The article talks about where fleas come from and where they are located. How to make sure you don't get fleas. And how to eliminate them if they have already been noticed.
If fleas appear in your home, it is better not to waste time looking for a method to destroy them, but to immediately turn to the sanitary and epidemiological service for help.
Fleas are blood-sucking parasites that do not allow a person to rest properly. Since these creatures lead an inconspicuous lifestyle, many do not even realize that fleas live in their house.
Enemy specifics
Fleas multiply quickly and it is enough for one individual to appear so that in a short period of time there is a massive spread of blood-sucking insects. A flea can live alone for a long time, without a permanent place of residence in the form of skin.
The flea has a flattened body 5-7 mm long. There are many hairs and antennae on it, with the help of which it clings to skin and clothing. The color of fleas may vary in shade. It is usually maroon or black in color.
Fleas can jump to great heights. Three pairs of legs allow this trick to be performed. Sometimes jumps reach 2 meters in height.
Fleas leave bites on the body of animals and humans that cause severe itching. By biting, the flea sucks out blood, but before that it lets its saliva under the skin. It blocks blood clotting and the insect can feed without worrying that the blood will stop flowing. Such bites can provoke allergic reactions or even infection, since fleas are carriers of infectious diseases.
Why are fleas dangerous?
Blood-sucking insects are dangerous because they become carriers of serious diseases. Of particular concern are rat fleas, which during bites drink infected blood and then transmit the infection to subsequent victims. Shustriki can transport viral and infectious diseases:
They can cause particular harm to fragile children's bodies, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems. Therefore, when parasites appear in an apartment, you should urgently take disinfestation measures.
Where do they come from?
Fleas in an apartment can appear from several sources:
- From pets.
- From common corridors, basement and entrance.
- From transport.
- From dysfunctional neighbors.
Pets can bring fleas into the house from outside. But today this is no longer the most common cause of insects. Most often, owners of cats and dogs promptly treat their pets for parasites. These can be collars, drops or sprays.
Public places are more dangerous. A flea can jump on clothes on a bus or subway. Fleas cling to long clothing and hide in folds and pockets. Driveways and corridors can be infested with fleas, so when entering an apartment, you should take off your outdoor shoes. Just like cockroaches, fleas can enter the house through ventilation hatches and any accessible cracks that are not visible to humans. Once in the apartment, they choose secluded places, these can be baseboards, the back walls of furniture and even the bed.
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Apartments with a bad reputation, where unscrupulous people live, are also considered a risk group. Usually in such housing there is an abundance of dirt and unpleasant odors, and as a result, cockroaches, fleas and other parasites too.
Consequences of bites - the most common
The danger of a flea bite to a person depends on several factors:
- Non-dangerous consequences. Most people do not pay any attention to bites from small parasites; they simply rub the affected area after a flea attack. With strong immunity and low skin sensitivity, nothing bad happens. After a few days, the itching and inflammation disappear, and no trace remains of the previous bite.
- Consequences of moderate severity. However, each organism is an individual system that can respond to an attack by ectoparasites in different ways. When fleas bite, they inject a special substance to thin the blood. Thanks to this property, the parasite feeds calmly, and a person feels irritation a little later. At the site of flea bites, small red spots remain with a dark dot of dried blood in the center. The bite is accompanied by severe itching, which makes the person scratch constantly. As a result, there is a risk of secondary infection. Ulcers, suppuration, and weeping eczema appear at the sites of bites.
- Allergy after bites. Fleas are dangerous for humans by developing an allergic reaction. The substance injected into the blood vessel during a bite is a strong allergen. If one flea feeds, irritation appears on the skin without causing serious consequences. If a whole colony of parasites attacks, the amount of allergen in the blood increases significantly.
Are there fleas in the house?
The first evidence of the presence of insects will be bites. Small redness in the form of dots on the legs and arms indicate the presence of fleas in the apartment. The bites are closely spaced and very itchy. But, even without detecting obvious traces, you can conduct a series of experiments that will confirm or refute the proximity to fleas.
After collecting dust after cleaning, you need to dissolve it in water. If the liquid turns pink, it means there are fleas in the apartment. The color of the water is due to the fact that flea feces contain remnants of eaten blood.
Sweet water or honey will attract fleas. The container with honey can be left overnight on the floor. In the morning, trapped individuals will definitely be found in it. If the plate is clean, then there are no fleas in the house.
Main signs and habitats of fleas
Fleas do not live on their host. Snakes jump on humans, birds or animals only to search for food. Then they retreat back to their hiding places. Possible places where parasites settle:
If you cover the parasites' habitat with white sheets of paper and look at them after a while, it will not be difficult to notice the jumping insect. It looks like a small black dot that disappears when you try to get closer.
Fleas are very visible on a white background
A few individuals will likely go unnoticed. But if they begin to reproduce, the population will not be difficult to detect. A domestic cat or dog will be the first to fall under flea attacks. The pet will have a poor appetite and sleep will be disturbed. The animal will begin to itch frequently and chew out its fur.
In humans, the bites of brown parasites resemble mosquito bites: redness and itching are noted. Flea bites take longer to heal than mosquito bites and are localized mainly on the legs.
Children of Fauna
How to get rid
Pest control should begin immediately upon detection. Apartments and houses where there are large numbers of fleas are difficult to treat.
First of all, it is necessary to exclude the possibility of infection from animals. They need to be carefully examined and additionally treated with anti-flea drops or shampoos. During emergency measures, to prevent the animal from becoming infected again, it must be moved out of the apartment to relatives or friends.
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Next, you can start cleaning the apartment. She must be thorough. You need to vacuum and wash all secluded places and corners: cabinets, baseboards, crevices. Bed linen and curtains need to be washed. Carpets and any woven coverings should be taken outside and beaten. Washing should take place at high temperatures. All boxes and drawers with small items should be placed higher. House slippers also need to be thoroughly cleaned.
To effectively combat fleas, you can notify your neighbors so that they also take preventive measures. If parasites have settled in the basement of the house, then you need to contact the management company. They are obliged to send specialists who will process the basement and garbage chute.
After general cleaning, you can go to the hardware store. The modern market offers a huge selection of insect control products. You can trust the seller's advice or read reviews before purchasing. When using sprays, powders and gels against fleas, it is important to follow the instructions and precautions: wear gloves, face mask and closed windows.
The apartment must be treated in the absence of children and animals. A day is the period for which it is better to leave your home. Afterwards it is necessary to ventilate the apartment. After about 3 days, you can start wet cleaning again. A positive result will be visible from the flea corpses.
If the chosen remedy and the step-by-step scheme are carried out correctly, the fleas should disappear. This measure is not always effective. In this case, you need to contact specialized companies that disinfect apartments.
Often people never manage to get rid of fleas. They poison them, some time passes, and the parasites appear again. The reason is neighbors and flooded basements. There are cases when you have to change your place of residence. But such cases are extremely rare.
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Can humans have fleas?
Having the unpleasant experience of dealing with these insects through animals, people often suffer from their bites themselves. And the question involuntarily arises: can these parasites live on humans? The answer is no.
They cannot live directly on the body and in the hair, but they feed on blood. People are attacked by insects that live on dogs and cats. And there is one species that prefers human blood - the flea Pulex irritans.
They attack when hungry, but they reproduce outside of people. There is nowhere on their body to hide and lay eggs, so they live in crevices, under carpets, baseboards, getting out to hunt when necessary.
Symptoms
Symptoms include:
- increased body temperature; fever; severe itching; suppuration of wounds; headaches, lack of sleep; anaphylactic shock.
Serious consequences include infection with an infectious disease carried by a parasite. The most common are anthrax, plague, trypanosomiasis, and encephalitis. There are more than 200 types of viruses, some of which are deadly.
Can fleas live in human hair?
If you don’t wash and neglect yourself badly, then they can. But not on the hair, but in the head. They gnaw through the skin and swirl underneath it as parasites. But this is a very extreme case, for example, among homeless people or very unkempt individuals. If a parasite jumps into an animal's hair to feed, it can be easily washed off by washing your hair with regular shampoo. They do not live directly in the hair - the hair structure is too rigid.
Dog fleas are transmitted to humans
Dog bloodsuckers can occasionally jump on their animal owners to taste the blood. But they will return to live with the dog, since it is more comfortable for them to hide in its fur. If there is no animal nearby, the parasite will jump to the side, hide in some crevice and appear and bite from time to time when it gets hungry.
Can fleas from a cat spread to humans?
Parasites that live on cats are more likely than parasites on dogs to jump onto people. They cannot live on a person; after biting him, they return to their furry owner.
Traditional methods
In the fight against any problem, be it a disease or insects, there is always an alternative method called traditional recipes. They are time-tested, but you can never be 100% sure of their effectiveness. Still, it's worth a try.
Wormwood can help in the fight against fleas. The branches are laid out on shelves with shoes, in corners and near the front door. The method really works, fleas die from the smell of wormwood. The disadvantages include the specific aroma of the plant, which can irritate household members.
In the cold season, you can resort to freezing the apartment. Fleas do not like the cold, although they happily live in humid environments. That is why they often inhabit basement floors.
Tansy tincture, another enemy of fleas. After brewing tansy flowers with boiling water, you need to make a strong tincture. Use the resulting solution to wipe the baseboards, cracks and cabinet joints. The product acts as a repellent; the fleas will not die, but will leave the apartment.
Appearance of a flea
These are small insects, so it is not always possible to notice them right away. Flea bites are painful, and the site of the bite is “marked” by a pink spot. The body of a flea is on average from 1 to 5 mm, but a well-fed insect has a stretched abdomen, due to which the size increases to 1 cm. The fertilized female reaches a large size - up to 1.5 cm. The body is divided into a head and abdomen, protected by a chitinous shell.
Under a microscope, a flea resembles a shrimp. This is the most convenient body shape, as it helps to move faster through fur or feathers and hide in secluded places. Three pairs of strong limbs allow her to move by jumping. The limbs have claws so that they can cling to fur or any surface.
This is interesting: The lifespan of the parasite ranges from several months to 3 years. How long an insect lives depends on the ambient temperature. High temperatures shorten life expectancy, low temperatures prolong it, since in cool conditions the life cycle proceeds slowly.
The eyes are located on the head, above which are antennae. They are needed so that the male can hold the female during mating. The rest of the time they do not play any role. The spines and bristles covering the skin are a kind of protection, making it almost impossible to comb out a flea.
The color of the parasite varies from yellowish to brown and black. The piercing-sucking mouthparts are designed for feeding. The stylet at the base helps to bite through the host's skin, increasing the size at the site of the bite. The flea injects saliva into the wound to prevent the blood from clotting. She penetrates there with her whole body in search of a blood vessel. The parasite becomes completely saturated in one bite, increasing in size.
This is interesting: Fleas have a special sensory organ - the pygidium, located on the abdomen, in its rear part. The pygidium is covered with hairs that are sensitive and react to any air vibrations, giving a warning signal of danger.
Precautionary measures
To prevent the appearance of parasites, you need to clean your apartment more often and ventilate the rooms. Of course, these are general and familiar tips, but they really help. The condition of the house is also the responsibility and consciousness of the residents. The basement serves as a breeding ground for fleas. It is necessary to inform utility services more often and require disinfection of the basement and waste disposal chute, if it is located in the house.
It seems that parasites attacking residential premises are a thing of the past. In fact, the problem remains relevant today. Simple rules and tips will help you avoid an unpleasant neighborhood with fleas in your apartment.
Do fleas bite people?
Yes, these bloodsuckers can attack people if possible. There is a special species of Pulex irritans that prefers human blood.
Many people wonder why some people get bitten and others don’t? There are theories that explain this by different blood rhesus, skin thickness, and body temperature. In fact, parasites have no special preferences - they simply bite people. Due to individual sensitivity, everyone’s reaction is different, so it seems that some people are not affected by them.
What do flea bites look like?
Traces of attacks by these bloodsuckers are determined by characteristic bites on the body. The wounds, due to the insect's oral apparatus, are gnawed, are surrounded by a halo and look like inflamed, red tubercles. There may be rashes all over the body. The bites are chaotic, mainly on the arms, legs, waist, neck, and in places where the skin is delicate.
Do cat fleas bite people?
Parasites living on cats can choose human blood and love it more than those living on dogs. Having satisfied their hunger, they return to the cat's owner.
Destruction of parasites in the basement
For those living in a country house, the source of fleas entering the living quarters can be the basement. Parasites are especially attracted to humidity, clutter, and dust. Before treating a room for fleas, you need to identify the source of dampness and eliminate it - fix the pipes, check whether the basement is flooded with groundwater or after rain. You also need to clean up - sort out the trash, sweep, throw out the garbage. The walls and ceiling are first sprayed with water so that dust particles that may contain larvae do not settle on the surface.
A very important point - if there are rodents in the basement, they must be poisoned before getting rid of the insects.
The floor in the basement needs to be washed, preferably with bleach. You can start treating with insecticide only after the floor is completely dry. In the basement, unlike living quarters, it is advisable to use powders. They are more effective at killing parasites and will not harm people or pets.
Modern flea treatments - insecticides
There are also modern methods of flea control designed for self-treatment of an apartment at home. More and more people are recommending liquid products, because they are very easy to use, they are quite effective - dilute them in some water, spray them, ventilate them, and the fleas are gone. Another advantage of modern products is that they leave no smell in the apartment, at least after ventilation there is no smell left. Dichlorvos certainly stinks, but even this product is released with a pleasant floral aroma and no odor at all. It is recommended to wash clothes and bedding at high temperatures using powder. If it is not possible to wash some items or is prohibited by the manufacturer, you can disinfect them with a steam cleaner or a steam generator iron.
You should very well wash the upholstered furniture in the apartment, wash the carpets, rugs and disinfect them along with the floor. But if you choose caustic chemical sprays, you need to familiarize yourself with safe use techniques, because you or your loved ones and pets can get terrible poisoning.
But if you still decide to use them, then you need to follow safety rules. It is imperative to carry out the above-mentioned methods of combating these parasites with gloves, a respirator and goggles. Dichlorvos is a very good remedy and, as a rule, effective, but after it residents need to leave their home for several hours.
It is best to ventilate the room once a day, wash and change bedding, contact a special service at the first sign, if you have a pet, then it is better not to remove the flea collar from it, periodically take pillows and mattresses out into the sun and steam them with a household steamer .
The most famous and effective remedies for fleas in the apartment: Combat, Gett, Raptor, Biorin, Sinuzan, Chlorpirimark, Deltsid, Tsifoks and so on.
You can choose the one that suits you according to price and availability at your nearest store. Pre-read reviews of drugs on the Internet. Here are some of them:
Katya, Moscow
“Fleas appeared on the entire floor of the dorm, they brought wormwood from the park and spread it everywhere - to no avail! We ran to the hardware store, bought Combat SuperSpray for 450 rubles, but there was nothing else. There was just enough for all the rooms on the floor. Due to the slight but pungent smell, we had to evacuate outside. Two hours later they came and ventilated. The next day the fleas were gone. Vacuumed and washed the floors. Now it's clean and fleas don't bite. It’s still not clear why fleas appear in an almost empty room.”
Vitaly Semenovich, Samara
Spray Raptor just saved me on a business trip! They moved me into terrible conditions, I thought fleas would eat me. Well the supermarket had a selection of insect repellent sprays. In terms of price-quality ratio, I chose Raptor; Dichlorvos is too caustic, although cheaper. In general, the aerosol really destroyed all the fleas, a week has passed, I finally got some sleep, the bite marks are almost gone.
Preparing the room for processing
Having chosen how to treat your house for fleas, before starting the procedure, you need to prepare the room. Proper preparation will enhance the effect of using the insecticide. So, before processing you need to:
- vacuum all carpets;
- wash the floors, wipe all surfaces with a damp cloth;
- wash or treat curtains, bedspreads, upholstered furniture, soft toys with a steam generator;
- wash your pet's bed;
- remove food, hygiene items, children's toys, and dishes from the premises;
- If possible, move furniture away from the walls, freeing up passage to hard-to-reach places;
- If there is an aquarium in the room, it must be taken out or carefully covered with glass or film.
Treatment
A mandatory stage of preparation for treating a house is cleaning the surrounding area. It is necessary to remove plant debris and mow the grass.
How to treat a living space?
In the room prepared for processing, all windows must be closed. If insecticides are used to kill fleas, you must use protection - wear a mask and gloves. During treatment, animals must be removed from the house, and it is better to send household members for a walk.
After this, the treatment of the room begins. To kill fleas with a spray, it is sprayed throughout the room, paying special attention to the space behind and under furniture, baseboards, crevices, and carpets. When processing with powder, it is scattered on the floor, not forgetting the corners and crevices. You can also sprinkle animal bedding (afterwards you will need to shake it out thoroughly and wash it).
To exterminate fleas in a private home, be sure to treat the hallway, cabinets where outdoor shoes are stored, and door mats. In order for everything to go as safely as possible, after the treatment is completed, you must leave the room and leave it closed for the time specified in the instructions.
