Flea Prevention for Pets and Homes: Safeguarding Against Infestations

The Dangers of Fleas

Flea bites are annoying to both humans and animals. They use their microscopic mouthpiece to pierce the skin and use their saliva as a miniature numbing agent. Then, they use it as a straw to draw blood into their bodies.

The bite is extremely tiny, and fleas can only take blood from capillaries. The burning, itching, and inflammation are the host’s body’s allergic reaction to the spit-filled bite. Fleas will gladly indulge in human blood, but they can’t survive and multiply on human bodies as well as they can furry animals.

So, fleas pose a serious risk to people and the pets they adore. Among the hazards of flea bites include tapeworms. Flea bites and infected rats caused the notorious Black Plague pandemic from 1346-1353. It was one of the greatest spreads of disease in human history and it wiped out approximately half of Europe’s population.

Prevention for Your Home and Pets

If the idea of fleas invading your home in the Garden State ramps up your anxiety, you’re not alone. Even the cleanest people and pet parents aren’t immune to an occasional unwelcome flea problem. If left untreated, just one female and male flea can reproduce to as many as 20,000 fleas within a few months.

The good news is that you can take preventative measures to keep these sickening insects at bay. Here are a few tips for you to follow.

Regular Flea Medications

Fleas are more likely to latch onto your pets outdoors than they are to you, but your blood is fair game once they’ve entered your house. Veterinarians recommend that pet owners regularly use topical cream, medicated collars, or flea pills to prevent their fur babies from contracting fleas.

Several brands on the market combine a medication to kill adult fleas, but you need one that will destroy eggs, larvae, and pupae. Often, it is just a once-a-month dosage, and your vet can help you find the proper treatment for your pet.

Daily Grooming

Dogs and cats are the top harbingers of fleas that can quickly infest a family home. Their heavy coats act as a welcome mat and often make biting fleas challenging to see. You must give your furry friends an excellent brush to look for any flea activity.

Gently part the fur in places and check for any adult fleas. If you see speckles in their fur or skin resembling coffee grounds, it’s flea feces and is tell-tale. Also, check for irritated patches of skin, hot spots, or places where the fur has thinned a bit. These are signs of fleas biting your pet, irritating their skin, making them scratch, and causing more discomfort.

Giving your dog or cat a warm bath with a gentle shampoo formulated to nourish their skin and coat while killing fleas is also a good idea. Dogs with heavy and longer coats should be kept cropped and groomed as needed.

Keep a Tidy Home

Fleas are so tiny that it’s almost impossible to see them hiding in cracks, crevices, carpets, drapes, and upholstery. Daily vacuuming and dusting can effectively remove fleas at any life stage. Use a crevice tool to suck up any biting insect hiding between the baseboards or the cushions of your furniture. Empty the dust bag or container frequently outside and away from the home.

You would be shocked if you considered what people track into their homes on their shoes. Consider making a rule that nobody wears outside shoes in the house. It’s an easier rule to follow if everyone in the family has a cozy pair of house slippers to wear.

Wash Pet Bedding Often

Another simple way of deterring a home invasion from fleas is by laundering your pet’s bedding regularly. Wash the bed and blankets in hot water and put them in the dryer. The heat will kill fleas and most other creepy crawlers hiding in your pet’s sanctuary. If your pets sleep with you, consider washing your bedding often.

Treat Your Yard

Have you ever been frustrated and bewildered after you’ve treated your home and pet for fleas, and the fleas come right back in again? The problem isn’t that you’ve skipped steps with your pet and house. For effective flea control, you must also treat your porch and yard.

The great outdoors is a waiting room for fleas to hop onto their unsuspecting hosts. Before you treat your lawn, do some research. Some pesticides may kill the fleas, but they might also kill beneficial insects.

Many folks in New Jersey are environmentally aware and prefer to use natural deterrents.

One of the most common natural bug killers is diatomaceous earth or DE. It’s the powdered fossilized remains of microscopic marine life. It’s usually harmless to people and animals and is safe for the environment.

When you dust your lawn with a fine coating of DE, fleas get it on themselves. The microscopic sharp grains cut their exoskeletons, and they quickly dehydrate and die.

Another biological weapon against fleas is nematodes. These microscopic worms benefit the soil by aerating it and leaving their castings, which is worm fecal matter. While these castings are harmless to people, pets, and wildlife, they are deadly to flea larvae.

Basic Flea Facts You Need To Know

Did you know entomologists have identified as many as 2,000 flea species worldwide? That number is relatively small compared to other insect species, but it’s enough to make you feel the urge to scratch. Of the 2,000 flea species, approximately 325 of them call the United States home, including the Garden State.

If there’s any good news, only a few species can be a threat to human and animal well-being. However, most fleas have the same traits, life cycles, and habits.

The Flea’s Body

If you’ve ever picked a flea off your pet or yourself, you realize how tiny they are. They average between 1-3 millimeters long, depending on species and gender. At that size, a flea could easily match the size of the tip of a sewing needle. Their minuteness and bland color make them challenging to see and remove.

Glancing at fleas under a magnifying glass will demonstrate why they are classified as insects. Fleas have three separate body parts, antennae, six legs, and are covered with a protective exoskeleton. They are among the countless wingless insects. However, they’ve developed powerful back legs to jump impressive heights and distances.

Most flea species can jump slightly above six inches, which doesn’t seem too high. However, considering the jump is about 60 times their body length, it’s an astounding feat. If you compare the ratio to humans, it would be like a six-foot-tall man leaping 360 feet into the air. No wonder these acrobatic pests can quickly hop a ride on you or your pets and invade your home.

Life Cycle

The first step to evacuating your New Jersey home or business of fleas is to understand their life cycle. Like most other insects, fleas have four distinct stages of life: egg, larvae, pupa, and adult. The prevention and treatment you use must be effective on adult fleas, their eggs, and the other two developmental stages.

Egg: A flea’s life begins with an egg that’s white and not much bigger than a grain of salt. Adult females instinctually find and latch onto a warm-blooded host for food and a place to live. Fleas are minuscule vampires that need blood for nourishment and to reproduce.

After her first sip of blood, an adult female can begin laying eggs, whether fertilized or not. Unfertilized eggs often serve as food for the developing nymphs. After mating with multiple male fleas, the female can lay up to 50 eggs daily.

Some eggs stay attached to the host, while most drop off and hatch elsewhere. She’ll continue to lay eggs for up to three months. One female flea may lay approximately 2,000 eggs in her life. Fleas can live between 100 days to a year, depending on the species.

Warm, humid months are when flea reproduction peaks and eggs can hatch from 1 to 3 days. During cooler, dry weather, a flea egg may take up to a week to hatch. It also depends on whether the flea population has a host supplying warm blood to steal.

Larva: The baby fleas emerge from their eggs as larvae, like teeny caterpillars. They immediately search for a taste of blood. Since flea larvae don’t have adult mouth parts to pierce their host’s skin for a sip, they rely on nourishment from flea feces, which have digested blood particles.

They will also snack on any available unfertilized eggs. If the flea larvae are adequately nourished, they can develop into pupae within 5-12 days.

Pupa: Once the larvae have fully developed, it’s time for their long, transformative nap. Their primitive mouthpiece produces a microfine silk to attach them to an animal hair or something sturdy. Then, the wiggly worm weaves a delicate cocoon that will protect it while it’s resting and changing.

Depending on the species and environment, the pupa stage may be as short as five days or as long as 20. The warm air entices the newly formed adult flea out of the cocoon, and the cycle continues for millions of years.

Fleas Can Easily Get Inside Your Home

It’s worth noting that most flea species can’t survive without a host. If they don’t have warm blood to sip, they will quickly die. When your pets play out in the yard, they are prime targets for free-loading fleas. Infestation from fleas can be a year-long problem, but they are more active during warmer days of spring, summer, and fall.

Unlike countless other insects, fleas have an eye spot on either side of their head rather than compound eyes. These eye spots are primitive and can only detect light and shadows, but no forms. So, they depend on other innate senses to find a host.

Like mosquitos, fleas can identify a warm-blooded host by heat and the carbon dioxide the host exhales. Adult fleas wait in grass, leaves, and other plant matter for their victims. When they find a host, they leap on and search for the perfect patch of skin to bite.

Host transport is the most common root cause of a flea infestation in a home or business. Once they’re in, the fleas multiply exponentially, and they become a threat to the health of your family and pets.

Time to Call the Professionals

The lives of your family and beloved pets are too precious to compromise with a flea infestation. Folks around the Garden State have trusted our pest control experts for years. If you see a flea happily hopping in your house, chances are they are multiplying rapidly. Call us today and reclaim your home and keep your loved ones and pets safe from these pesky critters.

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