Foo - My wife's got fleas...

Actually our whole house has fleas. The filthy pig and her animals that lived there before us left us with a nasty case of fleas throughout the entire house. The pest control guy came by and sprayed for them, but it has been 6 days and there are still fleas. Has anyone else sprayed for fleas, and how long does it take to get rid of them? The pest control guy said to call after two weeks if there is still a problem. We are going away for the weekend, so it is possible to do something drastic on Friday as we will be out of the house for a few days.

Fleas are really hard to get rid of once the house is infested. There is something called "seven dust" that you can sprinkle on the carpets and then vacuum up when you get back from the weekend. Be careful, because there is outside stuff and inside stuff and you want to get the inside stuff.. I also heard Borax is good to kill fleas.

Just make sure you vacuum and wash any throw rugs or blankets in warm water you have on the floor and couches. This will kill any remaining eggs.

Hopefully your pest guy sprayed the yard too. And I mean the whole yard.

We didn't have fleas, but we had an infestation of something... got into the carpets, plumbing, and everything else. Finally, we called Orkin, and they came out and did 2 exterminations and had no problems since. Make sure the folks you called are reputable. You will regret it otherwise.

Koffee

Actually our whole house has fleas. . .

It can take a while to get a complete knockdown/control. One spray may not do it.

If you have carpets, get them HOT steam cleaned... I learned from an insect specialist with the local county office that ommercial hot steam cleaning is the only thing that will KILL eggs, larvae, dormant and adult (active) flease. It is not residual (unless you could keep your house at 160º F for a while). but works well as a one time, non-toxic flea knockdown.

You can kill fleas, as mentioned above, with knock-down insecticides, but those do not kill un-hatched eggs, nor will the insecticides kill anything forever. As flea eggs hatch, you have more fleas that must be taken care of. Fleas also can go "dormant" for well over a year at a time and when they sense action (new warm blood in their vicinity), they wake up and start to feed and reproduce.

You could make sure your pest control service also used some of the newer flea killers that act on the chitin in the flea's exo-skeleton. This stuff is relatively innocuous to any animals that do NOT produce chitin (most anything else with 2 or 4 legs). It is residual and will kill fleas hatching out from eggs.

We had a tremendous flea season a while back. We steam-cleaned as above and now keep Advantage flea killer on the dogs and cats. The animals act as "traps" as the fleas like to go for them first and when they jump on the dog or cat, the killer kills the flea before biting. Also if the animals go outside, any fleas they pick up out there are killed and do not survive to come inside and reproduce in the house.

I personally like to be as organic as possible and so do not spray or have sprayed any sort of insecticide in our house or on our property. Fleas we control as above; spiders are caught and released outside; roaches are kept out by the cats and boric acid applied to cracks where the roaches live or may come in; ants are killed by feeding them a boric acid bait that may take a week or two to kill the ants, but will pretty much take care of the whole colony. Other insects are taken care of similarily.

Try a steam cleaning and see what happens; make sure you have it commercially done with one of those truck/van mounted cleaning units as they will be using the really hot water that is needed to kill the fleas and eggs and such.

Supposedly the guy sprayed an ovicide as well as the insecticide. But, it's the fleas that are in their cocoons that have me really worried. I am pro-organic in most things, but when it comes to my own house I want maximum killing power. I told the guy that I don't mind if it takes a year or two off my life, so long as it gets rid of the fleas.

We had two rabbits living in the house, but they have since been moved to another place. I searched them high and low, and never found any sign of fleas. I looked for bites, flea dirt, larvae, pupae, and fleas. I treated them anyway with powder. I also sprinkled the excess powder on the floors (all wood/tile) around our couches and bed. I haven't really seen any fleas in the powder safety zones. We are vacuuming constantly and throwing away the bags.

These bastards are really stressing us out.,

[QUOTE=ofofhy]Supposedly the guy sprayed an ovicide as well as the insecticide. But, it's the fleas that are in their cocoons that have me really worried. I am pro-organic in most things, but when it comes to my own house I want maximum killing power. I told the guy that I don't mind if it takes a year or two off my life, so long as it gets rid of the fleas. . . .

Try the hot, hot steam cleaning for your carpets, if you have them. It'll kill all forms of fleas.

Maybe borrow a dog or two, treat with Advantage and keep them in the house as 4-legged flea traps?

If you are renting, I'd go after the landlord and tell him you're are going crazy.

Move

We had fleas in the apartment in newport beach I was in, the little friggers were in the hallway carpet I figured, so I actually went out in the middle of the day when no one was around, got poison and pump-up sprayer and sprayed the hallway down from end to end myself.

Shoulda dressed as Dale Gribble and called myself Rusty Shackleford.