The folks who know say we should expect a bad tick year in New England and that means a bad year for Lyme disease cases as well. Why the higher number of ticks this year? It may just seem worse in comparison. Last year was actually a lower tick year in New Hampshire and much
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You can get Lyme disease without ever leaving your house. Does that statement surprise you, knowing that Lyme disease is transmitted by the bite of an infected blacklegged tick? “Okay,” you say, “I get it. A tick can be accidentally carried inside on someone’s clothing or on a pet and can then bit an occupant
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My kid has already had his first attached tick this year! I always forget exactly how you are supposed to remove a tick, whether you cover it with baby oil and wait for it to back out, or what. Could you please repeat that advice again? L. Y., Saugus, MA Absolutely! We’re always glad to
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We’ve had occasional problems in the past with fruit flies in our house. This year, so far so good until a couple of days ago when we suddenly seemed to be overrun with fruit flies everywhere. My wife has been canning some fruits and the flies keep getting into the jars – it’s a mess.
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I think we just discovered silverfish in our attic! We’ve never had them before but something has been chewing on some old photo albums that we have stored up there. Can you tell me what they look like? J. P., Boston, MA I never really thought about how silverfish got their name but they do
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Every since we had those heavy spring rains, we’ve seen a bunch of different bugs in our basement, including those roly-poly things. I don’t think there’s a leak anywhere down there but I can tell that it’s a lot damper. Do you think a dehumidifier would help keep the number of pests down? L. K.,
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When I was planting flowers around our home’s foundation last weekend, I kept running into these things that I think are earwigs? They have pincers on their rear end and they freak me out. Why are they there and what do we do to get rid of them? E. L., Jamaica Plain, MA Earwigs are
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There seems to be no end of new tick diseases in the Northeast. Why us? Lyme, Connecticut was ground zero for Lyme disease 40 years ago. Lyme has never slowed down here, and has spread from the Northeast to the Mid Atlantic and Upper Midwest states. Each year in the U.S. there are 30,000 confirmed
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There’s a new tick moving into New England and it comes with its own set of issues. In the last couple of years, the lone star tick which is primarily found in the southeastern U.S., has become much more common in Massachusetts, particularly Cape Cod. This tick has been the subject of a medical mystery.
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