like a blanket and blocks airflow OR it will invariably blow loose and then mosquitos are under the net with you. (You can’t really tuck a mosquito net in between the mattress and box springs once you are already in bed, though God knows I tried many times. And if you try to “anchor” the darn things, then the slightest breeze from the fan can cause them to rip.) Some of the most miserable sleep I ever had (or attempted to have) was in stifling hot climates underneath a mosquito net. The only thing worse than sleeping under a mosquito net is *not having* a mosquito net and being eaten alive by “skeeters”. Those teensy little salt water mosquitos are particularly mean and can always manage to find a way into the mosquito net with you. The only solution then is to suffer, or get out of the mosquito net, turn on the light, and try to find it. Of course, when you get back under the mosquito net, another 3-4 skeeters will invariably manage to join you….

    Every time the temperatures here dive to -30F, I smile and think “yes, but no mosquitos!”.

18. Kerosene head-wash is the old-time, cheap, one-and-done remedy for lice I used when my kids would bring them home from public school. Home-school now. Yay!

19. I contracted West Nile a number of years ago, complete with encephalitis and spinal meningitis, and I lived! I used to say, “and I almost died” because that was true, but it makes me sad, so now I say “and I lived!” It’s been a little over 7 years now. I never recovered my cognitive or technical skills that I previously had. My immune system was destroyed. But, I slowly recovered to the point I can take care of my life now – a long slog and I’m still limited. So… I’m a freak about keeping bugs at bay. Last summer, it was mosquitos, yellow jackets, and hornets. I kept a spray bottle in every location, wore long sleeves, high boots etc when outside. My spray concoction was water, rubbing alcohol, Dawn, and Eucalyptus essential oil. That spray kept the yellow jackets from nesting on and around my wood deck, under the eaves, etc., as well as discouraged mosquitos. I also hung up traps everywhere and burned citronella candles on the deck in the evening if I was outside. I check all my screens regularly and don’t usually leave windows and doors open. When I went fishing I was covered top to bottom, except my face, and used a commercial mosquito spray all over. In a grid down scenario, I would’ve most likely passed on without a capable hospital staff working hard to keep me alive. Thank you for the article. Unless, and until, you experience a deadly disease, you have no comprehension of how sick you can get. Take heed y’all, take heed.

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