Affiliate Disclosure: This Old House‘s Reviews Team is committed to delivering honest, objective, and independent reviews on home products and services. To support this business model, This Old House may be compensated if you purchase through links on our website.
Ticks can carry dangerous diseases like Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and be carried into your home on your pets or children, exposing the rest of your family to a possible illness. In this guide, we explore the best tick killers on Amazon. If you prefer a preventative approach, we also provide tips on how to maintain your yard to deter these pests in the first place. Keep reading to learn more.
Top 5 Tick Killers
- Ortho Home Defense Insect Killer for Lawns Granules
- BioAdvanced 700288S Complete Insect Killer
- Spectrum HG-61067 Bug-Free Spray
- Vet’s Best Flea and Tick Yard and Kennel Spray
- Wondercide Ready-To-Use Flea, Tick, and Mosquito Yard Spray
Ortho Home Defense Insect Killer for Lawns Granules
These insecticide-covered pellets protect against ticks, as well as other pests like spiders, fleas, ants, and mole crickets for up to three months. Because of how large the bag is, you can protect up to 10,000 square feet.
BioAdvanced 700288S Complete Insect Killer
This 10-pound bag of pellets provides three months of protection for up to 10,000 square feet. It kills over 30 insects, including ticks, and starts taking effect within 24 hours of the first application. You can use this tick killer on soil, flowers, trees, shrubs, and any other penetrable surfaces in your yard.
Spectrum HG-61067 Bug-Free Spray
This spray is best for small yards because of its size. Simply attach it to your garden hose, point the nozzle, and spray the solution over your yard. It applies in just a few minutes and gives you protection from a long list of insects for up to 12 weeks.
Vet’s Best Flea and Tick Yard and Kennel Spray
This spray comes in a 32-ounce bottle that’s ready to use immediately. It has a handle on the top and a built-in nozzle that you point and spray over your yard. It also uses clove and peppermint essential oils instead of harmful chemicals, making it a natural solution to your tick problem. Once you run out of the spray, you can purchase a refill bottle and pour the solution back into the ready-to-use container.
Wondercide Ready-To-Use Flea, Tick, and Mosquito Yard Spray
This spray comes in a 32-ounce bottle and contains natural insect repellent. It doesn’t harm you, your pets, or any other wildlife like bees and butterflies, and it covers up to 5,000 square feet.
Types of Tick Killers
Tick killers come in a variety of forms, with sprays and pellets being the most common. Keep reading to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of each tick killer.
Sprays
Tick spray is the most common and effective tick killer for your yard and can be broken into three subcategories: Concentrated, premixed, and natural.
Concentrated
Concentrated sprays come in a large container and are full of a highly concentrated insecticide. You mix the insecticide with a certain amount of water, depending on what the instructions say, and you spray your yard to get rid of any ticks. This type of tick killer is the most economical choice if you’ll be spraying your entire yard, as a little concentrate covers a large area.
Premixed
Premixed solutions already have the proper ratio of insecticide to water. They come ready to spray and, because of their smaller size, are better for smaller yards or spot treatments.
Natural
If you want to be environmentally conscious, opt for a natural spray that has a mix of essential oils like peppermint or cedarwood—two oils that are known for repelling ticks.
Pellet/Granular
Pellets are made of coarse materials like walnut shells or clay and are coated with an insecticide. The pellets will either be ready to use out of the bag or you’ll have to mix them with water to activate the ingredients. To use the pellets, lay them over your yard like you would with fertilizer.
While pellets are easy to use and don’t pose as much of a hazard as sprays, they don’t cover the leaves on plants and trees like sprays do and they can be mistaken for food by pets and wildlife.
Skin/Clothing Treatment
While this review is focused on yard treatments, there are ways to keep ticks off of your body. Most skin treatments come in the form of a spray with DEET as an active ingredient. However, you can find body sprays that use natural ingredients and sprays that are designed for clothing.
Buying Guide
Before purchasing a tick killer, consider what other pests you have in your yard and how you’ll effectively and safely use the insecticide.
Safety
If you’re using a non-natural spray, wear protective equipment like glasses, gloves, and respirators, as well as long clothing so that the chemicals don’t touch your skin or enter your body. If you’re using pellets, consider wearing gloves, as the insecticide on the product could rub off on your hands. Once you’re done applying the tick killer, take a shower and throw your clothes in the wash to prevent any residual chemicals from coming into contact with you or others.
Proper Use
Every tick killer should come with instructions that explain how to use the product. Make sure you thoroughly read these instructions before using the product so that you understand how much concentrate you need to mix with water or how much surface area it can cover.
Other Pests
Most tick killers are designed to kill more than just ticks, allowing you to target multiple insects in your yard at once. Before making a final purchase, read the product’s list of covered insects and make sure it can target ticks and any other unwanted pests.
How To Prevent Ticks
Instead of covering your yard with tick repellents, you can take a proactive approach that eliminates the habitats they thrive in. Here are a few tips on how to prevent ticks in your yard:
- Keep the grass short: Ticks like long grass because the blades cast shadows, creating a cool environment for them to thrive in. We recommend letting your grass grow to four inches tall and then cutting it down to three inches. Cutting it any shorter than that will confuse the grass, causing it to overcompensate by growing taller faster.
- Make a mulch barrier: If your property is adjacent to a wooded area, put a three-foot barrier of mulch between your yard and the woods. Ticks like wooded areas, but mulch is often hot and dry, which are two things ticks like to avoid.
- Bag grass and leaves: After mowing your lawn or raking leaves, put the clippings and other debris in a bag instead of leaving them in your yard. While these clippings and leaves act as natural fertilizers for your lawn, they’re also a natural habitat for ticks. If you don’t want to waste these nutrients, you can always create a compost pile away from your house.
- Target tick carriers: Mice and deer are the most common tick carriers, so consider taking steps to deter them from your yard. Choose plants that deer won’t eat or fence off your yard so that they can’t get in. For mice, keep your yard clear of trash and lay out tube-like traps that are stuffed with fluff soaked in insecticide. When the mice pull out the fluff to make their nests, they’ll kill the ticks they’re carrying.
- Welcome tick-eating animals: Wild birds like robins and bluejays are natural tick predators and they can be attracted to your yard with bird feeders.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Permethrin and Talstar?
Permethrin and Talstar are the two most common chemicals used in tick and pest sprays. Permethrin tends to be cheaper than Talstar and kills pests quicker after the initial application. Talstar lasts longer, killing ticks and other pests over a longer period.
How do I keep ticks off of my dog?
Most dogs are treated with flea and tick killers a few times a year. You can buy treatments in the form of liquids, chewable pills, or collars. However, if you want extra protection against ticks, you can follow these tips:
- Keep long-haired dogs groomed so that ticks can’t hide in their fur.
- Mix seven drops of lemon eucalyptus oil in a 32-ounce bottle of distilled water. Spray the mixture on your dog’s fur before a walk in the woods to deter ticks.
- Use a lint roller on short-haired dogs after a walk in the woods to pick up ticks.
Do tick killers come with a garden hose concentrate?
Yes, some tick sprays come with an attachment that connects the container of concentrate to your garden hose. The pressure from the hose water will spray the insecticide for you. However, this only works for smaller yards because you’re limited to how far the hose can reach.
Why Trust The This Old House Reviews Team
This Old House has empowered homeowners for more than four decades with top-notch home improvement content in the form of television programs, print media, and digital content on its website and social media platforms. The This Old House Reviews Team focuses on creating in-depth product and service review content to help inform your purchasing decision for just about any item or resource that you might need for your home. The This Old House Reviews Team has written over 1,000 reviews on products in the home space, from cordless drills to kitchen trash cans, lawn mowers, and dining room decorations.
We recommend products in each review using an intensive research process, spending hours combing through the best available models on Amazon. For a product to make our list of top picks, it must hold a solid sales record on Amazon, have consistently positive customer reviews, and offer unique features, among other factors. After narrowing down our list of recommendations, we conduct additional research and sometimes in-person testing to ensure that the products meet our standards. Once we conclude the research phase, we craft a well-rounded, user-friendly article that includes our recommended products and additional information to help homeowners like you make the right purchase.
To share feedback or ask a question about this article, send a note to our Reviews team at reviews@thisoldhousereviews.com.