I find most people are naive of the problem especially in the west coast states, unless they spend a lot of time outdoors either recreationally, or landscaping, gardening, ranching, farming, hunting, etc.

You certainly want to check yourself after going out, but for dogs and animals the difference is just very outwardly obvious as you will see them crawling on their fur, on their beds, or you feel the lumps on their skin once they embed if you are petting them. Anecdotally this was not something I ever found 15+ years ago in the exact same environments. But beyond anecdote, by all official recordings (often from deer hunting, they measure a small portion of the deer and count how many ticks are found in a square) the numbers are skyrocketing, largely in line with concurrent overpopulation of deer and rodents.