Have you ever spent a fun day outside, only to discover your ankles are covered in itchy red bumps? You may have come face to face with an infestation of chiggers – tiny bugs with a taste for human skin who often strike before they’re even seen.
Chiggers are microscopic mites whose bites cause intense itching and reddish welts. It’s a myth that they burrow under the skin and drink blood, but these troublesome bugs still cause a nuisance by feeding on skin cells and hiding out in grassy areas of your yard.
Chiggers can feed on human hosts for up to four days, and can survive in your yard for months while waiting for a host. Also known as red bugs or harvest mites, chigger mites favor humid climates and love to lurk in wooded areas, tall grass, and unkempt weeds.
They only bite in the larval stage of their life cycle, after which the nymphs and adult chiggers feed on insects and fellow arachnids. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to get rid of chiggers in your yard and get back to enjoying your time outdoors.
Read on to learn more about these pesky parasites and how to treat their bites.
Here Are Some Techniques To Dispose Of Chiggers
Looking to get rid of a chigger infestation? Here are the best ways to get rid of chiggers in your lawn.
Improve Air Circulation
Practicing wholesome garden care has a bunch of benefits, which include stopping and eliminating a chigger infestation. Trimming bushes, uprooting weeds, and mowing grass to an appropriate peak all assist to enhance air circulation, for you to lessen the moisture buildup that chiggers love.
Keep Host Animals Out
Chiggers can thrive with the constant delivery of host animals like squirrels, rats, and birds. To hold those critters far from your backyard, ensure to test for and dispose of any rodents taking shelter below your deck or porch.
Sprinkle Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is a natural pesticide that works wonders for backyard pest control. Sprinkling a small amount (around five kilos according to thousand rectangular feet) throughout your backyard will dry chiggers out and motivate them to die off, returning your backyard to the pest-unfastened panorama you love.
Diatomaceous earth may be very versatile and may be sprinkled dry in a hoop across the affected vicinity to isolate it.
You also can dissolve it in water – around four tablespoons according to gallon – to create a twig so one can assist it to keep on with hard-to-attain regions.
Make certain to apply meals-grade diatomaceous earth to live safe, and put on gloves, a mask, and goggles even as making use of it to keep away from irritation.
Note: diatomaceous earth also can kill vital useful insects. To ensure it most effectively receives rid of the chiggers, goal affected regions in preference to spreading it throughout the whole backyard, and cowl them with a tarp for some days main as much as utility.
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How To Get Rid Of Chiggers With Inorganic Chemicals
Insecticide remedies can assist with excessive chigger infestations, however, need to be blended with backyard care remedies and different herbal treatments to ensure your chiggers don’t come back.
If you’re searching out a pesticide method to dispose of chiggers fast, search for those varieties: Diazinon, Carbaryl, Malathion, and Permethrin.
Target pesticide utility to attention on chigger-infested regions that humans might also additionally come into touch with.
Always comply with label directions, and hold youngsters and pets far from regions wherein you’ve carried out insecticides till they’re dry.
How To Prevent Chigger Bites
While you’re seeking to remove the chiggers in your backyard, you’ll need to realize the way to keep away from the painful itchy welts they leave behind. Chigger larvae goal regions of uncovered pores and skin or heat folds, which include ankles and armpits.
Wear shielding garbs like lengthy sleeves and pant legs at the same time as running withinside the backyard, and use insect repellent malicious program spray earlier than going outside.
How To Treat Chigger Bites
Unfortunately, seeking to remove chiggers in your backyard can depart you from coping with bites. If you find chigger bites on your pores and skin after garden work, take a warm bath with soapy water and a washcloth to lessen inflammation.
Try now no longer to scratch the bites, as this could bring about secondary infections. Applying hydrocortisone, antiseptic, or a chilly compress can offer relief. Home treatments like nail polish to “suffocate” chiggers are ineffective, as they don’t truly burrow into pores and skin.
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Removing Chiggers From Skin And Clothing
– Removing Bed Bugs from Skin and Clothing
Bed bugs don’t necessarily take hold once they come into contact with your meat. The skin on your arms and legs can help you get rid of chiggers attached to your body.
For the same purpose, you can also brush your clothes to help remove chiggers from your clothes.
– Use a soft-bristled brush or towel
If you’ve been to an area potentially infested with chiggers, take a hot bath or shower immediately after re-entering. If you’re lucky, it will wash off and kill the chiggers before they have a chance to get caught. on skin.
To ensure application kills, lather, rinse and repeat several times during shower. The water should also be very warm to hot, not lukewarm.
Rub your skin briskly with a washcloth to remove any callus stains that may have adhered. Wash your clothes in hot water. The water must be at least 52°C or the chiggers won’t die.
Also, the wash cycle should be 30 minutes or longer to ensure chiggers are killed. After washing, dry clothes in a dryer or in sunlight. Don’t wear chigger-infested clothes before washing them. Do not wash the clothes in cold water as this may not kill the chiggers
– Reduce the itch of bites without scratching them.
When bed bugs are attached to your skin, you will have to deal with itchy bug bites within hours. Itching associated with bed bug bites can be temporarily relieved with benzocaine ointment, hydrocortisone cream, and calamine lotion.
You can also reduce itching with petroleum jelly, baby oil, or a paste made from baking soda and water. Don’t scratch your bites no matter how itchy! If you do this you can break the skin and cause an infection. Contact your doctor if you feel warmth in the area or see discharge from the bite.
– Cover your skin with a tightly woven cloth to keep chiggers away
Wear long sleeves, long pants, long socks, and high boots. Opt for densely woven fabrics over airy, loosely woven fabrics.
Chiggers are small enough to get into the spaces between the threads of loosely woven fabrics, but you’ll have a much harder time finding them. Your way through clothing with smaller gaps.
– Tack or tie any openings in your clothing.
Chiggers can get to your skin by jumping on and crawling under your clothing. To get rid of them before this happens, seal the openings in your skin as best you can.
Pay particular attention to areas below the waist, as chiggers often move from tall grass to their lower body. Tuck socks into pants or pant legs into socks and seal the skin gap between them.
Tuck your shirt into your pants. Chiggers like to nibble on areas with thinner skin like the genitals, oops! If you venture into tall grass or bushes, tie your sleeves around your wrists with rubber bands or ties. If possible, wear clothes with zippers instead of buttons.
– Sprinkle sulfur powder on your socks and shoes
Certain strong odors, including sulfur dust, are said to be effective in repelling chiggers. Sprinkle a fine layer of sulfur powder on your shoes and/or socks to keep grass and weeds away from your feet.
For even better protection, sprinkle a thin layer of powdered sulfur on the inside of his shirt and pants.
Keep in mind that powdered sulfur has a strong odor, which may make it a less-than-ideal solution if you have a particularly sensitive sense of smell. There is also not much reliable evidence that this method actually works
– Use a repellent that contains diethyltoluamide (DEET)
DEET is one of the most effective insect repellents against chiggers and other mites. Apply the repellent to exposed skin, especially hands, arms, and legs.
You can also apply it to your clothing (but not to your skin under clothing) in these areas. DET treatments can last 2-3 hours. You must reapply it afterward. Do not spray repellents containing DEET near the mouth or eyes.
Do not spray DEET repellents on skin covered by clothing as this can cause skin irritation. Follow the label directions carefully. Some repellents can damage clothing, plastics, nail polish, and painted or varnished surfaces.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Still, need more answers? Explore the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) here.
How Do You Know If You Have Chiggers?
The telltale sign of a chigger infestation is chigger bites. first, although they grow over the course of a few days and usually appear in groups.
How To Make Sure You’re Dealing With Chiggers And Not Mosquitoes Or Other Garden Pests?
Try walking around the garden in long protective white socks, or stick a piece of cardboard vertically in the grass. If you find small red mites snagging or running away from the bottom up, you have chiggers.
Do Chiggers Go Alone?
Chigger bites will heal on their own after a few weeks, but removing these pesky pests from your yard takes some hands-on lawn care. Left alone, they can proliferate in your yard and survive for months while they wait for a host before wintering in the ground.
Can chiggers live in your bed?
Unlike bed bugs, chiggers cannot live alone in your bed or in your house. They must cling to a warm body that they can constantly feed on in order to become nymphs.
However, they can remain in human hosts for up to four days.
Conclusion
You may not be able to remove Chigger everywhere. However, it is possible to repel or even kill chiggers in your yard.
While chigger bites are not dangerous, the red bumps they leave behind can be very itchy. Chiggers and treating chigger bites will help you build an effective defense against those pesky mites
