How to deal with fleas in the house: details of the procedure

To successfully deal with fleas in the house, it is necessary to understand the overall life cycle of these insects. Due to the fact that the diet and habitat flea larvae and adults differ significantly, flea control must be complex and responsive to all these differences. For example, only breeding parasites on the bed of a pet or on the pet itself will be extremely insufficient.

It may seem surprising, but many people do not even know what a flea's eggs and larvae look like, vaguely suggesting that they, too, are hiding somewhere in the fur of cats and dogs. Meanwhile, if adult fleas do stay mostly on pet hair, in animal and human resting places, then their larvae huddle in closets, dark dusty corners, trash heaps on the balcony and behind baseboards.

Therefore, the fight against fleas - is not only the destruction of directly jumping adult parasites, but also the careful elimination of the younger generation.

On animals and humans, fleas only feed and do not live permanently, such as lice. On the one hand, thanks to this, flea attacks are not so painful - they do not bite constantly and they are easy to scare away. But, on the other hand, the fight against fleas in the house for this reason implies a thorough treatment with insecticides on virtually every square centimeter of floor and furniture in the room, while in the fight against lice it would be enough to treat the infected area on the body.

On a note

The optimal place for the development of flea larvae is the nests and toilets of domestic hamsters and rats in cages. Here, an abundance of food accumulates (food debris, excrement, hay), constantly maintained high temperature and humidity.

In addition, fleas seen directly on a pet or on a person’s bed are only the “tip of the iceberg” of the entire insect population in the apartment. The main number of parasites, being fed, hiding in secluded dark places, crevices, under linoleum and carpets, and it is almost impossible to see them by accident.Therefore, all the fleas in the house, regardless of their current location, must be destroyed, otherwise each individual is potentially able to become the ancestor of the new population.

In general, the fight with domestic fleas should begin immediately after detection, not counting their presence in the house only a minor annoying nuisance. The fact is that fleas are a really serious epidemiological hazard.

 

How are fleas dangerous for humans and pets?

Fleas are primarily blood-sucking insects. Their bites cause irritation and local reaction of the skin, the symptoms of which in the complex are called pulikozom. In case of numerous bites or hypersensitivity around the bites, allergies may develop, secondary rashes appear.

With constant scratching of flea bites, pustular inflammations can appear in their place.

Important!

Fleas do not live on a person, and there is no need to use special measures to remove them from a person. It is enough to wash well once to scare away all the parasites, and then destroy them in the room itself.

In animals, the reaction to flea bites is similar to that of humans.but their infection with parasites often goes unnoticed by the hosts, which in particular in the most advanced cases threatens to turn into dermatitis.

On a note

Children are especially susceptible to flea bites - they have a pullycosis often with severe allergic reactions and generalized symptoms.

Fleas are the most dangerous because they can be potential carriers of pathogens of very serious human diseases. Among them:

• plague
• encephalitis
• trypanosomiasis
• brucellosis
• salmonellosis
• hepatitis B and C
• tularemia.

In total, the body of fleas, scientists have found viruses and bacteria that cause more than 200 dangerous for humans diseases. This does not mean, of course, that the flea caught in the apartment is certainly a carrier of the plague bacillus or the hepatitis virus, but the risk of infection, although small, is always there. Therefore, to fight with fleas at home should begin immediately after the discovery of these parasites.

It is interesting

Populations of wild animals, which are parasitic for flea vectors of the plague, are carefully monitored and investigated by epidemiological scientists. In Russia, such foci are located in the southern steppes in the colonies of rodents - gophers, jerboas, gerbils.Studies of these animal populations allow scientists to develop effective measures to control fleas and keep under constant control the most dangerous of their populations.

 

Correct flea control sequence

Fighting fleas at home should be in strict accordance with the following plan:

1. Determined by the path of entry of parasites into the house and overlaps. Most often, fleas penetrate into the room in the hair of domestic animals, sometimes - on human clothes (this is especially true for hunters). A separate case - apartments on the first floors of apartment buildings, where fleas climb from the basements (the so-called basement fleas). This situation is especially dangerous, since it is among the basement fleas that representatives of the rat flea species, a carrier of many diseases, are more common.
2. The next stage is the breeding of fleas in domestic animals, if any, and the subsequent provision of animal protection at least until the time when the fight against fleas in the room is over. Typically, such a fight with fleas in pets requires only a few hours of time.
3. And only then should the whole room be thoroughly treated with fleas using special insecticides or use the services of professional pest control agents. Depending on the degree of infection of the premises, fleas in it are displayed for several hours or several days (in the latter case, repeated treatments are meant).

After that, it is necessary to take measures for preventive protection of the house from the re-entry of fleas.

 

We deduce fleas at pets

Fight against fleas in domestic animals can be carried out by means of different types:

• Flea shampoos are one of the safest remedies. Lugovoy shampoos, Phytoelite shampoos are used for cats and dogs, and Dr Zoo and Rolf Club are used for animals with very sensitive skin and hair.
• Flea spray - for example, Frontline, Hartz, Stronghold. After application to the coat, the spray is rubbed into the skin of the animal, which provides protection for several days. Each manufacturer has a line of sprays for animals of different weights and ages.
• Drops on withers are also fairly easy to use drugs. The contents of the pipette simply poured onto the skin of the animal and rubbed with your fingers. Very famous drops Stronghold, Bayer, Hartz. Some of them provide animal protection for up to three months.

There is also a special flea powder for puppies and kittens, which is simply applied to the skin under the coat. This powder is quite expensive, it is inferior in efficiency to the rest of the funds, but it acts quite gently.

After the fleas on the pet have been etched, the animal must be protected for several days from re-infection. As a rule, good preparations by themselves have a certain period of residual protective action, but in any case it is worth putting an anti-flea collar on an animal before the complete treatment of an apartment.

 

Choosing a means for removing fleas

Methods of dealing with fleas directly in the house involve the use of either special chemical insecticides, or the destruction of parasites by folk remedies.

The advantages of using insecticides in the form of aerosols and sprays are the speed and effectiveness of their action. With the correct use of these funds, the fight against fleas at home is carried out in a matter of hours and allows you to destroy all the fleas and their larvae indoors.

On the other hand, even despite the relative safety of modern insecticides, they can cause side effects in the handler in the form of allergies, irritation of the respiratory tract, and mild poisoning.Many people are especially afraid to use these tools if children live in the room.

If there are few insects, then the control of fleas at home is carried out with the help of aerosol means like Raptor from crawling insects, Raid, Combat, Dichlorvos Neo. The effectiveness of such drugs is usually lower than that of concentrates for dilution and subsequent spraying in the form of a spray, but they are fairly safe and easy to use. In addition, these drugs are relatively inexpensive, and for the treatment of a one-room apartment, funds amounting to about 500-600 rubles will be needed.

However, if there are a lot of insects in the house and you need a well-defined and reliable result, then you should pay attention to the following modern preparations:

• Get - odorless microencapsulated product (microencapsulation technology increases the efficiency of insecticides)
• Lambda Zone - also a microencapsulated drug, odorless, which is increasingly used even by professional pest control.
• Hangman - German drug, quite convenient to use, but with a smell.

These funds are sold as concentrates.Before use, they must be diluted in accordance with the instructions with water, after which the finished solution can be sprayed with a conventional household spray. With the complete processing of all surfaces, baseboards and frames, they destroy fleas at all stages of development.

Even more effectively, professional sprays such as Tetrix, Sinuzan, Klopoveron can be used to kill fleas at home. However, these drugs are very poisonous, use them without special training and personal protective equipment is impossible. In addition, they all have a strong odor.

On a note

The fight against bedbugs and fleas in the room as a whole has a lot in common and even usually involves the use of the same means. That is why during the disinsection of bugs, fleas, which are less resistant to insecticides, always die, and companies that professionally dealt with bugs for disinsection almost always offer services for the destruction of fleas.

Folk remedies completely destroy fleas in most cases fails. Denatured alcohol, vinegar and kerosene kill insects with a direct and abundant hit on them, but it is almost impossible to catch and process every parasite in the house.Means of the same type of wormwood and tansy only scare away fleas for a while, but they are not allowed to destroy.

Dusts are sometimes used against flea larvae, but this approach is justified only with very serious infections (for example, in basements). When dealing with fleas at home, it is usually sufficient to simply clean the places where the presence of the larvae is possible, and in the most hard-to-reach shelters aerosol preparations and sprays reach them.

 

We destroy the parasites in the room

It is advisable to carry out the treatment of the room during the daytime so that before going to bed the apartment or house has time to get a good ventilation.

If insecticidal concentrates are used for the spray, the contents of the vials of concentrate are dissolved in water in the right proportions and poured into a garden spray bottle or container of detergent.

On a note

One-room apartment usually has to spend 8-10 aerosol cans of Dichlorvos or Raptor type, or about 3-4 liters of the solution prepared from the concentrate for spraying.

Even before removing fleas from a house, it is necessary to move furniture away from the walls and remove the carpets hanging on the walls. After that, the tool is sprayed onto the floor, along the baseboards, behind wardrobes and sofas, inside the sofas themselves, under the mattresses on the beds.Animal resting places, as well as storerooms and storage rooms, in which a large amount of dust accumulates, are especially carefully treated.

During processing, the doors and windows in the apartment should be closed so that the aerosol does not erode, and after its application let the apartment stand with the doors closed for several hours. Then the room is ventilated, it is thoroughly wet-cleaned, bed linen and clothes are washed from wardrobes.

If desired, all these works can be shifted onto the shoulders of professional disinsectors or SES. Cost of this pleasure will be more expensive, but will save time and effort.

 

When not to do without repeated processing

In some cases, fleas have to deal with in two stages. This is usually required for very severe contamination of the premises by parasites, when flea larvae are very numerous in floors, crevices and external structures where insecticides do not reach them.

After the first harassment of fleas in the storerooms, closets and under the bedside tables in the kitchen should be scattered insect powders - Medilis Tsiper, Clean house, Feverfew. In a week or two, these powders will destroy the main part of flea larvae.

The exact signal to re-harassment of fleas is the appearance of insects a week or two after the first use of funds. Considering that in favorable conditions, the development of larvae and pupae lasts about three weeks in total, it is after three weeks that the treatment of the room should be repeated with the same means and in the same sequence as it was performed for the first time. Otherwise, the fleas will again multiply in large numbers and begin to pester the owners of the house and pets with their bites.

 

Fight basement fleas

In the event that fleas penetrate into a room from basements or attics (here they parasitize rats and pigeons), even before fighting with them in the house, it is necessary to destroy the population in the breeding center. For processing basements, you should use the services of SES or professional disinsection services, because here it is necessary not only to remove the fleas themselves, but also to poison the rats, which are their main owners.

In some cases, in the basements it is necessary to repair and cement cracks and holes through which rodents and animals from the street penetrate.

In the apartments themselves, bordering the basements, you need to completely block the possible paths of flea movement - hang nets on windows, in ventilation shafts and in door door boxes, spread out insect sections that will scare unwanted guests (for example, you can use moth sections).

 

Do not let the fleas reappear in the house

And finally, it should always be remembered that prevention is always better than cure. It is easier not to let the parasites enter the room than to fight the fleas in the house for a long time.

To protect the room, you can use strongly smelling herbs - tansy, wormwood, geranium, the leaves and branches of which are laid out in closets, ventilation ducts, on balconies.

But the main thing - to protect pets from the attack of fleas on the street. To do this, if not permanently, then at least while walking on dogs and cats you should wear flea collars or drip flea drops on your withers.

Hunters and fishermen, often in nature, should take off their clothes and shake out outer clothing before entering the house. It is also useful to immediately wash it all at high temperature.

Observing such preventive measures against fleas, you can always be sure that no fleas will appear in the house.But if somewhere an error was made and the parasites still got into the room, now you know how to deal with them correctly and effectively.

 

Interesting video: an example of the invasion of fleas in the apartment high-rise apartment

 

What means to use to protect the animal from fleas: a comparison of drugs