3 Drivers of 2023 Tick Business

Todd Barber has worked in pest management in Florida for 18 years. Over those years, he has seen tick populations grow aggressively. This year is no exception for his 5-year-old company, Barber’s Best Termite and Pest. “Our tick business was healthy last year,” he reports. “This year, calls started coming in earlier — in February versus March — so we’re looking for this tick season to be even stronger.”

The early start to the season has been reported this year by many PMPs, particularly in Eastern states, where calls have started as much as a month early. Todd Simpson of HTP Termite & Pest Control, Huntingdon, Tenn., says it’s been a gradual move in his market. “For us, the dead of winter — mid-December through mid-February — is the only time we don’t see ticks. Any other month is fair game,” he says. “Ticks usually start showing up before mosquitoes and then really ramp up once we start our mosquito programs in the spring. Five or 10 years ago, that ramp-up happened in May; now it’s typically in early April.”

Barber and Simpson aren’t alone in anticipating a tick season that’s longer and stronger than in the past. Data collected through the 2023 PCT State of the Tick Control Market survey, sponsored by MGK, supports this trend. For example, 34 percent of respondents said that tick control services are more significant to their businesses today than over the past five years. That compares with 26 percent who said the same last year. Even more respondents — 45 percent — said they expect their tick revenues to increase in 2023. That compares with 38 percent last year.

While many PMPs point to changing weather patterns — namely, warmer winters that don’t kill off tick populations as they have historically — others attribute growing tick pressure, and its resultant business, to urbanization. But there’s another important factor that figures into the tick equation as well: public concern related to tick-borne diseases. As tick pressure escalates, so do concerns that people or their pets will be exposed to Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the Heartland virus or other diseases.

Tick pressure has risen considerably across the Maryland-D.C.-Virginia market over the past several years, according to Daniele Collinson of Blades of Green Lawn Care and Pest Control, Edgewater, Md. “We’ve had extremely mild winters in comparison to years past; we no longer have the deep freezes and snow that we used to see in Maryland,” she shares. “I remember seeing stories of the Chesapeake Bay completely freezing over and the Coast Guard having to take ships out to break up the ice, but we don’t even see ponds freeze over anymore. The lack of that intense cold is helping increase populations of not just ticks but almost all insects.”

The moderation of seasons has brought about a couple of important changes: (1) tick populations are growing larger in many markets, and (2) tick season is expanding in many markets. The latter is spurring many pest management companies to alter their tick management programs.

Quest Termite & Pest Management in Hellertown, Pa., is one of those companies. “Our season has expanded,” says Quest’s Kendra Snyder. “We’ve typically provided tick services from April through September; now we’re starting as early as March and going into October or November, depending on the weather. This year’s mild winter prompted tick activity to increase sooner than anticipated, so we needed to restart our tick services earlier than in previous years.”

Related to seasonality, the 2023 State of the Tick Control Market survey reveals that rising demand for tick control services has more PMPs providing year-round tick services (12 percent of respondents versus 9 percent in 2022). Perhaps even more notable is the 11 percent year-over-year decrease in the number of companies providing tick services on an as-needed basis. Instead, those companies seem to be moving into seasonal programs, as 50 percent of respondents (versus 41 percent last year) reported providing tick services on a seasonal basis.

A second driver of tick pressure in residential markets is urbanization. As wooded areas are being overtaken by construction activity in growing metro areas, wildlife — and their parasites — are looking for new places to hang out.

“Eight years ago, all of the calls we received about our mosquito abatement program were from people concerned about mosquitoes. Today, probably 15 percent of those calls are about ticks,” says Dylan Morrison of City Wide Exterminating in Charlotte, N.C., whose tick (and flea) services are part of their mosquito program. “I attribute the growth in our tick populations to that fact that Charlotte is a booming city — one of the fastest-growing in the U.S. As urbanization continues to displace wildlife, they’re not going away; they’re just sharing the space with people now, bringing ticks along with them.”

As ticks become displaced in this way, they are sometimes hard-pressed to find tall grasses where they can lie in wait, or quest, for their next host. “One of our clients sent us a photo of tiny bugs crawling all over their back patio. We first thought they might be springtails, but when we put one under the microscope, we saw it was a dog tick larva,” says Morrison. “The client does have indoor cats, but they weren’t carrying ticks, so we know these came from an outdoor source. We treated the patio and encouraged the client to take preventive measures with their cats to be on the safe side.”

In addition to the bump in tick business for City Wide Exterminating, Morrison shares that the company’s wildlife division has grown 30 percent year-over-year, thanks to Charlotte’s ongoing urbanization. Deer, squirrel, raccoons, opossums, bats and skunks are troublesome themselves, in addition to carrying ticks.

Media coverage of tick-borne diseases continues to play an important role in informing the public of risks to themselves and their pets. The rise in Lyme disease, which is the most common tick-borne disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, across the upper Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states has been broadly publicized for the past few decades. That has caused a lot of curiosity about what diseases ticks can spread.

“The more the media talks about it, the more interested our clients become. They call and ask us questions like ‘What should I be concerned about?’ ‘How can I protect my family and my pet?’ and ‘What can you do to help us?’” says Kendra Snyder, Quest Termite & Pest Management. “I’m not a medical professional, but I share what we know about tick-borne illnesses and then refer them to a veterinarian or medical practitioner for more insight and, if appropriate, treatment.”

Snyder adds that Quest Pest specifically educates customers about:

• The types of ticks they may encounter in the region
• What they should wear when they’re out hiking or near wooded areas to prevent tick bites
• What action to take if they are bitten or see a tick on a pet or themselves

Two-thirds (67 percent) of PMPs report that their customers consider ticks a threat to public health; nearly three-fourths (74 percent) said customers recognize ticks can be dangerous to their pets. This concern often triggers calls for service, which drives tick control business throughout the season or, in some regions, the year.