Oh man...I used to be a field supervisor for an environmental consulting business in DE. I bet i pulled 20 ticks off me every day. not all were locked on but still crazy and drives you nuts. Many were deer ticks. Eventually got Lyme. Hard not to when you get that many on you. The ticks in DE have something even weirder though. Ive got ticks on me everywhere in the country (im a magnet...too much red meat according to a tick expert out there) and the bites will itch for a few weeks sometimes even months from whatever they secrete to keep the blood flowing while they drink it. Its like an anti-clotting chemical or something. But the DE tick bites will stay "open" and itch REALLY bad for multiple years, like 2 or even 3, if they bite you in certain spots (armpits/beanbag/hog) and you dont find em for a couple days. sorry i know that prolly TMI haha but it was ridiculous. Not a good look for a bachelor at the bar when im scratchin in weird places like a mangy chimpanzee. Also not a very believable explanation if i got lucky and...they "saw something." I ended up researching it because i thought something was wrong with me or had lyme again and when i entered in my symptoms in a search engine i found a few forums where people were dealing with the same thing. Guess where they lived...Delaware lol. Im not saying it is exclusive to there but still really weird. I would have ticks on me so often that i would feel them crawling on me at home after work and 90% of the time there was nothing there.
I moved back to MD to start teaching art classes and for at least the next 12 months i had phantom ticks crawling on me all day. I probably looked like a meth head. I still feel it sometimes and its about 10 yrs later. I was only introduced to permethrin at the end of my career there and it really did work. I should probably start using it again. Thats my tick rant. I hate ticks...ticks love me.
