Before we can discuss the specifics of our environmentally friendly flea control service, we must first understand the insect. A proper understanding of their life cycle helps plan for how best to control fleas. Long story short, by terminating flea eggs, our technicians are able to prevent the infestation before it gets out of hand.
Flea Life Cycle
Like most insect control, successful flea control must include a flea treatment that will stop the flea “cycle.” This cycle we are referring to includes the eggs, larva, pupa and adult stage.
1) An adult flea jumps onto you, your pet, your child, etc. and feeds on your blood. Many people and many pets are allergic to flea bites.
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, 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, including dried blood, flea feces or animal hair.
5) These flea larva then feeds 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. 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.
Where Fleas Live
Let’s talk about where the flea life cycle can occur. It’s in important to understand this process if you wish to have a good flea control service. 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. Fleas can feed on most any animal that’s warm blooded – they 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 Control Service
Pet Management
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.
Egg Extermination
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.
Treatment Timeline
Once infested, a proper flea control service 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. 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. One flea control service could solve the issue. It may also take three to six weeks of flea spraying once a week for all the cycles to run their course.
Flea Spray Inside The Home
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 can be sprayed using an adulticide and a growth regulator. The adulticide kills the adult stage; the growth regulator prevents the eggs from developing so they are effectively killed.