How to get rid of fleas in your home
The truth is something no one wants to believe…that treating your pet
is not enough. You need to treat your surroundings too. This includes
your house, your yard and the place your pet lives in. This helps us to
stops the growth of immature and new fleas plus helps prevent
re-infestation of the pet.
1. First monitor the areas where they persist by using some known
techniques like “white sock method” or “flea dirt”.
2. Treat yourself and your pet for any kind of flea infestation.
3. Make sure you wear good protective clothes while you go about killing
the fleas in your house.
4. In case the fleas aren't actually coming from your pets, find out
which other animal is bringing it in and make sure to keep it away from
the house, or find the actual source.
Regular vacuuming and use of an insect growth regulator should get
rid of fleas in your home. These steps are usually enough to control and eliminate
the fleas from your house.
Extreme flea infestations
In extreme cases where the problem still persists, you can use the
new, popular flea control products like:
- Insect Growth Inhibitors (IGR’s)
- Citrus peel extracts (Limonene and Linalool)
- Sorptive dusts
- Pyrethrins (organic and synthetic)
- Flea collars
- Ultrasonic flea repellant devices and
- Electronic flea collars.
For indoor use, you should choose low-toxic treatments like citrus
sprays. This can be applied to rugs, carpets and pets’ beddings. They
kill the present fleas but are not quite effective against emerging
ones.
Disodium octaborate tetrahydrate is another such mild product that
kills immature fleas by contaminating their food supply.
The insect growth regulators like methoprene can also be used
indoors. On the other hand, pyriproxyfen can be used both indoors and
outdoors. This controls both immature and adult fleas.
On the insides of the house, treat the areas that are least subject
to foot trafficking like under the furniture, pet sleeping areas, behind
doors and like. Use carpet aerosols like Demize Carpet Spray to kill
adult population of fleas on the carpet in your house. Use Foggers to
treat large, open areas. Powders like Boric Acid are also quite
effective but they might have a negative effect on your kids as well as
your pets.
After the first application of insecticides, it is very important to
follow-up after 7 to 10 days. This is because flea pupae are hard to
kill with just one application. In the case of milder insecticides like
pyrethrins, you may need to follow-up two or three times, at 5-10 days
interval. If the problem still persists, take the help of a professional
pest control company to get rid of fleas in home. In such an instance, make sure that you vacuum
carpets and clear the clothing and toys from the area to be treated. Ask
the pest control operator to use the least toxic material inside the
house. Follow-up with insect growth regulators for long-term control of
fleas. They ensure that any live fleas remaining are unable to
reproduce. This is very important considering the fact that one
reproducing flea can have a trillion fleas back into your house! So
don’t wait for the situation to get out of hand and start early for best
results.
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