Fleas in furniture
Fleas in furniture is a potential problem for the household with a bad flea infestation. We mentioned in the last post in which we described fleas in carpet and fleas in rugs that when your flea infested dog or flea ridden cat lies on a particular favorite couch, that flea eggs will drop off their body and into the furniture.
And here is the disgusting bit! It is in your furniture that flea larvae up to 5 mm long - yes, you could potentially see them, will feed on the debris from you and your pet before spinning a cocoon in the pupal stage.
How do I get rid of fleas in furniture?
Getting rid of fleas in furniture is actually easy - as long as you are patient!
Do the following:
- Vacuum thoroughly - vacuuming will:
- get rid of some flea eggs before they can hatch
- get rid of the flea larva food sources
- cause some of the immature fleas waiting to jump onto your pet to 'activate'; which helps to complete the flea life cycle more quickly
- Use an effective flea control product which targets both:
- adult fleas, and
- as many flea stages like, flea larvae, flea eggs and flea pupae as possible
- If things are really bad, you may need to use a gentle environmental spray such as a synthetic pyrethroid - but test it on an out of the way part of your couch first!
You should be using a highly effective flea control product like Frontline from Merial, which contains fipronil and S-methoprene. The fipronil will target the adult fleas while the methoprene will target all flea stages in the environment such as flea eggs and flea larva. And the good thing is that methoprene is not a nasty chemical to have getting in your furniture.
Another option would be to use Advantage, K9Advantix or Advantage Multi from Bayer. These three products contain imidacloprid which apparently can target both the adult fleas on your pet and the flea larvae in your pets environment.
There is also Revolution from Pfizer. Revolution contains selamectin which treats flea infestation involving, fleas and flea eggs.
As you can see, there are a number of products which you can apply to you pet which will treat both your pet and your pets environment and which will ensure that you kill fleas and stop the flea life cycle in furniture around your home.
