BigOrangeBri

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This. It’s a fricking embarrassment.

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There are two issues that could be at play here. To your first point, the major change from the time you were a kid to now is to the landscape, or habitat. Every bit of development that happens alters that habitat, decreasing its coverage and fragmenting what suitable habitat is left. Development also degrades what habitat is left, ridding the ecosystem of native plant species in exchange for much less useful non-native plants and grasses. This serves to concentrate all species into smaller and smaller viable areas, leading to some areas within an ecosystem — those of lesser quality — having a much lower biomass while others can be overridden with certain species. This concentrates mammalian species into a smaller footprint, leading to the animals and insects that prey on or parasitize those species to also increase in number within the viable areas.

The other issue at play here centers on control methods that are used. Being that you live in a neighborhood with managed common areas, I'd assume that you all have someone (maybe a company) managing the areas for pests. If that company has sprayed for ticks for an extended period of time those ticks could very well develop immunity to whatever pesticide is being used. That problem is compounded/exacerbated when you account for homeowners doing their own pest control at different times, different, rates, etc.

New research has found that ticks can fairly quickly develop some degree immunity to these chemicals. That's not surprising, the same is known to occur in mosquitos and other pest insects. The more interesting part of that research found that ticks can pass that immunity on to future generations via their genetics, and those generations can continue to develop stronger and stronger immunity.

I would try to ask whoever is responsible for pest management if they are treating for ticks and if they have changed the chemical (not just the product) that they are using over time. Periodically changing chemicals that are used guard against, and slows down, that immunity development.

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They just hit #104 tonight.

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But soon. Next 20 years probably.

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