My grandma pulled out thousands of ticks by wetting a piece of cloth, putting a bit of soap on it and turning them counter-clockwise. Interestingly, you need t

My grandma pulled out thousands of ticks by wetting a piece of cloth, putting a bit of soap on it and turning them counter-clockwise. Interestingly, you need to turn them clockwise for ages before they let go, but counter-clockwise gets them out after a single rotation. She did get both lyme disease and encephalitis (mostly spread in Central Europe), but she did spend ~70 years foraging for blueberries and mushrooms.. I also do it (but probably on hundreds not thousands) and never caught anything.