The Northeast and Upper Midwest are the highest-risk regions, and Long Island is one of the most heavily affected areas in the country. New York consistently ranks among the top states for total Lyme disease cases reported each year.
If you've found a tick on yourself, your child, or your pet after spending time in the yard, the worry that follows is real. On Long Island, that concern is also backed up by solid data.
According to the CDC, over 89,000 cases of Lyme disease were reported in 2023 alone. That is just reported cases, though, and it’s estimated the true number of cases is closer to half a million. Among states where Lyme disease is a problem, New York was one of the top three. And Lyme disease is typically worse in suburban and rural areas with wooded lots, deer populations, and residential yards bordering natural areas.
Wooded and semi-wooded suburban neighborhoods tend to have worse problems thanks to the deer and white-footed mice that live there, since they are common hosts for ticks. Properties with stone walls, leaf litter, overgrown borders, and shaded landscaping tend to be good places for ticks to live as well. So much so that even well-maintained yards can harbor ticks along the edges where lawn meets woods or brush.
Recent research from Dartmouth found that approximately 50% of adult blacklegged ticks in the Northeast carry Lyme disease bacteria. Poppy-seed-sized nymph ticks are responsible for most human infections, though, thanks to their small size and how it can be easy to miss them during tick checks.
There are actions you can take to lower your risk of contracting Lyme disease, though. One is simply to check yourself (or kids or pets) for ticks, including the very small nymph-sized ticks that cause most infections. You can also wear long pants in tall grass and use tick repellents. Treating your property is also another option, and often a good one.
If you are a Long Island homeowner, and you want to lower the tick population in your yard,Mosquito Squad of Long Island provides barrier treatments that help reduce tick and mosquito populations by up to 85-90% throughout the active season. A trained technician will start the service by finding high-risk areas on your property. Then after doing that, they will apply targeted treatments every 21 days, from early spring through late fall.
