'Man, this really works': Great-grandmother develops new product to protect people from ticks
A 74-year-old great-grandmother from Maine has created a new, simple product to help protect people from ticks.
Jane Gower spent hours at her dining room table developing and perfecting her Mainejane’s Tick Tacklers.
"I developed this product, and I thought, ‘Man, this really works. It's simple. Keep it simple,'” Gower said.
Gower said she first got the idea for her product last summer after taking her dog for a walk.
“I got home, I could feel things crawling up my legs. I looked down and there were 50 ticks crawling up my legs. I couldn't believe it,” Gower said.
Gower, a former nurse, knows about the diseases ticks can carry. She designed a patent-pending system of a fabric fastener and double-sided tape that fits around a person’s ankle.
“When I tried to get the patent, I looked up everything that is similar, and they all want you to put DEET or something else on it. These use nothing,” Gower said.
Gower said her Mainejane’s Tick Tacklers aren’t about repelling ticks but instead stopping them in their tracks.
“Each tick we get, that means there'll be that many less for next year,” Gower said.
If a tick crawls up the leg of a person wearing a Mainejane’s Tick Tackler, it gets stuck.
“The beauty of it is, they can't crawl. Once they're on it, they die on it. One less tick, maybe 5,000 less ticks for next season,” Gower said.
Gower is selling her tick tacklers in a handful of stores around Maine.
She admitted that starting a business at the age of 74 was not in her plans. However, Gower said she is driven by helping to make the outdoors safer and to allow people to enjoy it as much as she has.
“People need to be outdoors and not be afraid to fear being outdoors,” Gower said.
The tick tacklers come with a piece of plastic to protect the sticky tape. Gower said they are washable and designed to be used numerous times.