I have an old house with a floor vent system that blows my hot air up through the floor. The basement has an all dirt floor and now I am getting fleas all over my house in my rugs etc. I have tried bombimg and all kinds of products for my carpets and have treated all my cats. Now this worked only temporarily, but now they are back.
Does anyone know a true and tried method of elliminating these pesky bugs from my dirt basement for good? Any info would be great!
Pave over the dirt?
Wear your collar, dammit! We used to have that problem in CA. The bombs work for awhile, but you or your pets or your kids will bring them back in on clothing. Tough buggers. Wish I could be more help.
A multi-pronged approach is called for:
Advantage or Frontline for dogs and cats really works.
DO NOT PUT ANY HARTZ PRODUCT ON YOUR PETS!
Advantage and Frontline are oily substances wich begin to kill fleas on contact. Wash your pets before applying the product, and don’t wash the pets again for as long as possible. The product literature -says- it lasts through one washing, but you’re better off bathing your pets really really well before applying it, then waiting four weeks (if you can, with stinky dogs) before bathing them again.
If you have carpets, cut a 4" (10cm) piece off of a cheap flea collar and put it in your new vacuum cleaner bag each time you change bags. This will keep the fleas from escaping the vacuum.
Vacuum daily until the fleas are under control.
If you don’t want to pave the dirt basement, obtain a supply of “Diatomaceous Earth” and spread it evenly over the dirt floor.
Diatoms are tiny, beautiful microscopic plankton that have silica (glass) exoskeletons. When they die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean. This becomes sediment, which is mined from old seabeds. The tiny glass skeletons are hollow with sharp jagged ends. These ends pierce the joints of insects and allow their ichor (bug blood) to leak out, killing the insects. DE is good for stopping all kinds of vermin from termites to roaches. Should do fine for stopping the fleas breeding in your basement floor.
Diatomaceous earth is even safe to eat! You can sprinkle some on pet food as a worming agent. Ask your vet for details. Your garden supply or landscaper should have DE, as should the home center.
~Wolfrick
Random Google Cites:
http://www.biconet.com/crawlers/DE.html
http://www.lacawac.org/images/diatoms.jpg
http://www.urbanrivers.org/diatoms.html
And a few more good links:
Diatomaceous Earth: The Silver Bullet
DIATOMACEOUS EARTH: A Non Toxic Pesticide
DE in long-term food storage (ie, eating it along with your food).
Man, DE is cool stuff!
~W
Why not? I recently started letting my cat outdoors, and got the Hartz drops - applied them for the second time yesterday (figures). What is bad about Hartz?
Twiddle
They don’t work reliably and they can make your animal sick, that’s why.
I thought I’d save some bucks and use the Hartz drops on my kitties–even after I had been warned. One of them puked every time she ate for about a week afterwards. I wasn’t looking for proof, but that was all I needed. I agree. “DON’T USE HARTZ PRODUCTS.”
BTW, in the past couple of months, there were some other threads about flea-removal in IMHO and MPSIMS that contain more info relating to the OP.
Here’s my “Never-Fails” Flea Trap:
Take a shallow pie pan half-full of water, add a bit of dishwashing detergent (like Dawn). Place this on the floor under a bright, focused light. Turn out all other lights. Go to bed. In the morning, you’ll find that the fleas have gone for a swim and sunk to the bottom. Discard. Repeat as necessary several nights in a row. Keeps the daytime menace down.
Here’s a good basic education on fleas (and how to get rid of them):
Wolfram’s info is basically correct, except he is generalizing a bit on the “washability” aspect. What he says is correct for Advantage, but Frontline is designed to withstand multiple bathings, and Revolution is taken as a pill and excreted onto the skin, so it can not be washed off. Links to all these products are found on the above page.
There is also a link to Over The counter and Black Market Products, which gives a bit more info on why you shouldn’t use the products you can buy in a grocery store. Actually, the information here is on the “scientifically correct but cover your ass from lawsuits” side, and I’ve seen posts in other threads on this board testifying to very bad consequences from using products like these.
Sorry, Wolfrick (not Wolfram). I’ll be more careful next time.
" Place this on the floor under a bright, focused light. "
I know that trick, but having a light above a pool of water, is that such a hot idea? What if that light falls into the water when you’re asleep? Better to use like a flashlight or some other safe lighting.