I’ve found salting the carpets, waiting a few hours and then vacuuming it up helps. I also gave up on Frontline and started buying Advantage which _seems_to be far more effective.
Spray your yard if you can. You can get something at Home Depot or Wal-Mart etc. that is for flea control for your yard. Not gonna help inside your house if your yard is infested and you just keep carrying them in on your clothes and shoes.
Flea life cycle is 2 weeks IIRC so you always have to reapply whatever your using at two week intervals (or even weekly if it’s really bad) until they’re truly gone. I had to take my cat to the groomer to get a flea bath every couple of weeks. I’d do this the same day I bombed my house and sprayed my yard. After about the 4th bi-weekly treatment I finally won but it was awful for a while.
I am in Michigan and have not had flea trouble, yet ,this year. Some years they are everywhere and some years ,nothing. So far this year, no problem. I walk my dogs everyday, so if the fleas are out, we get them.
Fleas love wet summers. I’ve used many of the methods described. My favorite is breakaway flea collars but presently the cats I have remove them. Just won’t wear them.
Years ago I took a tip from nature and went out to the prairie and borrowed a few fleabane plants. I planted these near the doors, garage and cat doors. They seem to live up to their name and drive fleas away from the area. We haven’t had a flea all summer.
I sympathize. Some years are just bumper crop years for bugs. (Don’t get me started about earwigs. And I haven’t found an earwigbane plant.)
Here’s a picture of the “weed.” They are a member of the aster family. I believe they grow nearly everywhere but the desert. There’s even a variety called “Philadelphia” so when I go outside I can hum a little Elton John. “Philadephia fleabane - I looooooooove you. Yes I do!”
Broken link above? Maybe this is what was meant? Lots of ‘traditional uses’ for this plant, no doubt!
I have found that ridding a place of fleas takes persistence. Just keep at it until things are clear, and then do it a bit longer to be sure. Been there and done that, and it did take a few weeks to get most of the fleas gone overall (multiple egg cycles).
Keeping pets free of fleas is of utmost importance, and our Chihuahua gets baths at least every few days (no flea-killer used routinely, fwiw).
Try switching from Frontline to a different product. Just not a grocery-store kind. Around here (central Indiana) some vets are hearing from clients that Frontline doesn’t seem to work as well.
It’s the same way here. We thought we’d get a break this year since we had a couple of really good freezes, but no such luck. Everyone is seeing TONS of fleas.
There’s only so much you can do in the house if you’re bringing them in every day.
Treat your yard. That’s been more help for us than anything else so far. We use a permethrin/pyrethrin, which is safe for birds (but not fish, or for cats while it’s wet). A friend is going to try diatomaceous earth in her yard because she’s got good bugs & toads she doesn’t want to kill but I haven’t heard results yet.
If I’m remembering correctly, FrontLine has quit working here. (I know it’s one of them, just don’t remember which one.) I’m guessing that Advantage will probably work for a few years before it’s no good either. There was some new one that was supposed to be all that, but friends report that it was worthless for them. I do know someone who alternates FrontLine and Advantage and says that works well for her.
Diatomaceous earth. It does work, although it’s not instant. We scatter it on the wood floors and sweep it up. It filters down into the cracks where they tend to hide. In the basement (concrete floor) we just scatter it and leave it. You’re supposed to use food-grade, as the kind you buy for your pool can be bad for your lungs.
Boric acid. You can use this for fleas just like you do for roaches.
Brewer’s yeast. OK, I can personally testify that using it as a topical powder will cause fleas to RUN AWAY in droves. Shake some onto your pet and rub it in, then comb it out. Be sure to be outside and powder yourself first. You’ll see the fleas leaping off. I don’t know how long it works for, though. My mom swore by feeding it to keep fleas off. I’m trying that with one dog that’s very flea-sensitive, if I can get roomie (who normally feeds her) to remember to use it.
Flea collars. Cut up flea collars and put pieces under couch cushions, in your vacuum canister, etc.
Yep, Frontline quit working for me a couple of years ago Switched to Advantage, and was flea-free. Sadly, I think the effectiveness of the Advantage is wearing off now, so I may go back to Frontline, or give Revolution a try.
If you have carpeting, this is a good way to lure a few to their deaths. Take a small desk lamp and put it in the middle of the floor. Underneath place a pie pan filled with soapy water and turn on the light. The fleas are attracted to the heat, jump in the water and die. Best done at night or unoccupied room.
Tried a few times as a kid, not saying it will decimate the population but you do get some satisfaction for taking out a few of them.
I find a full-assault campaign that lasts all summer is the only answer.
Comfortis is a good pill you get from the vet that works well for dogs. Some dogs get nausea from this. I’ve used it with and separate from Frontline, Advantage, and Sentinel. I try to go for something that kills fleas, ticks, and has a heartworm preventative as well.
Borax – sprinkle in carpets and vac up a while later. Sprinkle in couch, under the cushions and leave it. Wash all pet bedding and people bedding, blankets and towels with Borax added to the wash.
I like Frontline spray also, after the Borax bath, sprayed on any fabric surface the pets lounge on.
Rip out your carpet and put in hardwood floors. Carpet + Fleas = Really Bad News. Friends don’t let friends live with carpet. Area rugs are okay.
Fleabane is good, Pennyroyal also works as an herbal remedy. Dry it, crush it, and rub it into pet’s fur. If your pet is a licker (cats, Boston terriers), do not do this! Some of these herbs can be toxic to the little critters if ingested. Topical use only.
I go around my house and spray, treat, sprinkle, etc. Then three weeks later, you have to do it all again to catch any eggs that have hatched into the little biting bastards. ETA: Oh yeah. I also comb the pets in flea season about every 2-3 days. Every flea I catch gets drowned in a glass of soapy water. Pets get a bath about once a week or every two weeks during flea season. Also, if you have a swimming pool and your dog can swim (bully breeds can’t sometimes), chlorine in pools is also a really good flea killer. You could bring nonswimming dogs into your pool and dunk 'em in once in a while, but that might traumatize/scare the crap out of the dog. Do not attempt to take cats swimming.
I hate fleas with a passion that burns like 10,000 suns.
I found a tick in my house last week and one on my dog yesterday. Now whenever something tickles my skin a little I get the heebie-jeebies that it is a tick! My dog takes pills each month that are supposed to kill ticks and fleas.
If you’re carrying them in from your yard, there are beneficialnematodesyou can buy that attack outside fleas. They need relatively mild, damp weather, though - around here (TX) you can’t use 'em in the summertime, but I don’t know where you are. I imagine if the weather is cool and damp enough for fleas, it’s probably cool and damp enough for the nematodes to survive as well. I’ve used them back when squirrels and/or possums were bringing fleas into our backyard.
I do have experience with DE, and I can assure you that it does work, but sloooowly. To make up for being slow, it continues to work as long as it’s physically present i.e. not blown or swept away. It kills anything with an exoskeleton - roaches, ants, fleas, earwigs, etc. so it’s fabulous in the house. Liberally sprinkle your pets’ sleeping spots, the curtains, etc. Very liberally sprinkle it over your carpets - like, make it look like a heavy frost - and then go find something else for the whole family to do for an hour or more. Then, vacuum it all up, and throw away the vacuum bag outside. I often sprinkle it around the outside of the house, esp. near doors and windows - seems to help keep roaches from crawling in.
Hope that helps. Fleas suck. I will look into the fleabane idea myself - thanks for that suggestion and testimonials, y’all!
I’ve never seen fleas like I had this year. About a month ago I saw a couple of fleas on the dog, no big deal-gets them every spring. So I use some Advantage on him and you can see them bugging out. All was well until…
I was in the backyard doing some grilling. Me and the pooch went in the house and I saw some black specks on him, figured he’d been rolling in the charcoal ashes or something. Went to wipe him off and it was fleas. Like a million fleas. He had been Advantaged, so I guess they were trying to get off his skin and were all on the surface. So a late night flea bath to get the bastards off him until I could regroup.
I hit the yard with a permethrin spray the next day at lunch, and again at dusk that evening. Sprayed the house-couch, chairs, carpet, everywhere with Spectracide (lambda-cyhalothrin). Washed his bedding and rinsed in a permethrin solution, washed MY bedding with a permethrin rinse.
Still some fleas. So I gave the yard a double dose of the lambda-cyhalothrin, and gave the dog another Advantage after only 10 days (just ouside the minimum time frame, but he’d been shampooed in the meantime). Repeated the Spectracide indoor treatment, washed the bedding again with permethrin rinse.
Now we are flea free for about a week. I think the staggered pesticide applications got a couple of generations out of the way, I keep an eye peeled for stragglers.
I really hate using that much poison, but I’ve had this dog for over 14 years and have never seen anything even close to this number of fleas. We had a really wet spring and hot after that, FWIW.
It is generally eaten as a supplement. I don’t remember where the using it topically came from (Mom was way into alternate anything for a while, so probably something she heard somewhere), but I’ve done it and it works.
Yup, it’s been a bad year for fleas. I found that regular use of Revolution plus frequent changes of bedding and vaccuming eliminated them, albeit it took a couple of (very unpleasant) weeks.