agzk asked 6 years ago
Hi! We had housesitters for 3 weeks, they brought their two maine coons with them. Got home, left again for a few days, when I came back again, we had fleas everywhere. Every single room, they’ve been jumping up on my feet and legs. We have hardwood flooring, and concrete in the basement, but the cats were basically allowed to roam free and got into everything, all our stored boxes, every nook & cranny.
I have a 10 month old infant, who is crawling everywhere, and I need to fix this ASAP. We have no pets, so I’ve read they will die out, but we’ve been home a month and there seems to be no diminishing of activity, if anything it’s getting worse.
I’ve been, putting dishes of soapy water in the rooms, we bought a vacuum, so I’ve been vacuuming in every room, bagged up all our clothes that were everywhere and have been washing them, washing our bedding every couple of days, moved all our furniture to vacuum and mop, have some flea spray and some DE coming today- should this be sufficient? What about the boxes of baby clothes that were in our basement? We were going to gift them to a friend but I’m nervous they now have cat fair and hibernating fleas hidden in them. If I moved our boxes of stuff out into the direct sunlight for a few hours, or dumped it out to air and sun, would that be at all effective or would they just infest our yard too? Or is my best bet just to wash literally every textile we own/have in storage?
Should this infestation be under control or do I need to take more drastic measures? I’ve been given advice to flea bomb but have read that it’s not super effective, plus I want that to be the last resort, with a baby in the house. Thank you so much & sorry to sound so dramatic. This is awful and has been a nightmare to come home to.
Adam Retzer Staff answered 6 years ago
Hello,
Sorry to hear about you acquiring fleas from the house-sitter. That’s an unfortunate situation. If the infested cats were there for 3 weeks, then a very large number of flea eggs were likely dropped in the home. Luckily, without an animal host, the infestation should go away on its own in time.
Sometimes infestations can seem to worsen after initial treatment or pet removal. This is because the fleas were actively reproducing on the host, laying large amounts of eggs (eggs make up 50% of infestations). The eggs fall from the host and into the environment, where they develop. Once these young fleas begin emerging as adults, the infestation can seem to worsen, because the immature stages were hidden in the environment. This worsening illusion is most noticeable in severe infestations (your infestation sound severe, as the cats were untreated in the home for 3 weeks).
The homemade flea traps (or store-bought traps) aren’t very effective for control, but they are useful for assessing flea populations and identifying fleas.
Vacuuming is very effective for flea control. Read more about vacuuming fleas.
The flea spray will be effective if it contains an insect growth regulator (IGR) ingredient, either pyriproxyfen (Nylar) or methoprene (Precor). The IGR will last 7 months indoors, preventing exposed eggs and larvae from becoming adults. If the spray only contained an ingredient to kill adult fleas, then it probably won’t be too effective. This is because adults only make up 1-5-% of infestations.
DE is effective for controlling some insect pests. However, studies done on fleas are limited. I can’t accurately comment on its effectiveness.
Regardless of method, some patience is required. Many of immature fleas in the environment reside in protected microhabitats where sprays and vacuuming can’t reach. Before the infestation ends, all of these stages need to mature, emerge as adults, and die. The good news is that the current fleas should be the last generation. Without a host, no new eggs will be laid. The eradication process usually takes around 8 weeks, but in severe infestations it can take longer.
Bagging clothes and laundering bedding every couple days shouldn’t be necessary at this point. Fleas would only be on these items if the infested host rested on them and then dropped eggs there. With the host gone, new eggs wouldn’t be falling on these items. Adult fleas aren’t attracted to these kind of things (they are attracted to hosts).
Fleas also wouldn’t be in the boxes you mentioned, unless the cats rested on them and eggs fell there. There could be cocooned fleas there in a quiescent state if that was the case. The odds probably aren’t very high though. Upon hatching from eggs, flea larvae need to feed on flea feces (flea dirt) or they will starve. So, suitable locations for development must have both eggs and feces falling from the host. Eggs aren’t sticky and fall readily, but the feces dries in host fur and typically only gets dislodged during host grooming.
Flea sprays are more effective than bombs. Read more about that here.
Please let me know if I’ve missed any questions or if you have new questions.
I apologize for the late response.
Warm regards,
Adam
seems like they’re still taking over
any advice welcome