What are the best treaments against fleas in the home and on pets?

Question

I have treated my yard and home and the fleas are still horrible. I am getting ate alive and I can only imagine what my poor pets are going through. I have treated my animals as well as everything else and am currently at a loss as to what I can do or if there is anything better available that is affordable to help this situation.

When we are outside on the porch we can literally watch the fleas jump on our legs and the house isn't much better. After being treated it is still unbearable to be there.

Answer 1

have you tryed bombing your house with a fogger? you can also use advantage or frontline to put on the pets. they run about $45.00 for a three or four month supply. good luck!summer is horrible for fleas. you could also get a fine tooth comb and try to comb out the eggs and some fleas.

Answer 2

What treatments have you used?

I'm concerned that you may have used treatments from a store or supermarket - most of these don't work very well at all.

I recommend any treatment from a vets - Frontline is my favourite, and perhaps the most popular. It's a spot-on treatment (drops on the back of the neck) that is used monthly on cats or every other monthly on dogs. Frontline Plus is a newer version that also kills flea eggs and pupae so it treats the environment as well. It only has to be used every six weeks on cats.

You know you need to treat the environment as well as the animals, so get some Frontline and some spray from a vets as well, and you'll be fine. Just make sure you get all the Frontline actually on the skin, not the fur!

Chalice

EDIT: Take notice of KidCuervo's answer as this is what often happens. People try 'everything' i.e collars, powders and shampoos, and then discover Frontline actually works. This is why it isn't cheap unfortunately, but if you want to actually get rid of fleas, you have to spend a little. Collars, shampoos and powders are actually nothing, only not as cheap!

Answer 3

The only way that you can rid the house and the dogs from fleas is to treat them firstly with frontline spot on, and every six weeks thereafter, and also get a spray at the vets that is used for your house, you need to spray every place in the house that the dogs have been, a full can will do a 3 bed house, carpets, floor boards, skirtings, bedding, furniture, etc, then you must hoover / vacum every other day, after each hoovering/vacum, remove the bag and throw it into a sealed dustbin, repeat for two weeks, then spray one month later and vacum again for 2 weeks, it may seem alot of work now, but it is the only way you will rid your house of fleas, to maintain a flea free house, always protect your dogs, year round against fleas with frontline, and cats if you have some, they are the main carriers.
Vet nurse

Answer 4

The Frontline does work well, but for some all natural ways to fix the flea problem and not harm your pet or you....
Dawn dish detergent works wonders! Be sure to follow up with a conditioning shampoo otherwise the oils in your pets skin will dry up and make your pet and you miserable.
Other all-natural ways that have worked wonders for me in the past with killing the fleas in the carpet/bedding stuff/rugs without harming my pets were:
Borax!! Sprinkle liberally on the floor, grind in and then vacuum after a couple of hours. The fleas HATE this stuff!!! Put some in your laundry and you don't have to worry about fleas transfering onto you!
Lavender oil in the corners of rooms (just put several drops in the carpet or rugs) repells the fleas and makes the house smell good too!
Plant Penny royal in pots or in your yard and this will keep them from coming near. If you are handy with a needle and thread or know someone who is : Make a tube with some fabric and stuff it full of pennyroyal. Put the tube around your pets neck and pretty soon the fleas hit the road!
For you and your family - I would suggest investing in some of AVON'S Skin-So-Soft oil/lotion/bodywash products. The oil also repells other insects and mosquitos.
For your yard - If your neighborhood or property permits - raise chickens. They will devour the fleas and ticks and other bothersome insects in your grass.

Answer 5

Some one told me that Dawn dish washing liquid kills fleas and I thought she was full of it. I didn't believe , but I was desperate at the time and also broke so couldn't afford the expensive stuff. Wow! I couldn't believe it! I wish I had known about this years ago! The fleas dropped like, well like fleas. The secret is at first you need to bathe your dog OFTEN - like every day or every other day. New fleas will keep jumping on and new eggs keep hatching so I bathed her really often at first until that cycle was broken. Now I can bathe her a little less often, and the fleas never get a chance to lay more eggs, but if you don't keep up with it (maybe twice a week at least) the cycle will start up again. You HAVE to stay on top of it for it to continue working.

Answer 6

I have had this problem- we had sand fleas in our area and they'd just come in the front door! I tried so many things because I'm allergic to flea bites and would scratch until I bled. So was my cat! I put Frontline on her, and it helped her a lot. Then I turned up the air conditioning, because it inhibits the fleas activity. I vacuumed a lot, hoping to vacuum them up. I washed any pet beds and anything I could in the house. You can try foggers, but they're a lot of work and they aren't always effective. If it's really bad, I'd call an exterminator who guarantees their work and just pay to have them deal with it.

Answer 7

Over-the-counter flea products are pretty much useless. If you have used any kind of medication on your animals, you will need to thoroughly bathe them before trying anything else, as they could easily be poisoned when two or more products combine on their body/in their system.

For the house- buy 20 Mule Team Borax from the laundry department of any grocery store. Sprinkle it generously all over the floors and furniture in your house, paying special attention to around the edges, in heat ducts, under furniture, and under baseboards. Once everything is thoroughly powdered, use your broom to work it into carpets/furniture. Wash all pet and human bedding in hot water, and dry them. Do not vacuum the carpets for at least 48 hours, then vacuum as normal, but dispose of the vac bags outside or in sealed containers, as you will be cleaning up fleas and eggs, and you do not want them to be able to escape back into the house. You can sweep any bare floors after an hour or so, but try to leave some borax around the edges, like under/behind furniture that your pets can't get under/behind, and under the edges of mop boards.

For outdoors, go to your local farm supply store and buy a bag of food grade (NOT pool grade!) diatomaceous earth, and sprinkle it heavily all over your yard, porch, sidewalks, driveway, etc. This does the same thing the borax does- it cuts into the hard outer shell of fleas and eggs, and dehydrates the fleas/eggs, without causing any harm to you, your pets, or your home/yard. You may have to reapply after heavy rains, but you should start noticing much less flea activity in just a matter of days if you follow all instructions and are thorough.

You will still need to treat your pets to kill the fleas that remain on them, but using a monthly flea treatment recommended by your vet will take care of that, or you can bathe each of them with Dawn dishsoap, but once they are sudsed up, distract them and keep them entertained for at least five minutes before you rinse them, and then be sure to rinse completely. It is better to over-rinse than to under-rinse, in any case. The dish soap will suffocate the fleas that are on your dogs, which is why it takes so long to work, but 5 minutes isn't really all that long considering how well it works.

If at all possible, do all of these treatments in one day.

Good Luck!

Answer 8

What have you used? Topical treatments like Frontline (for fleas and ticks), Revolution (for fleas, ticks, and heartworm), and the like will do a good job of killing fleas that bite your animals, eventually killing the population in your home.

As for the ones in your yard, you might try your local hardware store. Make sure to ask what precautions you must take before using any treatment on your yard.

Answer 9

Flea collars for all your pets and flea powder for your carpet and furniture. What has probably happened is that the fleas have laid eggs and the eggs keep hatching. You really need to remove yourself and the animals from this house and set off some raid insect bombs. read the directions before use and clean anything that you and the animals might come in contact with after you bomb.

Answer 10

When I discovered fleas on my chi pup my boyfriend and I went to our closest humane society and bought Advantage. Then we got the vacuum flea powder and vacuumed the whole place. Afterwards I washed the bed sheets and my puppy's towels, bed, and blankets with bleach. However, I was still getting bitten at night, so we got the flea home spray and sprayed the sheets and his bed every night. This helped a lot because I don't scratch like crazy at night anymore.