Where there are animals, the problem of getting rid of parasites is always relevant. Small bloodsuckers enter along with clothing, brought in from the street. They can also “move” on pets if they come into contact with the external environment and other animals. The treatment needs to be comprehensive so as not to leave the insects a single chance.
This is where the question arises, what composition and what is better to wash wooden and linoleum flooring to get rid of fleas. It is advisable to cure pets once and for all and at the same time remove and isolate intrusive aliens jumping around the floor and home. Practice shows that even such floor treatment seriously reduces the population of bloodsuckers in the house. We give a master class on how to quickly and effectively get rid of fleas at home.
- Features of flea control
- How to deal with genital fleas: methods and means
- Where do they come from?
- Signs of appearance in the house
- Disinsection at home
- Anti-flea solutions for cleaning floors
- What helps you get rid of
- Folk remedies
Features of flea control
Fleas, both jumping on the floor and hiding in the pet’s bedding, directly on his fur, multiply unusually actively. Authoritative sources advise, in addition to treating animals, to use floor cleaning products for fleas. This way, parasites will not be able to move around the house, hide on the floor or in the cracks between the boards.
Otherwise, after successfully curing a dog or cat of fleas, the insects will “suddenly” appear again: all this time they have been hiding in secluded corners, waiting for the right moment for the next attack. How to clean the floor from fleas will become clear later.
Question answer
Fleas are quite unsafe insects for humans and pets. In addition to the inconvenience of unhealthy bites, they can be carriers of countless diseases and infections. Almost always, attacks on people begin only when there are no pets. It is even more convenient to live in their fur than in the hair of the human body.
Ammonia
For a couple of glasses of water you need to take a couple of drops of this product. The solution will help get rid of the adults living in the house. It is required to wipe the floors in the house using the prepared solution. You can also add a couple of drops to the water in which you wash your pet.
Baby soap
Baby soap combined with grated onion allows you to quickly get rid of adult fleas. You need to grate the main ingredient, add water to it and heat it on the stove for some time, add the onions. This substance must be used to treat tables and other surfaces. After some time they can be washed.
This absorbent component has a crystalline structure, which, upon contact with the skin of an insect, begins to destroy its shell. As a result of multiple injuries, the flea dies. Implementation occurs by laying a number of paths in the house, as well as sprinkling carpets with a mixture of salt and soda. It is recommended to leave this substance for several hours and then collect it with a vacuum cleaner.
How to deal with genital fleas: methods and means
So what should you do if fleas are jumping on the floor and are visible to the naked eye? How to poison flea colonies of the species Pulex irritans and others in the house? First you need an effective strategy:
- cleaning up accumulations of old things;
- treatment of floors, including the slightest cracks and cavities, baseboards;
- treatment of animals and people.
For a long time it was believed that “animal” bloodsuckers are almost harmless to humans. As it turns out, this is not the case. Flea bites lead to the appearance of ulcers, wounds, and if the animal was infected, serious diseases. Fleas, like cockroaches, actively spread infections and choose dirty places with access to food and cracks in the floors as their habitat. Therefore, at the first stage, a thorough cleaning is carried out using a vacuum cleaner, detergents, and then a chemical attack using insecticides.
And deciding what to wash the floors with to get rid of fleas is not difficult at all. Pet stores have a sufficient range of products for this - powders and ampoules with liquid chemicals intended for washing floors infested with fleas. Among the tested methods are Dichlorvos and its analogues, whiteness. It is very important to treat literally all surfaces that are favorite places for insects to accumulate in a private home, including (upholstered) furniture, carpets or floor coverings. This will be universal advice on how to get rid of underground fleas, their nests and young animals.
How to treat carpet for fleas
Some housewives solve this problem with a vacuum cleaner. This is an effective but very long process. You need to vacuum every day for 14 days. It is impossible to get rid of a large number of parasites in one go, so they may choose other hidden places. Therefore, it is best to use aerosol or powder preparations.
Popular aerosols
- Control Home. Within 5-10 minutes, up to 98% of adult insects and larvae die. The active substance has a paralyzing effect on all types of blood-sucking insects. The product is used economically, the effect lasts up to 1 month.
- Executioner . Dilute it with water according to the attached instructions. Spray with a spray bottle and remove with a washing vacuum cleaner.
- Raid . One bottle is enough to treat 50 square meters. meters. The aerosol can be purchased unscented or with aromatic additives.
Even if the instructions indicate that the product is safe, you should not neglect precautions. For people with allergies and bronchial asthma, it is better to refrain from this method of treatment and seek professional help or ask someone you know.
Contact powder preparations
The most effective are considered to be: “Ranosan”, “Super Fas”, “Phenaxin”, dust. Scatter in various hard-to-reach places, but so that pets and small children cannot reach them. Their advantage lies in the immediate effect; not only adults die, but also larvae. In addition, there is no need to carry out repeated disinfection, according to the manufacturer. But it is better to do this after a few days to be completely sure that the parasites are destroyed.
Where do they come from?
There are several ways for fleas to enter a person’s home. More often than others - on carriers - rodents, birds or pets, if they are in contact with the outside world, they go outside. There are also paradoxical cases when insects that jump quite high entered apartments through the entrance or an open window. Well, “on horseback” is the most common way. Out of nowhere, suddenly, insects (fleas) appear on the floor. To do this, you need a carrier, old furniture brought from the dacha or a similar method.
Safety measures during disinfestation
When treating premises, it is necessary to take care of protection, because modern insecticidal preparations are highly toxic. When working with the products, you need to wear a respirator, gloves and goggles, while clothing should be made of thick fabric and cover the entire body.
Pest control
After treatment, you need to leave the apartment for several hours until the toxins settle. When you arrive home, you should open the windows and ventilate all rooms well. When scattering the powder, you must remember that children and pets can come into contact with it, so before they arrive, you need to get rid of it with a vacuum cleaner.
Signs of appearance in the house
There are not many of them, but the signs are quite characteristic, they are difficult to misinterpret. A cat or dog begins to scratch in a specific way, the animal becomes nervous and behaves restlessly. People develop small, itchy sores or sores (sometimes painful).
When the flea population reaches a critical limit, they begin to actively move along the floor, carpeting, and upholstered furniture. Around the same time, they become noticeable on the pet’s skin and on the floor. Any of these signs requires immediate intervention.
What fleas are afraid of: water, bleach, vinegar, kerosene, etc.
When parasites have colonized the entire apartment, when their bites prevent you from sleeping and wearing short skirts, a person forgets that it is just an insect. It’s not difficult to overcome them; all you have to do is remember what fleas fear in an apartment: cold, pungent odors, poisonous substances. It's worth knowing how to properly use insect horrors. This is important in order to successfully defeat them in your home.
Pyrethrum
Persian chamomile is a natural insecticide that is completely harmless to humans. To prepare a decoction, you need dried flowers. Pour boiling water over two glasses of the plant and leave to cool. The resulting infusion is used to treat baseboards, floors, table surfaces and walls. Pyrethrum is feared by fleas in cats, so the animal can be washed in a warm broth.
Disinsection at home
You can, of course, turn to professional exterminators to get rid of the unwanted neighborhood, but there is also a less expensive way to relieve the flea siege. There are not many main directions for fighting insects:
- The animals themselves, which are to be treated with chemicals, shampoo, drops.
- Everything that is in contact with the floor - linoleum, carpet, rugs.
- Furniture, accumulations of old things in which insects create nests.
All vectors will have to be acted upon simultaneously so that fleas do not get a chance to hide, wait out the threat, or hide in a crack in the floor or under the baseboard.
Environmental conditions
Fleas cannot tolerate certain conditions, the creation of which can lead to their disappearance. Like other insects, bloodsuckers are afraid of negative temperatures. Even a drop in air temperature to 10 degrees does not allow the “horses” to reproduce. This horror makes it possible to quickly overcome fleas in winter - you just need to let the frost get into the room. And if doing this with an apartment is somewhat problematic, then freezing a barn, a chicken coop, or a separate summer kitchen is not at all difficult.
The highest temperatures are also not suitable for parasites: when the mark of 45 degrees is exceeded, insects begin to die en masse.
Fleas are afraid of water, so while bathing the animal you can reduce the number of insects. To do this, you need to pour enough water into the bath so that the animal is completely covered. You can water your head from a ladle, avoiding getting water into your ears. Fleas will escape to the remaining dry areas, where they can be easily collected. The sun also repels fleas - bloodsuckers try to run away from an animal lying in the sun.
When we had a lot of fleas, we didn’t know what to do. I really didn’t want to use strong products, since the kids are small. Well, not everything can be used on an animal. We got Beaphar collars for the cats and dogs. They jumped off the animals, although not immediately. But they stayed in the apartment. We all walked around bitten, the kids slept poorly. We decided to use the entire arsenal of traditional remedies: we scattered orange peels everywhere, washed them with ammonia, dripped essential oils, and lit candles with suitable scents. They always brought branches of wormwood from walks, and took mint from grandmothers at the market. A month of suffering, and we finally got rid of fleas. I hope we never see them in our own apartment again.
Herbs
It is not difficult to find out what aroma fleas are afraid of. You can spread wormwood and tansy around the house, waiting for the insects to disappear. It is necessary to often replace drying branches with fresh, more effective ones. Infected animals can be bathed in a decoction of wormwood.
Anti-flea solutions for cleaning floors
This includes not only special formulations, but also any proven methods of getting rid of fleas on the floor. In pet stores you can find insect growth regulators (blockers), powders (Diatomite), and sprays. There are also industrial emulsions intended for removing parasites from cattle - oily, water-soluble liquids.
Finally, you can dilute zoo shampoo in warm water and wash the floor with this mixture. Laundry soap, cut with a knife and dissolved in a bucket of water, will also work. It all depends on the degree of damage to the home and floor by fleas. After cleaning, all waste, dry and liquid, must be destroyed so as not to give bloodsuckers a second chance to enter the house.
What threat do fleas pose in an apartment?
Blood-sucking animals pose a considerable danger to both humans and animals, because they carry many pathogens of serious diseases. Some of them can even be life-threatening. Including genital fleas, they are carriers of worms and other parasites.
Important! If a person has been bitten by fleas for several days, it would be useful to take a deworming course.
Some people are allergic to bloodsucker bites. It all depends on the individual sensitivity of the skin. After bites, red spots and microscopic wounds appear. Next, severe itching begins, during which a person scratches the skin to the point of wounds, thereby opening the way to various infections. The temperature rises, and symptoms of other pathologies begin to appear. In advanced cases, a person may need long-term treatment with strong antibacterial drugs.
Genital fleas are carriers of serious diseases. Namely:
- Typhus;
- Bubonic plague;
- Encephalitis;
- Hepatitis;
- Tularemia;
- Salmonellosis;
- Anthrax;
- Fever and many others.
In the past, in European countries, it was fleas and rats that spread the plague, from which thirty percent of the population of the states died out. The reason for the rapid proliferation of parasites in those days was terrible unsanitary conditions.
Folk remedies
Simple, but effective, and without side effects. Fleas do not like sharp, pungent odors or aromatic oils that clog their spiracles. Therefore, the following folk remedies are recommended for treating floors:
- Collections of wormwood, cloves, celandine and tansy, which are available in pharmacies, are infused for 12 hours. You will need to take 2 tablespoons of each component. The finished mixture, settled and strained, is thoroughly sprayed onto the floor surface.
- Sprinkle the mixture of salt and baking soda on the floors, carpets and surfaces. After a day, clean with a vacuum cleaner. Fleas, including adults and larvae, will also leave with the composition.
- Peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus oil. It is permissible to use fresh bunches of plants, placing them on the floor in all problem areas.
Chemical insecticides
The market does not shine with variety, since fleas can be exterminated only with the help of a limited number of varieties of poison. Fleas do not consume anything other than blood, and therefore do not respond to bait.
Chemical insecticides can come in the form of aerosols, crayons, powders, or aqueous preparations. It is worth realizing that depending on the brand, different ingredients are used, and therefore the composition can be quite different. It's worth taking a look at the more popular flea treatments.
- First you need to free yourself from blood-sucking pets. To do this, you can purchase Karbofos. This liquid must be added to their habitats, including trays. However, this substance is contained in some shampoos and drops, and therefore you just have to choose a better option.
- As a cheap spray, you can see "Raptor". This product is quite toxic to insects, and it has a long-lasting effect: within 3 weeks, the larvae will have time to hatch and also die, like the adults. With all this, the product itself smells quite pleasant.
- The product "Sinuzan" is used for cleaning floors. Available in the form of a concentrate that needs to be diluted in water. The packaging will last forever. With all this, it is worth taking precautions by using rubber gloves, goggles and a respirator.
- “Kombat” has also established itself as a good product, quite non-toxic for humans, has a pleasant smell, and is also effective. It can cope not only with fleas, but also with bedbugs, cockroaches and ants.
Tar soap
This type of soap helps to destroy not only adult individuals, but also larvae, as well as egg laying. It is necessary to wet the surfaces to be treated and rub them with soap. After a quarter of an hour, the surfaces can be washed with warm water.
Pyrethrum
This remedy is also called Persian chamomile. It is a wild plant that acts as a natural insecticide. You need to pour boiling water over two glasses of the product, throw it in a dark place so that the product infuses, and then wash the floors and the cracks in them with the solution.
How long do fleas live without a pet in an apartment?
Almost everything depends on the climate in which the fleas find themselves. On average, their lifespan can range from half to 3 months. During this period of time, one individual can leave about a hundred bites on the body of the inhabitants of the apartment.
If you remove animals from the apartment, the insects will begin to feed on human blood. With all this, even if a decision is made to leave the apartment for a couple of months, small neighbors will simply wait for the owners to return, since fleas simply become less active due to lack of nutrition.
Professional home cleaning
If there are a lot of fleas in the apartment, then it makes sense to call professional disinfectors to your home. They know everything about how to treat a room for fleas; they use products that are not commercially available and pose a particular danger to insects. Disinfectors use special protective equipment - masks, suits, gloves, goggles, and expensive equipment for spraying disinfectants and insecticides.
Professional flea treatment of premises takes no more than 1 hour, it all depends on the area affected by insects. Self-treating your home for fleas will take more time, it is less safe, but it is effective if there are no large numbers of parasites.
Is it worth calling specialists?
In apartment buildings and high-rise buildings, fleas often appear from damp basements. These insects cannot tolerate moisture. Therefore, when thawing occurs in the spring or before a cold period in the fall, they try to settle in comfortable conditions. It is difficult to get rid of parasites in one apartment of a multi-story building.
It is advisable to carry out the treatment of the house in all rooms, starting with the basement. Otherwise, the result will be short-lived. Flea disinfestation can be ordered from specialists. Professionals use long-acting treatment products. This allows you to get rid of dangerous insects for a long time.
Treatment of premises with insecticides is carried out in protective suits
Employees from pest control companies will be called to your home to assess the degree of infestation and help you prepare for treatment. There are exterminators in every city. Moscow specialists offer a safe steam generator treatment service.
Calling specialists to eliminate domestic parasites is the most reasonable solution. In the process of work, the masters use new high-quality preparations of imported and domestic production, which, as a rule, are completely safe for people and animals, but have an immediate effect on fleas and other parasitic insects.
The advantage of using such products is that they do not require rinsing off surfaces and can be sprayed in the presence of a person. The drugs that specialists use are almost impossible to buy; they are odorless and do not cause allergic reactions.
The main advantage of calling specialists is that there is no need to re-treat the premises, because the possibility of new individuals appearing is excluded.
Housing processing sequence
Before you treat your house for fleas, you need to understand the procedure. Treatment begins from the place where the animal sleeps, then:
- treat beds and sofas (shake out mattresses, go over all hard-to-reach surfaces with a vacuum cleaner);
- clean out the closets and process each item;
- Clean the carpets and wash the floor.
You can sprinkle insecticide in powder form under mattresses, paint over areas along the baseboards, under the arms of sofas and behind cabinets with a pencil containing a toxic substance.
All rooms in the apartment are treated at the same time, starting from the back rooms and ending with the corridor and bathroom.
Tar soap
Another old folk method of fighting ectoparasites. Tar soap is good for washing animals. To clean the apartment, you need to make a strong soap solution and not only wash the floors, but also polish the floor coverings.
On a note!
Disadvantage: the persistent smell is “not for everyone” if the solution is not washed off. The smell of tar repels parasites, but if the soap is washed off, its effect stops.
How to prepare an apartment for processing
Disinfection of fleas is carried out after preliminary preparation of the apartment, for this:
- all furniture is moved away from the walls;
- floors, baseboards and upholstered furniture are cleaned with a vacuum cleaner;
- all bed linen is washed and packed in plastic bags and containers;
- wash or wash children's toys and objects that the animal has used;
- cabinets, cabinets, tables and drawers are wiped with disinfectants;
- food products are placed in sealed containers;
- all clean clothes and small household appliances are packed in bags;
- paintings, figurines and other interior items are packed in separate containers;
- drawers and shelves of cabinets must be cleared of contents;
- baseboards and jambs are dismantled.
Disinfectors must have access to water, so the taps are not turned off. Independent disinfection of fleas in an apartment is also carried out taking into account the listed features of preparation for it.
What species can be found on the floor?
There are more than 2,000 species of fleas in the world. About 500 species live in Europe, and about 30 of them have adapted to apartment conditions. Most floor fleas are common among cats, dogs and rats.
Types of fleas
With rare exceptions, sand pests are found. They are concentrated in India, Africa, South America and do not take root in Russia due to the unfavorable climate for them. Insects enter the apartment along with returning tourists from these places.
For reference! A flea, regardless of subspecies, can change hosts without problems. For example, cat parasites easily adapt to life on dogs, guinea pigs and vice versa.
Insecticidal preparations for pets
It will not be possible to completely destroy fleas without treating pets, since insects can hide in the fur of animals after disinsection of a living space. For the procedure, it is recommended to use special products that will not harm the pet, but will be harmful to fleas.
Main types of funds
Today, many different means have been developed that can quickly and effectively kill fleas that parasitize pets:
- insectoacaricidal powder (for example, “Clandestine”) is the most gentle preparation, since the percentage of insecticides in its composition is minimal. The advantages of this remedy include the fact that the animal does not need to be wet, because many tailed animals do not like this. The disadvantage is the short validity period (about 7–10 days);
- anti-parasitic shampoo - suitable for animals that like to bathe. The most popular and inexpensive drugs are: “Bars”, “Clandestine”, “Fitoelita”;
- sprays. These drugs are no less popular, because they are very easy to use. To do this, simply spray the product over your pet's fur and let it dry. The most famous and inexpensive drugs of this type include: “Foline”, “Bars”, “Harts”;
- flea drops occupy a leading position because they are easy to use and give a long-lasting effect (“FleaNet”). Each package is designed for a certain weight of the animal, so the owner does not have to worry about an overdose.
To avoid re-infestation, after treating your pet, put on an anti-flea collar (for example, “Doctor Zoo”), which will repel parasites.
Photo gallery: antiparasitic agents for animals
Anti-flea collar "Doctor Zoo" is used to protect animals from fleas
Flea spray "Foline" is sprayed over the animal's fur and allowed to dry.
Antiparasitic powder “Clandestine” is the most gentle insecticidal agent
Flea drops "BlochNet" are applied to the withers of the animal
Types of fleas
There are over 2 thousand species of fleas in nature, but in daily life people encounter only a few of them. Therefore, we suggest focusing on these.
So, among the representatives of harmful insects, the following types of fleas are distinguished:
- human;
- felines;
- rat;
- canine.
Let us reiterate that this list is not exhaustive. Based on the information of researchers, we can say that almost all mammals and birds have their own parasite. Along with this, some names are invented by the people. For example, indoor fleas are not a separate species; the fact is that these insects were simply found in an apartment or private house where a person lives.
Under unfavorable conditions, parasites are capable of consuming the blood of any warm-blooded animal. There are also fleas that vary in habitat. These include the following parasites:
- earthen;
- sandy;
- bedding
Cat, dog, rat fleas
We propose to dwell in more detail on such types of fleas as cat, dog and rat fleas.
Felines
Cat parasites - representatives of this species parasitize cats, and this happens in the warm season. They are small and can be recognized by their dark color with shine. You can determine that a pet is infected by its behavior. So, cats become restless, sleep poorly, and exhibit absent-minded behavior. In addition, they may have anemia, decreased immunity and exhaustion.
Doggystyle
This type is similar to the previous one. The main difference is that these fleas have a long proboscis. An infected pet also shows anxiety, whines, eats little, itches, and loses sleep. Sometimes dogs can exhibit aggressive behavior.
Rat
Rat parasites are considered the most dangerous, as they carry diseases such as typhoid and muscular typhus, bubonic plague and rat tapeworm. Externally, they are distinguished by their light color and oblong body shape.
Bedding and linen
The favorite place of residence of these insects is upholstered furniture and linen. Parasites become active mainly at night. They bite a person in those places where the skin is thinnest.
Herbal and earthy, sandy
Ground fleas live in the upper layers of the soil. If a similar species gets into a living space, it will settle in furniture, carpets, and behind baseboards. Basically, ground fleas settle on the lower floors of high-rise buildings, which is why they deserve the name “basement”.
Sand parasites can easily be brought in from the street. They have virtually no differences from the previous species. The risk of acquiring such “friends” increases significantly with prolonged contact with the ground or sand. You can also find such fleas in coniferous forests.
Dusts and their use
Dusts (insecticidal powders) against fleas are used mainly to combat flea larvae where there are a lot of them and it is irrational to poison them with aerosols. For example, it is quite effective to use dusts in basements and cellars, in attics - in general, in rooms in which no one lives, but from which adult fleas can migrate into rooms and apartments.
The dusts Chisty Dom, Phenaxin and Tornado have proven themselves well here. They are inexpensive and quite effective. They should be used in residential areas with great caution.
In general, methods for independently treating an apartment for fleas are good because they are cost-effective: even in the case of a large area of the room, the budget for such an event can fit into 1500-2000 rubles. However, the disadvantages of this approach are that they are labor intensive and the likelihood of errors and oversights, which may give some parasites a chance to survive.
It is much more reliable and simple to call a team of exterminators who will treat the apartment with effective means, remove fleas where an inexperienced parasite fighter would not even look for them, and give a guarantee that there will be no insects for several months. In cases where an additional 1000-2000 rubles is not critical, it is better to entrust the treatment of fleas to specialists.
Can I just wait
The average lifespan of a flea lasts from 3 weeks to 2 years. During this time, each female is capable of laying up to 500 eggs. However, parasites never live on their “hosts”. They prefer peace, hiding in the apartment: in the cracks of the floor, on the pile of the carpet or clothes, bed linen or closet. And they jump on humans and animals only for food.
Therefore, when trying to get rid of fleas at home, you need to take into account several features:
- Without food, adult parasites die within a few days. But flea larvae and pupae are able to survive for weeks and months, waiting for the return of their owners. Therefore, leaving is an ineffective measure in the fight against parasites.
- A temperature of about 25-30 degrees Celsius helps to activate the metabolism of fleas. They become larger and reproduce faster, but live 2 times less. In cold weather the reverse process occurs. Insects slow down, bite people and animals less often, but their lifespan is extended. Adults and eggs die at zero temperatures. But the pupae are able to protect themselves and survive for several more months, so after freezing the home, you still need to treat the surfaces with poisons.
- Fleas jump to a height of up to one and a half meters. That's why they mostly live on the floor, sofas and carpets.
To get rid of parasites yourself, you will have to carry out cleaning in several stages, so that not only adult insects died, but also those that grow in eggs.
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