I recently found a dog tick crawling across the floor near the front door. It must have hitched a ride into the house on someone’s shoe. I’m so glad that I saw it and removed it before it had a chance to latch on to one of us, but I’m also disturbed to have found a tick indoors. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. This has happened before.
So obviously it’s time for that unpleasant dose of Reality that we seem to require every single spring. Reality is that this area is tick infested. There is no place that is safe from ticks. We tend to think that some parts of the yard are safer than others, because it has been the case just often enough for us to believe it, but it’s not true. Ticks don’t recognize boundaries. They don’t know what’s “near the woods” and what’s “near the house,” and they wouldn’t care if they did. Grass is grass. And, because ticks can be transferred between things and between people, if any one of us has been outside, then all of us need to check ourselves for ticks at the end of the day. Better safe than Lyme-infected.