Patrick Guilfoile is making it his business to get rid of wood ticks. What began as a plan to protect his family from Lyme disease has grown into an educational specialty and a book about tick-proofing areas where people like to gather.

That would include flower and vegetable gardens, around outbuildings and walkways, swing sets and sand boxes, stacks of firewood, bird feeders, stone walls and even mailboxes – particularly if they’re in wooded areas or encircled by ground cover.

“Some studies show 70 to 75 percent of all people with Lyme disease get it in their own yards,” said Guilfoile, a biology professor at Bemidji (Minn.) State University and author of “Ticks Off! Controlling Ticks That Transmit Lyme Disease on Your Property.”

The Guilfoiles live on six “mostly forested” acres bordering a lake. That makes it prime wood tick territory. “I wanted to find out for myself what could be done on a person’s property to avoid ticks,” he said in a telephone interview. “At the time, not much information was collected in one place about landscaping. Therefore, the book.”

Until several decades ago, wood ticks were considered little more than an annoyance – something you might see crawling across a light-colored shirt or clinging painlessly to your skin. The medical community knows better now. Certain ticks – specifically the black-legged or “deer tick” variety – can do you great and lasting harm. They feed on contaminated host species, primarily deer mice, white-tailed deer, chipmunks or migratory birds, and then they transmit the pathogen to humans and their pets. Dogs and cats are particularly susceptible. The infection is called Lyme disease after a Connecticut city where arthritis was discovered in a cluster of children in 1977, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Symptoms are flulike. They appear initially as a red “bull’s-eye rash,” then develop into fatigue, muscle and joint pain, fever, headache and chills and a stiff neck. If left untreated or undiagnosed, Lyme disease can lead to life-threatening disorders of the lungs, heart and nervous system. The tick-borne bacterium was blamed for 23,763 cases around the United States in 2003, the CDC said.

Guinea fowl are good for keeping wood ticks from your yard. The free-ranging birds often prey on ticks as they cruise through grassy areas and shrubs. You can't eliminate disease-carrying ticks from your property, but you can create natural safety zones for people and their pets.

Ticks like nesting places with high humidity, so start by removing brush piles and gathering up old leaves capable of holding moisture. Erect fences or choose deer-resistant plants to discourage grazing deer. Burn or mow vegetation. Build pathways covered with wood chips or gravel to separate woodlots from lawns. That creates what Guilfoile calls “buffers of unsuitable habitat” for wood ticks and a few of their hosts.

“The goal isn’t necessarily to remove every tick on your property,” he said. “It’s more like creating a safety zone where people usually go. It should be an effective physical and mental barrier so people venturing outside won’t always have to tuck in their pant legs or walk around carrying insect spray.”

Other tips:

¢ Early detection. Conduct daily or more frequent inspections of your body and clothing after spending time outdoors. “Size is a factor because the ticks themselves are quite small – about the size of a poppy seed,” Guilfoile said.

¢ Use pesticides, but judiciously. “Repellents containing permethrin can be sprayed on boots and clothing. When used in this manner, the repellent will be effective several days,” according to a CDC “Tick Tips” bulletin. “Repellents containing DEET can be applied to the skin, but they protect for only a few hours before reapplication is necessary.”

¢ Try natural or biological controls. Build owl nest boxes. If you have some acreage, then try releasing a few free-ranging guinea fowl, which spend much of their day foraging for ticks.