Thursday, May 06, 2010

Advice or Knowledge Needed

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," celebrating all things, especially those with wings! I'm your host, Anne Johnson. No pie tonight, I'm trying to readjust my girlish figure a bit.

Tonight's topic is a quick one. I need your advice.

My daughter The Spare found our cat, Beta, sleeping in the clean laundry. Spare saw a tiny tick under Beta's eye. Beta sat calmly while Spare plied the tweezers and removed the tick, but the sly little bug escaped the tweezers and fell back into the pile of laundry.

The tick Spare tweezed is a deer tick, the kind that carry Lyme Disease. We have plenty of both said tick and said disease in these parts.

You know how small these champion pests are? The size of a pencil point.

My question is, what should I do? Will the pesky vermin live in my laundry until it hits another warm body ... that presumably will not be Beta? Should I wash the whole kit and kaboodle again? (SIGH) Would it even matter if I did? Ticks, I have found, can survive everything but fire and toilet flushes. They are the zombie vampires of the insect world.

If you can help me out of this dilemma, the number to call is the Comments box. Our operators are standing by anxiously to speak with you!.

10 comments:

Laura said...

I've had more tick issues this year than ever and I've probably flushed about 10-15 ticks in the last month. I would dump the laundry into the washer and wash it again. I'm pretty sure it would get flushed that way.
good luck!
blessings
~*~

Anonymous said...

I would just wash all of it over again. I think it's probably the only way to be safe. Not sure of the life expectancy of a tick that doesn't have a live host to feed on, though.

Alex Pendragon said...

Oh, and be sure to dry the load on the high setting....after being drowned and hopefully spun out of the load and down the drain, if they get to the dryer it should desicate the little bugger or cook him one.

Aquila ka Hecate said...

In the tropical countries, such as Zimbabwe, we iron every single piece of washing - including the underwear - to be sure of killing these kinds of bugs and their eggs.
Love,
Terri in Joburg

Dancing With Fey said...

I have no experience with ticks. I guess I'm lucky.

Good luck! Finding ticks cannot be fun.

Unknown said...

I do know that to kill head lice (can you guess I have a small kid?), you have to wash at 60 degrees centigrade (sorry not sure what that is Fahrenheit).

Emily Viehland said...

Just re-drying, on High, ought to do the trick. I guess it depends upon how delicate your laundry is. The idea about ironing is great, too--pick your poison, heat-wise!

60 centigrade is quite hot--140 fahrenheit, or the maximum possible setting on your hot water heater.

Maebius said...

those ticks are pesky buggers. We have chickens running free and have never had an issue with ticks in our yard (nor grasshoppers sadly, but, yaknow)..... However, I still had a non-deer tick climbing on me Monday after wearing an un-used pair of shorts from a recent camping weekend.

What we did is boil a stock-pot of water and pre-wash individual sets of clothes in that before dumping them in the machine with the larger load. This 200F water kills pretty much everything in those clothes.

Anne Johnson said...

Good idea, M! Might not hurt to heave in a pot full of boiling water when I re-wash.

Anonymous said...

I have heard that ticks can survive at least one wash cycle, but I am not sure about the dryer! These things are everywhere in my part of the world, and I am in deathly fear of getting the dread Lyme. We started using Tick Tubes this year, and I feel sure they are helping. Anyone heard of them? The website is www.ticktubes.com. They are pretty clever, and seemingly fairly green.