We have deer - lots of them. When we find them as road kill, they're covered with ticks - so I don't think there's any hope of getting rid of either the deer or the ticks.
We try to clean them off the dogs several times a day, so the ticks don't get onto my 95-yr-old mother-in-law. She gets really sick when she gets a tick bite.
I figure it's just part of living in the country, but I do try to take precautions when I'm working outside.
The precautions didn't work for poison oak this week, and I'm miserable. My wife ended up with a nasty tick bite clearing brush, and I got the poison oak.
Maybe we need a condo in the city....

-Joe-