In-Home Flea Circuses

Ugh!!!!!

On a sad note, we put our elderly dog to sleep a little over two weeks ago. We miss him very much but it was a mercy for him. Earlier this summer I had surgery and a very large ovarian tumor removed (benign, all is well and good), so that had me out of commission since July. Needless to say, the fleas came in during that time period and I am struggling to get them out!!!

We're dog sitting this week, which is really nice since I miss having a dog around. It's the first time in 17 years we haven't had a dog. This flea situation is crazy! I told my brother about the flea issues we're having and he said he's been fighting them too, and that Spark is on the flea med Comfortis. After reading up on it, I wish humans had something we could take temporarily so that when a flea bites us, it's dead in 30 minutes! I know some folks would have an issue with self-toxificiation, but we've already bombed the house, sprayed furniture and mattresses, vacuum daily, cleaned the carpets, set up light-based flea traps, using diomataceous earth in the carpets, and..... at this point I am glad we're house sitting a medicated dog so the remaining adults can just bite her and DIE. (I'm sorry, Spark.)

I'm trying everything I know of and can afford, and I know it can be up to 2 months to break the flea cycle, but I'm tired of feeling things crawl on me I can't see and, holy ham, you should see how they love to bite my DD to pieces.

So, I'm just want to vent, but if anyone else had suggestions, that would be great.
--Suzanne

I thought comfortis was a shorter acting med than the existing topicals but since mine won't take pills for anything I never looked into using it repeatedly. It does work great to kill all fleas quickly in a short time on a heavily infested dog or dog going into an infested area for awhile. I'm just not sure it's effective long enough for long term, constant exposure to keep them dying when they try to feed. Even the topicals for monthly application really don't work fully past 2 weeks.

You've treated the yard and under the house or any crawl space? They'll survive in damp subfloors for quite a period and feeding on passing mammals can keep a population blooming outdoors. If you don't fully treat and dry out everything outside your interior living space as well they will keep pouring in when the chance arises. Our first house we grew up in had that problem and it was never solved because no amount of treating the animals and house dealt with the fact it didn't have a finished basement with a damp dirt floor below the wood and a yard that was reinfested by wildlife and neighborhood roaming pets nonstop. The next owners even tried to sue over the infestation that came back in after we had killed all the fleas and removed our animals before selling and then ended up moving within 2 years. I know various pest control companies can help reduce them but lately I found there's an interesting nematode that I forget what we were looking at it to target. It started with the Japanese beetle problem research but they not only kill june bug and japanese beetle grubs they also eat fleas, ticks, and various unwanted outdoor and indoor pests while not harming other useful insects like pollinators, native ladybugs, praying mantis, etc... They probably eat a few smaller soil dwelling critters that help fill out an ecosystem but they are quite successful without chemicals and will control yard pests forever even with external critters bringing more food back in to the yard for them so overall the ecosystem seems able to rebalance better than other methods that are toxic to everything and it's more successful. Combining parasitic nematodes with a bacteria known to also infest various grubs and pests people reported wiping out everything that harmed their gardens, lawns, infested their homes, their pets, and so on for what seems to be permanent control. Nothing to maintain and reduced use of flea and tick meds on the animals including to not at all if they didn't travel off the property.