There apparently is a way to interrupt the white-footed-mouse-tick-human transmission of Lyme disease. If you can line a mouse’s burrow with something that’s lethal to ticks, then the ticks that are embedded in that mouse don’t live to embed in a human. Some clever folks figured out how to do that. It’s called ‘tick tubes’, which are, essentially tubes filled with cotton batting that has been treated with .5% — 1% permethrin. The idea is that the mice ‘steal’ the soft cotton and line their burrows with it. Yes, there are still deer ticks, and yes you might get a bite, but the likelihood that that tick is carrying Lyme is considerably less. I’ve read that the mice don’t tend to travel more than 30' from their burrows and that 15' is a good spacing for the tubes to ensure all mice in an area with tubes have access to the treated cotton.

I DIY my own tubes. I soak cotton balls in a 1% solution of permethrin, let them dry, stuff them into cardboard tubes, then give the tubes to my neighbors (who save the tubes from their used toilet paper rolls for me). They (and I) then distribute every 15' or so. Best time to do this is in the Fall (when the mice are busy gathering things to line their burrows). These are not as good as the commercial tick tubes (commercial ones have Fiberglas/reusable tubes and cotton batting that has been tested for safety) but they are cheap enough that I can hand them out to my neighbors.

That said, even when deer ticks are less likely to be carrying Lyme, they still might have something else. I’ve had good luck with repellents with 20% picaridin (works on ticks, mosquitoes, and, now that we’ve been through black fly season, I can say it works on them as well). You want both the spray and the lotion. Lotion lasts longer on your skin, but, for ticks, also spray on your pants from knee down, shoes and socks.

Hope this helps somebody.