Fleas in carpets, fleas in rugs

If you've got a pet with fleas, you're soon going to discover you've got fleas in carpets or fleas in rugs. In fact the bad news is, often, if you've got a dog or cat with fleas you'll have fleas in your house even if you've got bare floor boards.

How do they get there?



They got there because the flea eggs just fell off your pet - it's as simple as that. Fleas are clever creatures. Sure they can jump pretty well, but fleas don't spend their lives jumping. If the lifestyle is good, the average flea will try to spend all of their life on the one animal. They live, mate (and if they are female) lay eggs onto your pet. After some time, or with their own grooming these flea eggs will fall off your pet and into their surroundings.

And so, if you pet loves to spend time on a particular mat then you will get fleas on that mat. The longer a pet spends on a particular location the more flea eggs will fall off into that environment.

What next?

Well, after some time that flea egg will hatch and a flea larvae will come out. Flea larvae are actually surprisingly large - up to about 5 mm long. Which is visible!! Except you won't see them, because these flea stages will be deep in your carpet. There they will feed on scurf and flea dirt (which is the partly digested dry blood which falls off your pet - just like the flea egg did). So these flea larvae will spend a few days to a few weeks feeding deep inside the carpet pile (or between the floor boards - I don't want to hear you saying, 'I absolutely could not have fleas; we don't have carpets or rugs.&'

Then they will spin themselves a cocoon - the flea stage inside the cocoon is called the pupae. This is the difficult bit. There are a number of flea control products, Frontline springs to mind, which say they will kill all flea stages. I hope they are right, because I would have thought that a flea inside a silk cocoon would have been fairly safe from chemicals particularly when it is deep inside a carpet pile.

The fleas can exist inside the cocoon which is deep in the carpet for months - up to 18 month if the conditions are right.

After this time, when the conditions are right and a friendly host, like your dog or cat wanders past, these immature fleas will dig their way out of the cocoon and (this is why they have jumping back legs) spring onto your pet.

Within a minute they will feed and within 24-36 hours the females will begin laying flea eggs.

And in time these flea eggs will fall off your pet and into your carpet.

An lo and behold, you have fleas in carpets and fleas in rugs (and fleas in the cracks between floor boards) and that's where we started out journey.



So what to do. Well, as I hope you've seen anyone who has a pet, who has fleas and who lives in a house which has carpets will have fleas in carpets.

So it's not rocket science - don't get all concerned about the carpets - get the fleas killed. With flea control that is the most important things. If you want to control fleas in carpets and rugs. Just kill the fleas. Where kill the fleas on your pet firstly and if things are desperate consider getting a synthetic pyrethroid spray to kill the flea pupae in the carpet.

Happy flea treatments!!!