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Originally Posted by Dara311  Hello everyone...yet again, i'm struggling with fleas...well it is now apparent that we have them in the house........we are planning on bombing this week, does anyone know what is the best kind to use, or if we need to put anything else down!? thanks! |
Please don't bomb your home......bchgrl is correct, all your going to do is knock down the adult ones but it is useless against the fleas in the egg and pupae stage....Over the next 5-6 weeks you'll have a new outbreaks of adult fleas from the pupae that hatched. Most are not in the adult stage according to this:
It's been estimated that any given time, only about 1% of the poulation of fleas is in the adult phase. About 9% are in the pupal stage, 55% are in the laval stage, and 35% are in the egg stage.
All you'll be doing is coating every surface in your home with toxic poison......If you have children it is far worse on their systems to be exposed to these poisons......
I know most people don't want to believe it they want to get out the heavy artillery with poisons but your best weapon is your good old vacuum....Vacuum... vacuum ...vacuum!!.....The larvae and fleas like to seek out darker areas that is why it is important to get under furniture and along baseboards......And vacumme everyday,
everywhere your pets lay down....
This is from a couple researchers.....
Sciencedaily .com: Lead study author W. Fred Hink, professor emeritus of entomology at Ohio State and a longtime researcher in nontoxic controls of fleas on dogs, sought to test the effects of vacuuming on all flea life stages and whether any extra disposal steps or additional chemical controls are necessary.
The study involved groups of 100 adult fleas at a time, as well as groups of 50 pupae and 50 larvae, by vacuuming them up from a tightly woven kitchen-type of carpet. Six tests of vacuuming the adult fleas yielded an average of 96 percent of fleas killed; three tests of vacuumed pupae and one test of vacuumed larvae (in their third stage of development) resulted in 100 percent killed.
In comparison, an average of only 5 percent of adult fleas died after being held in paper vacuum bags to test for toxicity, and an average of only 3 percent died when circulated in moving air.
“I did not include eggs in the vacuum study, but I'm sure they would not have survived,” Hink said.
Dutch journal Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata:
The old upright is not only lethal to adult bugs, but it completely wipes out their young. Scientists from Ohio State University had set out to determine what additional measures might be needed to kill a bunch of Hoovered-up fleas: burning, freezing, poisoning, maybe even a little good old fashioned stomping. But it turns out that getting sucked into a vacuum bag does the whole job.
The researchers were so surprised by the results, they repeated the study several times. In each experiment, they sprinkled a kitchen carpet with 100 cat fleas, either adults or juveniles. And they found that the vacuum snuffed out pretty much all of them.
So expect to have this problem for 4-6 weeks til you get it under control...Good luck and get that vacuum out!..
