Basement fleas in the apartment and methods of dealing with them

The so-called basement fleas are the collective name for almost all types of fleas that can appear in an ordinary city apartment. This name was given to them by the people because these parasites are found in the greatest quantities precisely in the underground and semi-underground floors of high-rise buildings, basements and basements, and also often in cellars and basements in summer cottages. Fleas in the basement live in heaps of garbage, old rags, bunches of sprouted grass, and feed on the blood of rats, cats and dogs, as well as vagrants hiding in basements from the weather or regularly sleeping there.

Among basement fleas, you can find rat, dog, cat, human, and sometimes even goat and rabbit fleas (it is problematic for a layman to visually distinguish these types of parasites from each other). All of them can attack humans and pets, and therefore basement fleas in an apartment are a common and very unpleasant phenomenon for residents of apartment buildings today.

Numerous cases are known when residents of seemingly well-groomed and comfortable apartments were bitten by basement fleas. It is important to understand that due to the ability of these parasites to carry dangerous diseases, they can not only cause discomfort, but also pose a serious threat to human health. Therefore, residents should definitely know how to get rid of basement fleas in an apartment, and owners of private houses should remember that flea treatment of basements is the responsibility of the owners of the house themselves.

On a note

Basement fleas can carry such dangerous diseases as plague (you probably know that rat fleas actively carried it in the Middle Ages), hepatitis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, encephalitis and others. Therefore, flea-baiting in the basement is not just about keeping the building in good sanitary condition, but also protecting against accidental infection with a serious disease.

In the photo - basement fleas of various types. Here is a cat flea:

Rat Flea:

And in this photo - basement fleas in an apartment in an attempt to profit from human blood:

In basements, due to the abundance of accumulated debris and a fairly stable temperature regime, literally greenhouse conditions are created for fleas of various types. This is the answer to the question of where fleas come from in the basement: once they get here with a rat or a cat, they breed here and settle down for permanent residence. And because of the pollution of the basement, removing basement fleas from the basement itself can be much more difficult than from the apartment.

Basement fleas in residential premises settle behind baseboards, in closets, in the rubble of old things, under carpets, in dog and cat beds. This is where they breed.

 

Why are fleas from the basement dangerous?

A basement flea of ​​any kind can attack almost any mammal larger than a mouse that it sees next to it.Her only food is animal (and human) blood.

To suck blood, the flea pierces the skin and the wall of the blood vessel with stylet-like bristles and gets directly to the bed of the vessel. Basement flea bites are very painful, causing redness, swelling and constant itching. Together, these symptoms of flea bites are medically referred to as pulicosis.

On a note

Fleas are not constantly present on the victims, but only jump on them to feed. Having sated, they immediately leave the owner. The impression that fleas live on a dog or cat all the time is created due to the fact that the parasites are constantly changing.

With constant scratching of bites, infections can be introduced into wounds and scratches, which often leads to suppuration.
But infections that the basement fleas themselves can carry are much more dangerous. They are intermediate hosts for pathogens of trypanosomiasis, hepatitis, plague, encephalitis, tularemia, salmonellosis, typhoid and other serious diseases.

Therefore, it is necessary to fight fleas in the basement, they should not be perceived only as an annoying nuisance. Destroy parasites should be stubbornly and to the bitter end, so that they do not spread through the apartments and do not breed in them.

 

The procedure for removing basement fleas

Fight basement fleas in the apartment itself should be systematic and in accordance with the already well-established plan:

1. Fleas are removed from all pets
2. At the same time, the apartment or house is treated with a powerful insecticidal agent. It can be Karbofos, Get, Executioner, Tetrix, Combat - any available remedy that is used against cockroaches, bedbugs and other domestic insects.
3. Additionally, places where flea larvae can live are processed. For this, the same preparations that were used against adult insects are suitable, as well as insecticidal dusts and even crayons (including Masha's chalk, used against cockroaches).
4. Then the fleas in the basement are destroyed to stop their reproduction here and prevent re-entering the apartment.
5. You should also take measures to prevent fleas from pets, the basement and the apartment itself.

It is important that none of these steps should be skipped, otherwise either adult fleas anywhere in the house or their larvae will remain alive. Because of this, the fight against basement fleas is always more difficult than, for example, with cockroaches.

 

How to remove fleas from animals?

To remove fleas in the basement of your house, you should first treat pets and animals that live in the basement itself and are fed in the yard by all the residents of the apartments. For this, the following means can be used:

• Flea collars that provide protection for the animal for several weeks or months. Such collars are also good because the services for catching stray animals will not touch cats and dogs with them.
• Drops on the withers, very effective and provide protection of the animal from parasites for several weeks.
• Insecticide sprays and shampoos, with which to carry out the destruction of fleas in animals living in the basement, are more difficult and troublesome, but more reliable.

In parallel, you should call the SES to persecute rats and mice in the basement. Often they are the main hosts of fleas.
It must be remembered that if animals live or appear in the basement that have not been treated for parasites, they can become a source of re-infection of the basement.

 

We destroy fleas in the house, apartment, basement

In most cases, it is very reliable and safe to poison fleas in the basement and apartment by the forces of special pest control teams. Their employees for quite reasonable money will process the premises, choose the best remedy for fleas in the basement and give a guarantee for the absence of parasites over the next few months.

On a note

Removing fleas in the basement is an important step for all residents of an apartment building (especially for residents of the first floors, who take the main attack of bloodsuckers on themselves). If you remove parasites only in apartments, then in a few days they will again penetrate into the premises from the basement. And so it will be until they are completely destroyed throughout the house, including the basement.

If desired, the premises can be processed independently. For this, all people and animals are removed from the apartment, all surfaces, cracks and furniture are sprayed with special means (as noted above, these can be Karbofos, Executioner, Combat, Get, Raptor, etc.), after which the windows are closed, and the apartment is infused during few hours. After this period, the room should be well ventilated and wet cleaned in it.

But the remedy for basement fleas for processing the basement itself can be selected more powerful. These can be Tetrix, Cucaracha, Diazinon - such drugs that are used only with great reservations in residential premises. Before processing the basement, it is necessary to remove garbage in it, collect dust on the floor and in the corners, caulk cracks and holes through which rodents penetrate here.

Review

“In a private house, we decided for a long time how to treat the basement from fleas.We often have a cat there, and the product can get into the room. We stopped at Karbofos, mainly because the acquaintances poisoned the bugs, and also because of the price. One day they sprayed everything, closed the door and the ventilation, the day it sour, then they ventilated it, I washed everything, and the next day they began to let the cat in there. It seems that we have not seen fleas yet, in parallel with the cat we constantly buy collars.

Varvara Petrovna, Maly Mayak

 

How to breed larvae and destroy flea eggs

Usually, to destroy the larvae and eggs of fleas in the basement, it is necessary to remove all the garbage and dust here, get rid of the nests of rats and their holes, and then sprinkle insecticides in the form of dusts in the corners and at the base of the walls (in addition to the main treatment of the room). Clean House dust, Phenaksin, Feverfew powder, even borax, boric acid and agricultural insecticides are suitable for this.

Such measures guarantee the destruction of the young generation of parasites.

 

Basement flea protection

Knowing how to kill fleas in the basement and get them out one day does not mean forgetting what it is forever. If a cat living in the basement picks up a couple of parasites somewhere and brings them into the basement, with a high probability all procedures for the destruction of basement fleas will have to be repeated.

To prevent this from happening, you should:

1. During the warm season, all animals visiting the basement should be treated for fleas or put on special collars.
2. Constantly maintain cleanliness in the basement, take care of its isolation from rodents, remove garbage.
3. In winter, regularly ventilate the room.
4. Do not allow alien animals into the basement.
5. You can sometimes put bouquets of wormwood and tansy in the basement - fleas avoid the proximity of the smells of these plants.

For the greatest reliability in the basement, you can regularly carry out preventive pest control. If the entire apartment building "throws off" for such a procedure, it will cost each resident a very small amount, but in this case, all residents of the house will be protected from the unpleasant proximity to basement parasites.

 

An interesting video about choosing a pest control service to kill fleas to the house

 

Fleas attack high-rise building residents