Fleas in the apartment, where they come from and how to get rid of them

Many people are inclined to believe that fleas in an apartment can only appear with pets. And this is only if the pets walk alone and accidentally cross paths with street cats or dogs. If the owners walk with their pets and control their movement, then they will not be afraid of flea attacks. And what a surprise it is when these dangerous parasites are discovered in their home. The question involuntarily arises: where do fleas in an apartment come from and how to get rid of fleas in an apartment?

A flea bites a man

There can be a huge number of reasons why these parasitic animals appear in your home. They should be taken into account if you don’t want this misfortune to come to you.

But if fleas have nevertheless entered your apartment, then you need to take drastic measures, because they are not only annoying, but also quite dangerous . Fleas can transmit various diseases. Of course, you can try using folk remedies, but to ensure the destruction of parasites, you should turn to professionals .

Features of flea control

Fleas are wingless blood-sucking insects that can reach sizes up to 5 mm. Their body is flattened on the sides and has numerous spines and bristles. It is thanks to them that they have the ability to cling to clothing, including animal fur.

Fleas can even live on poultry, such as parrots. They are often found in the interwing space. In addition, fleas are able to live in burrows and nest substrates. With the help of three pairs of legs they can make significant jumps, which gives them the ability to move very quickly.

It is incredibly difficult to crush a flea; it has a special flattened structure and a small head.
With the help of long and strong legs, she is able to perform jumps up to 50 cm long.
An adult insect is very tenacious; it can easily live without food for several weeks..
The flea is distinguished by its high fertility, which ensures their rapid spread. One female can lay over a thousand eggs. After emerging from the cocoon, the female can be fertilized almost immediately. At the same time, just one meeting with a male is enough for her to subsequently lay eggs throughout her life. But for laying she needs fresh blood, as a result of which she will look for a victim.

How to tell if there are fleas in a bed

Fleas do not make hiding places in a person's bed, like bed bugs do. Adult fleas, if they appear on the bed, do so only to bite a person and immediately disappear. Eggs and larvae are usually concentrated on the floor. But if a cat or dog sleeps on the bed, then fleas can get comfortable there.

Bites will be a sign of bed infection. But humans are also bitten by other bed bloodsuckers, so the first thing we do is identify the type of parasite by its characteristic features. So, bedbugs or fleas - how to determine who bites:

Bedbugs bite mainly at night, while fleas bite around the clock
Fleas bite painfully, but bedbugs bite painlessly, since their saliva contains an anesthetic
Traces of flea bites usually form clusters of 2-3 bites, and after bedbugs, tracks of bites often remain

Having made sure that these are fleas, we move on to the next stage.

What to do if there are fleas in the bed

Fleas in the home from a cat or dog spread everywhere. If parasites have reached the bed, take the following measures:

Fleas cannot withstand high temperatures. Therefore, collect your bedding and wash it in the machine in hot water. Heat treat blankets, bedspreads and pillows.
Flea larvae crawl everywhere and can get into the mattress. In this case, careful treatment with a steam generator will help.
Another method is to rub the mattress with a thin layer of baking soda or a dry herbal pesticide (pyrethrum). Such products dry out and kill eggs and larvae.
Vacuum rugs near your bed daily. The vacuum cleaner collects some of the eggs and larvae, as well as debris that serves as food for them. First add a pinch of boric acid to the dust collector to prevent parasites from surviving inside.

Get rid of fleas in your apartment yourself

It is important to understand that getting rid of fleas on your own will require a lot of effort. This is especially true in cases. When owners have pets.

You should take care of your pets first. To do this, you will need to purchase special medications to rid your pet of fleas. In this case, after treatment, you should put an anti-flea collar on your pet, and also give it to someone you know while the premises are being disinfested.

After this, a thorough cleaning should be carried out. You should wash the floors with soapy water and wipe off the dust with a damp cloth.

Causes of fleas in the house

Where do fleas come from? They often appear in autumn and summer in private houses and apartments on the lower floors. Earth flea colonies often breed in old buildings and basements. Nowadays, dozens of sources of the appearance of such parasites can be identified, but the most common sources are:

entrances of residential buildings;
unscrupulous neighbors;
Pets;
basements;
rats.

Due to the fact that basements are very humid, this is where fleas most often breed. They also like to be in well-heated rooms. The emergence of comfortable conditions in the basement for the reproduction of parasites is due to the fact that the room does not meet sanitary standards. There is no sunlight, much dampness and poor ventilation.

Due to their small size, fleas can easily enter through various cracks and can be difficult to detect. In addition, they do not need to be constantly on a person or animal, because they can be located under baseboards, in carpets and soft toys.

The appearance of fleas from dampness

Fleas often spread in places where there is high humidity. They love to be in basements and bathrooms. Insects live on the first floors due to the fact that it is warm and humid there. To identify conditions favorable for parasites, you need to conduct a thorough examination:

sanitary facilities for good ventilation;
apartment water supply for leaks;
basements, where it is warm and humid from installed pipes.

Most often, fleas accumulate in these places.

Fleas on animals

You shouldn’t be surprised where fleas come from if you have pets in the house. They are most easily found near the pet's ears, tail and neck. To destroy parasites, you need to immediately treat the animal with special anti-parasitic drugs. Now on the market you can find a solid selection of such products: shampoos, tablets, drops, collars. By the way, collars can be used for preventive purposes to prevent any insects from clinging to the fur. It is important to understand that the use of anti-flea drugs will help rid your pet and the home itself of fleas.

When processing an animal, do not forget about its bedding. This is where fleas prefer to breed and breed.

Apartment processing

To quickly get rid of fleas in an apartment, the treatment of the apartment must be thorough:

you need to wash all the things you have. This applies to personal clothing, slippers, curtains, curtains, towels, blankets, and so on;
you need to knock out pillows, mattresses and blankets on the street. It is advisable to “warm up” them in direct sunlight.
You should use a powerful vacuum cleaner for upholstered furniture, paths and carpets. Pay attention to cracks and crevices in the floor, behind baseboards and in other hidden places;
all surfaces of baseboards and furniture must be wiped with a disinfectant;
you need to buy a specialized product - an insecticide.

However, we recommend that you consult with professionals.

There are many counterfeits or drugs on the market today that are simply not registered in our country. This means that there is a very high probability that they will be powerless in the fight against fleas or they will contain toxic substances that can harm the health of people and their pets. Some substances have a long-lasting effect and can accumulate in the body, leading to disastrous results, such as infertility.

After treatment with an insecticidal preparation, you should leave the apartment for several hours . After this, thoroughly ventilate all rooms by opening the windows. At the same time, you shouldn’t clean the apartment for a couple of days. During this time, it is advisable to move to another place.

If the remedy is effective, the adults will die. However, the struggle does not end there. It should be understood that in a week or two the problem will reappear. A new generation will appear and grow up and will also lay eggs. Therefore, it will be necessary to carry out several repeated treatments to avoid a new invasion. You need to act quickly and efficiently, this is the only way to prevent fleas from appearing again.

Many people, trying to get rid of fleas on their own, rarely achieve the desired result. The reasons for this are different: incorrect choice of drug, lack of repeated treatments, incomplete treatment, and so on. Therefore, the best option is to contact companies to carry out appropriate processing .

How to detect fleas using traps?

Very often, to find parasites, you may need special homemade traps. The advantage of such methods is that they also allow you to exterminate pests. To find fleas, you can use a lamp trap. You need to take a table lamp or night light. Such devices must be installed on a flat surface. Be sure to fill the container halfway with water. If you want to immediately kill the parasites, you can add a little soap or detergent to the liquid. The lamp must be turned on, directing the light stream towards the bowl. Fleas react very well to such a trap and flock to the plate.

You can quickly determine the presence of pests in your home using another simple device. You need to take a small container, place a soap solution and 3-4 floating candles in it. Fleas will begin to jump into bright light and die in the water. In the morning there will be a lot of blood-sucking insects in the liquid (if there are any in the apartment).

There is another simple way to detect fleas indoors. To do this, you need to take double-sided tape and attach it to baseboards, near thresholds and doorways, and also on window sills. These places are considered the most attractive to pests. After 2-3 days, fleas may appear on the tape, after which pieces of the material should be torn off and thrown away.

You can understand that there are parasites in the house using the TV. You need to take a small baking tray and fill it with water. Then he must be placed in front of this technique (the sound must be turned off) and go to bed. If there are fleas in the apartment, then they will all end up in the pan. Quite often liquid honey is used to detect pests. “Sweet amber” is applied to a dish or piece of cardboard, and then such baits are placed around the house (usually in places where fleas may be).

From time to time you should check the condition of the honey, because sometimes it dries out, and then this method turns out to be completely useless.

Professional flea treatment for apartments

You should also approach specialists for professional treatment wisely. Only highly qualified employees can be guaranteed to rid your apartment of annoying and tenacious insects in a short time. At the same time, the cost of the services provided will be incomparable with the troubles you will have to go through trying to get rid of apartment fleas on your own.

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The advantages of professional processing are expressed in the following facts:

specialists select the most effective insecticide , which will affect both adult insects and larvae and clutches. This way you can get rid of fleas in your apartment almost instantly;
used for processing will be safe for residents and pets, which cannot be said about numerous store-bought drugs;
For premises, only those preparations are used that will not affect the appearance of walls, furniture and other surfaces.
Spraying of products is carried out using special equipment, which allows the chemicals to penetrate into the smallest cracks and secluded places where fleas can hide.
Experienced exterminators know all the main places where parasites like to settle. They pay special attention to them, which allows them to destroy insects with maximum efficiency and eliminate the likelihood of their reappearance.
Professional extermination of this type of insect will only take a few hours, while removing fleas yourself can take up to several weeks. In the latter case, there will be no guarantee that fleas will not appear within a couple of weeks.
Professional treatment allows you to completely get rid of fleas in your apartment. In this case, a guarantee is given for the work to be completed within a certain time . This means that if fleas appear again after some time, re-treatment will be carried out free of charge.
A visit to the site to carry out work on disinsection and flea disinfection in the apartment is possible immediately on the day of your request.

Danger of fleas

These parasites have 6 legs, which gives them the ability to jump long distances. If an insect jumps to its victim, then first of all it bites through the skin, and then it begins to feast on your blood.

Flea bites are very painful because they do not inject any anesthetics, as mosquitoes do, for example. This is why fleas begin to irritate everyone living in the house, and the only desire is to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

These parasites will not let you live in peace and will bite and ruin your day, and therefore fleas in the apartment can be easily removed with folk remedies.

The bites not only cause extreme pain, they also leave behind severe itching. In some cases, bites can provoke severe allergic reactions.

People who have chronic diseases: asthma and atopic dermatitis should be wary of fleas.

These diseases are quite difficult to cure completely and bring it into remission, which is why, if parasites are detected, you should remove cat fleas from your apartment.

Parasite Habitats

To effectively and quickly destroy parasites, it is important to know its favorite habitats and breeding places:

Animal bedding, cracks in wood floors and baseboards, behind carpets in places where your pet likes to rest.
Heaps of uncollected trash in the closet or on the mezzanine.
Garbage in hard-to-reach corners.
Carpets and under them (how to get rid of genital fleas in carpets and rugs using pharmaceutical preparations and folk remedies, read more in this article).
Parasites rarely appear on clothes, but in the secluded corners of closets it is quite possible to find a source of infection.

Important. Pet hair often accumulates under cabinets and upholstered furniture. If it is not cleaned regularly, it is an ideal breeding ground for fleas.

Any dark, warm place in the house can be infested with fleas. Since these blood-sucking insects can live for a long time without food, up to two months, and their larvae are viable for a year, even old other people’s things stored in a niche or on the mezzanine can serve as a breeding ground for parasites in the apartment.

Preventive actions

To prevent a re-infestation of fleas, you need to follow these simple rules.

Do wet cleaning twice a week, including in remote areas.
Train your pet to wear a flea collar.
Treat the entrance to the living space and ventilation with special crayons.
Ventilate your apartment periodically.
Hang bedding in the sun.
Wash soft toys and treat upholstered furniture.
If necessary, carry out repairs by covering all cracks in the floor, walls, etc.
Don't let other people's animals into your apartment.

If you disinfect your apartment and adhere to preventive measures, you will not only get rid of flea infestations, but also prevent them from reappearing.

Remedies for getting rid of parasites

Progress does not stand still, and in this matter we have a huge arsenal of means of struggle to choose from: from folk to biological. This allows you to choose the most effective method for specific conditions, be it removing fleas from animals or treating premises.

All funds are divided into three large groups.

Chemical

They are prepared on the basis of insecticides that destroy insects. With their help, you can do independent mass disinfection. Many of them allow you not only to quickly poison fleas, but also get rid of other bugs.

The most famous, so to speak, “folk” option for destruction is Dichlorvos. Usually it comes in the form of a spray that needs to be sprayed indoors. Remember that Dichlorvos is toxic.

Let us note the possibility of the drug Deltsid in ampoules for treating apartments against fleas. This veterinary product is designed for mass control of insect pests from sheep, cows and dogs. Apply externally by spraying or bathing animals.

Butox is also a popular remedy for removing fleas from pets. Similar to the previous option, intended for external processing.

Some shampoos for humans and animals also fall into this category.

Biological drugs

They appeared recently, and, in fact, are a serious biological weapon that allows you to independently poison insects. They are available in various forms (gel, paste) and are based on different principles (they infect fleas with bacteria or fungi that are fatal to them). They are extremely effective, as they affect not only adults, but also larvae. Among the names that allow you to get rid of uninvited guests, we note Larviol, Unitar, Dimilin.

Folk methods of struggle

They consist of influencing animals or the entire home with substances that do not belong to the first two groups, but repel fleas or bedbugs. There are a great many options for folk methods: starting with baits using boric acid, ending with laying out various plants (cedar sawdust, dried wormwood) or essential oils around the apartment. By the way, fleas have a strained relationship with ordinary salt, so some people practice a removal procedure such as salting carpets. And we're not kidding now.