How to get rid of genital fleas in the apartment

There is nothing vulgar in the popular name "genital fleas": this is how rumor refers to parasites that are often seen in houses and apartments on the floor, in parquet crevices, in carpets. These insects have nothing to do even with pubic lice or venereology: such a collective household term is usually called cat, dog, rat and human fleas, which most often end up in a person’s home and, due to the peculiarities of their biology, catch the eye on the floor.

Sexual fleas are parasites of humans and animals, well adapted to feeding on blood and breeding in private houses and apartments. It will be useful for almost everyone who keeps pets, especially dogs and cats that are regularly outdoors, to know how to get rid of genital fleas, which are a serious danger due to the infections they carry.

We will talk more about the potential danger of parasites and methods of dealing with them.

 

Why are fleas dangerous for humans and pets?

Fleas (including the so-called genital fleas) disturb a person and his pets mainly with their bites - in order to saturate with blood, the parasite needs to bite through the skin and get close to the blood vessel with its jaw bristles. Regardless of whether the insect has time to drink blood, or the victim brushes it off the body earlier, a small swelling with a tiny puncture remains at the site of the bite, itchy and can become inflamed when scratched.

It is interesting

The younger the flea, the less anesthetic enzyme its salivary glands produce. Therefore, parasites that have just emerged from pupae bite amazingly painfully - some say that a flea bite is comparable in severity to a bee sting. Old insects bite almost painlessly.

Moreover, with multiple bites, a person may develop an allergic reaction, sometimes with generalized symptoms. The whole complex of such body responses to genital flea bites is called pulicosis and is considered by doctors as a parasitic disease.

Fleas are no less dangerous because they carry many pathogens of serious diseases. Among such diseases are plague, encephalitis, anthrax, brucellosis, trypanosomiasis. Fleas living in the southern regions of our country are still natural reservoirs of bubonic plague.

On a note

The most terrible plague epidemics in the Middle Ages in Europe, which claimed the lives of a third of the population of European countries, were caused precisely by fleas that got here with rats in the holds of ships.

In addition, almost every flea that lies in wait for its victim on the floor in the apartment is the carrier of the eggs of many helminths, and if a person has been regularly bitten by fleas for several days, it will be useful to take a course of getting rid of worms.

Pets are just as susceptible to fleas as humans. Dogs and cats suffer from itching, contract infectious diseases, and severely flea-infested kittens and puppies can even die from starvation.

 

A little about the biology of fleas

Domestic (sexual) fleas themselves are not as closely related to their hosts as some other parasites. They jump on animals and humans only to bite and suck blood. Fleas do not live permanently either on animals or on humans.

If fleas are found in an apartment or house on the floor, their main “settlement” should be looked for in the bedding on which the pet sleeps, in its house or booth, among the old things in the pantry. Here, satiated parasites come to rest and multiply.

Sexual fleas live in an apartment for several months. During this time, the female manages to lay from 300 to 500 eggs, from which larvae similar to transparent worms hatch. Their sizes are small - at the last stage of development, such a larva reaches 4-5 mm in length. Most often, they can be found all in the same resting places for animals, in the corners and in heaps of garbage, for example, on balconies - here flea larvae feed on various decaying organic matter.

The adult flea feeds once every few days. The female definitely needs fresh blood to lay a portion of eggs, and in her search, the insect leaves the shelter and looks for a warm-blooded creature.

Flea pupae can survive difficult conditions: heat, dryness, severe hypothermia for several months, and even exposure to highly effective insecticides (this is another reason why it is sometimes problematic to quickly get rid of genital fleas in an apartment). Under normal conditions, pupal development lasts about two weeks. In general, the reproduction cycle of parasites from egg to egg can take from 10 days to one and a half years, usually about three weeks.

On a note

Fleas are well known as excellent jumpers - their hind legs allow them to jump up to 30 cm - that's 100 times their body length. Due to such jumps, fleas elude the prey that catches them or, conversely, overtake it, being hungry.

Fleas do not live permanently on humans or animals. They jump on their prey to feed on blood, and leave it after satiation. They usually bite a person by the legs, and only a sleeping person can bite other parts of the body.

 

Remedies for genital fleas

All remedies for domestic genital fleas can be divided into two types according to their functional purpose:

1. Means for removing fleas in cats and dogs.
2. As well as means for the destruction of fleas in the room in general.

Many modern flea remedies in the apartment contain powerful insecticides that have a nerve-paralytic effect on insects, and at the same time are relatively harmless to humans and animals. However, these funds cannot be used for other purposes: for example, a dog cannot be treated with flea spray for an apartment.

Of the means for removing fleas in animals, the following are best known:

• drops at the withers - Advantage, Hearts, Frontline
• anti-flea collars - Kiltix, Bars, Bayer
• flea sprays - Hearts, Blochnet
• flea shampoos - Mr. Bruno, Doctor Zoo and others.

As a means to get rid of fleas indoors, you can also use insecticidal preparations for cockroaches and bed bugs - they will poison fleas no less effectively. Most often, Get, Cyfox, Tetrix, Cucaracha, Kombat, Karbofos, Raptor drugs are used for these purposes. But, given the peculiarities of the biology of jumping parasites, in order to effectively and safely get rid of genital fleas indoors, it is necessary to use insecticidal agents, taking into account a number of nuances ...

 

How to remove parasites from animals and from the premises in general

Due to the variety of life stages and the ability to live in various places in an apartment, sex fleas should be dealt with according to a strictly defined plan:

1. First of all, fleas are excreted in pets.
2. Then measures are taken to protect pets from secondary infection.
3. Immediately after this, fleas are poisoned throughout the apartment.
4. At the final stage, a thorough cleaning is carried out in the room in order to eliminate debris in which flea larvae and pupae can survive.

As a result, in order to remove genital fleas in an apartment, it may be necessary to apply several types of insecticidal agents and spend some time.

Pets are treated with the selected flea remedy for animals until the parasites are completely destroyed. Effective preparations allow you to pickle fleas at a time. After that, in order to avoid re-infestation with fleas, a flea collar is put on the animal.

In the event that flea poisoning occurred with drops on the withers, there is no need for a collar - such drops retain the effect of protecting against fleas for several weeks, during which the parasites will most likely be exterminated in the room.

When treating the premises with insecticidal preparations, all people and animals are removed from it, the aquariums are covered with coverslips and aeration is turned off in them, the windows are closed. Preparations that require dilution are diluted in the required proportions, poured into household spray bottles and sprayed with them on the maximum number of surfaces, pet beds, bedding, clothes in the closet, floors and carpets.

After that, the room is closed and “infused” for several hours. Then all rooms are ventilated, clothes and linen are washed, and a thorough wet cleaning is carried out in the room.

If the area is heavily infested, it may be necessary to re-extract fleas. It is carried out 10-14 days after the first procedure. Its goal is to destroy insects that hatch during this time from eggs and pupae that survived the first persecution.

On a note

Sometimes, after treating the premises for fleas, apartment owners scatter insecticidal dusts in closets, corners, and also along baseboards to kill flea larvae. It should be borne in mind that the use of such powder products is associated with the risk of accidental poisoning of pets.

Once indoor genital fleas have been eradicated, care should be taken to ensure that they do not enter the home again. To do this, in the warm season, you should wear anti-flea collars on animals walking on the street, regularly and often carry out wet cleaning in the house, wash bedding and beds for dogs and cats.

If desired, in the corners and places of long-term storage of things, you should lay out brooms from strongly smelling herbs - tansy, mint, wormwood, which repel fleas. With such preventive measures, it is highly likely that the re-entry of parasites into the home can be avoided.

 

An example of an invasion of fleas in apartments of a multi-storey building

 

Another example, when fleas from the basement massively bite residents of high-rise buildings

 

Useful video: how to choose the right flea remedy for animals