We recently moved in with a friend and they have 3 dogs, a Pit Bull and two smaller dogs. The entire house is full of fleas. I have tried washing the animals in Dawn and spraying the whole house with apple cider vinegar and lemon juice with water and nothing I've tried is helping. You can't even sit on the furniture without being covered in fleas. I have a two year old and a 9 month old please help?
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You have a very difficult problem and not easily resolved. The information below is a bit long but it is important to understand what you are facing!!!
FLEAS
The humble cat (cat, dog, etc.) flea is one of the most abundant and widespread species on Earth. You may have noticed that your dog and cat often choose different places to sleep in your house and outside. Your cat may have five or six favorite inside spots (usually in the sun) and outside even more. Many animals choose several places to sleep to avoid fleas. They might sleep in one spot for a few days and then another for a day or two. This sleep pattern breaks the flea life cycle and does reduce the effectiveness of flea attacks as adult fleas only live for a few days. However, some can live up to one hundred days in a good food environment. As you will see, the flea has a complicated life and you and your pet are invited!
My husband is an entomologist so I speak with first hand knowledge and experience.
Flea eggs do not stay on your pet, they quickly drop or roll off as they do not stick to anything. The fleas you find in your house hatched from the flea eggs that fell off of your pets. Flea eggs are tiny and opaque white or almost colorless. The fleas you may see on your cat or dog are immature fleas from eggs on the floor or outside that hatched into fleas and jumped back onto your dog. You will also see (many!) small black dots on your dog but these are only flea feces.
The flea eggs in your home and outside are the real problem. Just one female flea can produce 40-50 eggs per day. The eggs fall off into your house and outside so, either way, your dog or cat will then again attract the immature and adult fleas both inside and outside which are the children from flea parents that may still be living on your cat or dog.
Any dish detergent bath may wash away or possibly kill some fleas on your pet, however, not all fleas are killed. In a bath many migrate up to the head and ear area and then, once the bath is over, travel back to their favorite spots, usually on the back. If you use dish detergent, you can seriously dry the animals skin and may cause skin rashes, an allergic reaction, etc., and you are not addressing the real problem. The thousands of flea eggs that exist all the time in your house and outside hatch and then jump back onto your dog or cat (and you!). So, you and your pets are locked into the everlasting cycle in the life of fleas.
A search online for how to kill fleas brings up many ideas for bathing, applying natural and awful sprays, etc., but these only address the fleas on your pet. Rarely do they address the bigger problem as a whole. You can check this site below for answers that address your pet, your home and the outside. As you will see, flea prevention is a much larger problem than just giving your dog a bath.
The only way you will become flea free is to treat the dogs with flea killers. This will take time for the flea treatments to work and money for the medications. I strongly suggest having the dogs checked for fleas and any other medical problems and then treat the dogs with prescription medication. Over the counter flea products are not strong enough to deal with the uncontrolled flea infestation in the house.
All I can say is diatomaceous earth (food grade only)
DCA has really answered your question. If you use Diatomacous earth be very careful. remove all electronics. My friend ruined her printer and her dvd.
We beat this problem a number of years ago by combing the animals several times a day with a flea comb and drowning the fleas in water containing a drop of soap so the fleas would sink and not walk on water. If you have a location where the children can not reach you could also put a pan of water with a drop of soap in it with a lamp next to it [ preferably tied to something so it can not possibly fall into the water]. The heat attracts the fleas and they drown. You will find that over time you will soon be only combing out baby fleas before they can multiple. I am sensitive to chemicals so can not use the flea killers. We would also put soapy water in the toilet and knock fleas off of our clothing into it. A friend recently beat a major flea infestation the same way.
Diatomaceous earth may help in some situations, however, do not use anywhere near babies and toddlers! It kills bugs by causing the bug exoskeletin to dry out and the bug dies.
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