Thank God you started this thread. Considering the last (only) one I started was about my child’s experience with headlice, I didn’t want to start another about ticks and get everyone thinking of me as that bug lady.
We live in New Mexico. It’s hot and dry and not at all tick country. However, ever since the electric company came out and cut the trees that were growing under their lines, we’ve been finding wood ticks on the dog. It was a few at first, but I was concerned enough to ask the vet to prescribe something, so he gave me Frontline. I applied it to the dog and figured our problems were over. Until I discovered that, if I looked closely at his skin whenever he scratched, I’d find a tick or two every time. Some of them didn’t look like very healthy ticks, certainly, but they sure weren’t dead. I picked 20 (count 'em, 20) off the poor animal in one day last week. I’m not finding many now, maybe one every other day or so, but I still leap on the dog every time he scratches. He’s taken to skulking around the corner whenever he feels an itch.
I’m assuming, since my experiences with small bugs in the past year has led me to become a pessimist, that many of these dying ticks left a last gift in the carpet and that thousands of baby ticks will be hatching sometime in the summer, when the children are home lounging about on the floor.
I’ll be sure to keep you all updated. So far, though, I far prefer ticks to lice.