Fleas are persistent, nasty and tough to kill. Flea infestations can make people and pets miserable. If you’ve wondered why this creature is so “hard to kill”, read on. If you’ve wondered how any insect could survive after all the spraying, cleaning and aerosol “bombing” you did, keep reading. I will explain the flea in great detail and only then will you understand why they are so hard to rid a structure of them once they get a foothold in any structure.



FLEA LIFE CYCLE

Like most insect control, successful flea control must include a flea treatment that will stop the flea “cycle”. This cycle I am referring to includes the eggs, larva, pupa and adult stage. Here is a brief description of the cycle from start to finish.

1) An adult flea jumps onto you, your pet, your child, etc. and gets a meal. Fleas feed on blood and although their mouth is small, a flea bite can hurt and most certainly can become inflamed, itchy and swollen. Many people and many pets are allergic to flea bites. If you have flea bites and want to get some relief as well as promote healing, use some BITE OINTMENT. This product will take away the itch and discomfort. Furthermore, if you are in some line of work which constantly puts you in close proximity with fleas, consider using a flea repellent for people.

STING RELIEF SWABS 10 PK

 

You should also strive to keep fleas off you by using repellents. We offer a few options that can be sprayed on your skin or clothing. For the skin, treat with VANILLA and SPORT Deet. Both come with small pump sprayers and work well for direct skin treatments. Of course, the old stand by – 100% MAXIMUM DEET – is the only “low odor” deet formulation on the market today.

Vanilla or Sport Deet:  bugspray.com/repellents/liquid/deet-25

bugspray.com/repellents/liquid/deet-100

 

For clothing, use our “ready to spray” PERMETHRIN. It’s odorless and can be applied to pants, shirts, etc. before going afield. Now for a lot of clothing, get the PERMETHRIN 10 CONCENTRATE formulation. It too is odorless and can be used to impregnate clothing with Permethrin by creating a mixture for soaking your clothes.

Ready to Spray Permethrin:  bugspray.com/repellents/liquid/permethrin-clothing-rts-12-oz

Permethrin Concentrate:  bugspray.com/catalog/insecticide/liquid/permethrin-10

 

2) Once fed, the flea will look to mate and immediately lay eggs. This can occur in the yard, the house, and on the pet.

3) In the next two to three weeks, the average life of a flea, hundreds and hundreds of eggs will be laid by this one flea. Some of these may fall in the yard, some in the house and some will remain on the pet.

4) When the eggs hatch, a small caterpillar like creature comes out to feed on anything organic. This includes dried blood, flea feces, animal hair and a variety of otherwise disgusting organic matter in the yard, in your carpet, on furniture, on your pet and basically anywhere in or outside the home.

5) These flea larva will then feed for days after which they’ll spin a cocoon and undergo metamorphosis in this stage. And it’s this third stage, the one called the flea pupa, which is the toughest thing about flea infestations. Clearly this is the worst stage of all because we can’t kill it !! That’s right! No spray will kill flea pupa consistently or completely. This is why you still have fleas following the most thorough treatment (spray or fog). And this is why you should know the flea cycle and how to break it.

6) The flea cycle will then complete once the flea pupa hatches out. But unlike most insects, fleas won’t randomly hatch. Instead, the “hatching” of pupa will only happen when it detects a hot blooded meal close at hand. Only then will the pupa risk coming out of its protective cocoon. And when it does, it will immediately bite, feed and look to breed. At that time the cycle will start all over again….

 

WHERE FLEAS LIVE

Now that you understand the flea cycle, let’s talk about where this flea cycle can occur. It’s in important to understand this process if you wish to do a good flea treatment. The flea cycle can occur almost anywhere. It will occur on the animal, in the yard, in a carpet, in a litter box, in a bed, in a garage, in a basement, in a crawl space, in an attic, in a doghouse, on furniture, etc. The rule is simple: any place a warm blooded animal spends time can become a flea infested location. And it’s important to understand that fleas can feed on most any animal that’s warm blooded. In other words, fleas do not discriminate. If you have blood, they can and will feed on you if given the opportunity and the food of preference is not readily available. This means they will readily bite people so yes, you can have a flea infestation AND NOT HAVE ANY PETS! It is true they prefer dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks, rats, mice, and birds but if none are present, they turn their attention to the people of the house. Additionally, the most common flea found is the cat flea. But you could also have a dog flea, bird flea, rat flea, sand flea, human flea, sticktight flea, bat flea and many other species which have been named after the host where they were first discovered. The good news is that any flea treatment being done will work on any of the aforementioned flea species.

 

FLEA TREATMENTS

Now that you know where the flea cycle can occur, it will be easier to understand what must be done to treat the problem. Remember, it is important to understand that fleas will persist if you only address one or two locations where they are breeding. Don’t think that treating the pet will keep your home or yard flea free. The same is true about the yard. Although treating the yard before flea season starts is a good practice, only treating the yard and pet but failing to treat the home would be a big mistake. A good idea is to follow this general rule: if the pet is an inside animal, you must treat the home and the pet to insure no fleas. If the pet is an outside animal, you will need to treat the pet as well as the yard area the pet has access to. If the pet spends a lot of time both inside and out, then you will need to treat the pet, yard and the home. And if you are spraying two of the three areas but fleas are still persisting, then chances are that you need to treat the location where you are not treating. Always remember that FLEA CONTROL IS EGG CONTROL. IF YOU STOP THE EGGS FROM DEVELOPING ON THE PET, IN THE YARD AND IN THE HOME – YOU WILL ACHIEVE FLEA CONTROL! It really is that simple. Yet many homeowners will take a chance and not treat some key part of their property. They will wrongly believe their problem is “coming from my neighbor’s dogs and if I treat my yard that will stop them” or “the fleas came with my Mother-in-law when she visited with her pet and all of them stayed after she left!” These are old wives tales:  the bottom line is simple – treat all areas which are subject to having flea eggs and you won’t have to worry about the eggs being able to develop. Again: flea control is egg control.

Once infested, a proper flea treatment will generally take 1-2 months to rid any structure of fleas. If done correctly, the cycle would be interrupted with the first flea treatment and once the flea pupae have all hatched out, the flea infestation will cease. Will this take a week, a month or two months? No one can say for sure because of one reason: it all depends on how many flea pupae are in your home and how long it takes for them to run their growth cycle and hatch out. It could be resolved with one flea treatment; it could take three to six weeks of flea spraying once a week for all the cycles to run their course.

 

FLEA SPRAYS

What products are best to use when doing flea control? This will vary depending on where you are treating. Remember the cycle can be completed on the pet, in the house or apartment, and in the yard. This means you need to spray each area and thoroughly to get flea control. In the home, there are many materials available that work. Carpets should be sprayed using BITHOR.

BITHOR SC

It’s odorless and uses two ingredients. The first one kills active, hatched stages and the second one remains active for up to a month controlling any eggs that hatch.

You will need to use one of our SPRAYERS to do the treatment and though our smaller ones will work for apartment dwellers, the one gallon is the best investment for the long run. This short video shows the kind of “spraying” you’ll need to do.

ELIMINATOR 1 GALLON HOME AND GARDEN PUMP SPRAYER

 

 

 

 

Pump Sprayer: www.bugspraycart.com/good/pump-sprayers

 

As good as these products are, you may have to spray again within a few days of the first application. This will depend on how many flea pupae are left in the cycle following the initial treatment. One or two pupae hatching in the days following the first treatment will usually go unnoticed, but a mass hatching will be uncomfortable for those inhabiting the home and re-treatments at that point are suggested. Remember these important facts about flea pupae for a thorough understanding of what is happening in your home following a treatment.



WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU TREAT

MOST IMPORTANT – UNDERSTAND YOU CAN’T KILL FLEA PUPAE!!

When you do a liquid treatment with an adulticide and a growth regulator, the adulticide kills the adult fleas which are out and about. It will also kill any larva crawling around. The growth regulator acts on the existing eggs and once they are exposed to the regulator, they will not be able to develop normally to adults. However, there will still be all the pupae which will be developing. These could take another 4-8 weeks to hatch out and sadly there is nothing that can be done to stop this from happening. The exact length of time will vary; it all depends on things like temperature, humidity,  the species of flea, etc.

 

DO NOT KEEP PETS OR PEOPLE OUT OF ANY ROOM

Since pupae are motivated to hatch out when there is activity around them, be sure and keep people and pets active in the rooms where the flea problem is the worst. Typically, people do the all the wrong things when dealing with a flea problem. An old wives tale says that fleas are “coming from the pets”. This is far from the truth. Although the eggs may be falling from cats and dogs, the adult fleas are more than happy to live their whole life on the pet. They have no interest in people and will only feed on them when local pets aren’t accessible. This means the new fleas you are seeing are actually the pupae cocoons hatching out after completing their development. In other words, if you decide to remove a pet from the home or rooms where the flea problem was most prevalent, you will leave the pupae cocoons no choice but to seek the next available blood meal – PEOPLE! The best thing to do here is simple; leave the pet to roam just as you always have. Don’t keep it outside. It is much more comfortable for the people living in the home if the pet is inside picking up all the newly hatching fleas. This might sound cruel but clearly it’s a lot easier to treat the pet than it is to treat the people.

 

DO NOT VACATE ROOMS

Flea pupae are motivated by movement and body heat. They will not hatch out if a room is void of activity. In fact, one way of getting them to hatch out quicker is to use a vacuum as often as possible. Daily vacuuming will excite them and get them hatching out sooner rather than later. A vacuum with a beater-bar does a great job of getting them to hatch. An ordinary vacuum will do well too. In bad cases, customers have sped the hatching process up by walking around in long, white, tube socks. The white will reflect light and appears hot to a flea getting the coccoons to hatch.  Immediately after walking around for awhile, vacuum. The effect of vacuuming and the spray in the carpet will knockdown that many more fleas which will not be able to bite. Additionally, the vacuum will actually pick up some that hatch as the vacuum passes by. Do this every day til you can do so without seeing any fleas. Although this step may sound like a lot of work, maybe this will help to motivate you to take action:  FLEA COCOONS CAN LIVE OVER A FULL YEAR WAITING FOR A TARGET. Yes, a full year. This is why vacation homes that have been left vacant for 8-12 months have been found to have hundreds of fleas hatching out of the carpet when vacationers arrive. The flea pupae have been doing nothing but lying in wait for a target this whole time. This can happen in your home as well if you close a room up for a month or two expecting the fleas to simply die off. Don’t waste your time waiting; all that will happen is that when you finally go back in there the fleas will be extra aggressive!

 

USE FLEA TRAPS

Another way of getting the flea cocoons to hatch is the use of a HEATED FLEA TRAP. This trap is unique in that it uses heat to lure adult and pupae fleas. Look at these flea traps as a type of tool and not as a flea treatment. When placed in the middle of the infested room, it will attract fleas up to 15 feet away in both directions. This means it has an effective “reach” up to 30 feet. To the flea, the trap appears as a kitten or puppy sleeping. The following video provides more product details.

FLEA TRAP

 

 

Although fleas do not like to hop, they will readily move toward the trap in hope of getting a blood meal. Once the fleas reach the trap, they will fall through a grid and land on a glue board which will catch them. Here is a picture of a flea pad from a trap that captured over 10,000 FLEAS in less than a month!

 

 

This was a bad infestation, but it did exist in a home and the people living there were unaware it had gotten to this point. Such an infestation confirms that fleas can breed to incredible density if given the chance. A more common level of infestation can be seen in the following video. In this sequence, we go to a vacated home which the owner is attempting to rent. Perspective tenants are being attacked by fleas while they view the home which is not a good way to show any property you want to rent or sell. Flea Traps are ideal for such locations as they can work 24 hours a day removing this persistent pest. Since fleas can remain dormant for so long, the use of a flea trap in this house is clearly one of the best options available for this landlord. And as the video shows, the traps will collect a bunch of fleas even when no one is present!!



 







HOW TO TREAT FLEAS IN GARAGE

If you have ever dealt with fleas in a garage or basement then you know how hard they can be to kill. And though Precor 2000 will prevent them from ever getting established in such locations, it’s not the best at knocking out a current, active infestation. A more permanent treatment for cement is DEMISE DUST. This desicant acting dust looks like baby powder but works great on dry cement, crawl spaces and other areas where liquid applications are not effective. Drione is a solid dust and unlike Precor, won’t break down in a week or two. Instead, a good application of Drione in a crawl space or cement floor can last 6+ months.

DEMIZE DUST

 

The only drawback is that there will be a light powdery residue over the areas which are treated, but it won’t hurt people or pets and can be deactivated at any time by just mopping it up with nothing more than water. When wet from water, the Drione is completely deactivated and is easy to clean up. It can also be removed with a good vacuum. If you don’t want to contend with the slight dust factor of the Drione, stick with the Precor 2000. Just understand you’ll probably have to treat a few times with the Precor.

Either will work a lot better then a liquid spray on porous surfaces and is really the best way to go when you get fleas in these areas and need to do a flea treatment. Of course, making sure you get a pet or person into these areas following the treatments will help break the cycle that much faster since the pupae need need movement and heat to come out of hibernation. And if no one will be in these areas, be sure to set out some FLEA TRAPS to get pupae activated and hatched.

FLEA TRAP




FLEA PRODUCTS FOR THE YARD

If you have a yard area outside where your pets spend a lot of time, you should definitely treat it. Over time, fleas will breed in these areas. Remember that your yard is vulnerable to every animal that walks through it and will require a good flea treatment. This includes animals like squirrels, raccoons, opossum, deer, dogs, cats, mice, rats, birds, chipmunks and people. Anyone of these animals could have fleas on them which are laying eggs. These eggs will be landing in your yard as these animals move about and will surely lead to a bad infestation if you don’t do something ahead of the development.

To properly treat the outside, use a granule for long term control. And nothing works better compared to MAXXTHOR SG.

Made with a very fine “sand” that locks into treated surfaces, Maxxthor will work in a  day and keep working for up to one month on all stages of fleas.

MAXXTHOR SG 11 LB LAWN GRANULES

 

To get them properly applied, use a good HAND SPREADER.

SCATTERBOX HB GRANULE SPREADER

 

BEST YARD SPRAY FOR FLEAS

Since granules take a day to work, consider spraying the yard for immediate control of active fleas. For this task, nothing works better compared to MAXXTHOR EC It will control a bunch of pests and works particularly well for ticks, chiggers and fleas. Maxxthor is concentrated so you only need to use 1/3 oz per 1 gallon of water per 1,000 sq/ft of yard.

MAXXTHOR EC

 

The best way to do this application is with a HOSE END SPRAYER. Simply pour the concentrate into the sprayer, hook it to your hose, set the dial and spray away. This sprayer does a good job of applying the product properly and it’s easy to use.

HOSE END

 

Remember, flea season will be a long one if you don’t do preventive flea maintenance and flea treatments before the season starts. This means applying Maxxthor Granules in the spring, before summer, will prevent them from getting in the yard.

But if they do, plan on spraying with Maxxthor EC for a quick knockdown. Use the same approach inside. Apply Bithor before you get them but if you have active issues, Bithor applied with our Mini Mister is the best way to knock out the population.

It might be hard to imagine but overall, flea control is simple if you get ahead of them. Do this by stopping the flea eggs!




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