Fleas can lay eggs in carpets, so even if the previous homeowner tried to eradicate the pests, a new breed might have been left behind. Run your hands through the fibers of the carpets and look for evidence of flea dirt or eggs. Flea eggs are tiny white ovals and will be difficult to see without a magnifying glass.
Flea eggs are small, oval white specks that resemble a grain of salt. You'll find flea eggs in any and all places that your cat or dog frequents—beds, bedding, crates, couches, chairs, carpeting, floor cracks or crevices, and corners. Flea eggs can survive for approximately 10 days before hatching.
Look for flea eggs in the carpets and furniture
This is a little tricky if you don't really know what you're looking for, but you can look for eggs in the carpet of your home to check for fleas. They are tiny and hard to spot, especially for an untrained eye.
The most common places to find flea eggs indoors include: Carpeting, rugs, floorboard cracks, pet bedding, cushions and upholstery, beneath beds and furniture, and dirt floor basements.
For most of us, our best chance of spotting flea eggs is with a magnifying glass or using a flea comb. This fine-toothed comb is designed to remove fleas and their eggs from your pet's fur.
During daylight hours, House Flies will rest on floors, walls, and ceilings indoors. Outdoors they will rest on plants, on the ground, on fence wires, garbage cans, and other similar surfaces. At night, they will rest principally on ceilings, electric wires, and dangling light cords indoors.
Hot Water. Washing linens and bedding in water that is 140 degrees or hotter will be effective to destroy most flea eggs. Steam cleaning carpets after vacuuming can also help to kill remaining flea eggs.
It can take up to 3 months to break a total flea life cycle by using monthly flea treatments. For indoor flea control, vacuuming all floors, carpets, baseboards, pet bedding and furniture will help remove adult fleas and eggs.
Check their bedding and crates and scan for live fleas and flea dirt. You should also check your couches and other upholstered furniture where your pets lounge around for evidence of flea dirt. If you see some specks but aren't sure they are flea dirt, putting them in water and checking the color will be useful.
During the day, fleas avoid the sun so they are most active at sunset and least active at sunrise. At dusk, the pests would lay more eggs, respire more, and move around in the yard more. Although the fleas are not completely inactive at any time of the day, they have increased activity at dusk and night.
How Long Do Fleas Live In Your House? The average life cycle of a flea is about 100 days, but fleas' lifespans can be quite variable. If conditions are favorable, these insects can even live indoors for up to a year!
It is a daily common myth that fleas will eventually just go away on their own, but this is far from correct. If you've got a flea infestation, you can't afford to wait for the problem to resolve itself – it won't.
When it has a host, an adult flea can live about 100 days. But how long can they live without a host? Those fleas typically live only one to two weeks. The entire lifespan of a flea, from egg to adulthood, can last a few weeks or even a few months.
Adams Flea & Tick Home Spray provides up to 7 months of flea protection indoors and kills fleas, flea eggs, flea larvae, bed bugs, ticks, cockroaches, ants*, spiders, mosquitoes, and many other labeled insects (*except carpenter, harvester, pharaoh and fire ants).
Apply a concentrated IGR insecticidal spray.
These types of products are designed to kill the eggs and the “youngins” of fleas and other pest insects, for this matter. It is also said that the main IGR ingredient affects adult fleas, as well. They become infertile and their eggs don't hatch.
Fleas that are dying often come to the coat surface and move around excessively – making them more visible.
Combine equal parts water and vinegar and spray over the fleas. Then, sprinkle salt all over the affected area. This helps keep the area dry, which aids in killing the fleas and larvae. Leave the salt overnight and vacuum the next day.
They may come through with an old piece of furniture or clothing and skin of a person who already has been infested. Fleas typically don't use humans in particular as hosts, but they may travel through us. But fleas don't necessarily need hosts to enter our homes.
Getting rid of fleas is a difficult process due to the long lifecycle of a flea. Moderate to severe infestations will take months to control and require a four-step process for complete elimination: Sanitation.
A recommended chemical product to control fleas on pets would be Petcor and Martin's Prefurred. Petcor 2 Flea and Tick Spray is a pyrethroid-based chemical product that has an IGR (Insect Growth Regulator) that will kill the undeveloped stages of fleas (eggs, larval, and pupal) for a month on cats or dogs.
In just 30 days, 10 female fleas can multiply to over a quarter million new fleas in different life stages. Female fleas start producing eggs within 24 to 48 hours after taking their first blood meal and can lay up to 50 eggs per day. Optimum conditions for flea larvae are 65-80 ºF with shaded areas and high humidity.
Common brands of Nitenpyram include Capstar® and Bestguard® which can be purchased through a veterinarian, online, and over the counter. The active ingredient, Nitenpyram, is an insecticide that starts killing fleas within 30 minutes and lasts for up to 48 hours.
Using a DIY flea spray of apple cider vinegar on a rug or dog bed will not kill fleas of any life stage. That's because the acid in vinegar is not strong enough to penetrate the shell of flea eggs or larvae.
“Egg-Stopper” Collars- Unlike conventional flea collars, these contain an insect growth regulating ingredient (methoprene or pyriproxyfen) which prevents egg hatch for several months.