No pets now in home. Only two adults highly allergic to flea bites. The home is without fleas except for one room where we put diatomaceous earth and sprayed, but due to storage of furniture and boxes, we could not get the poison into all of the areas of the room. We will probably have to brave the fleas and go back in to spray, but how long will they live if we just leave the door closed?
meptastic is right, is not the live ones, it is the eggs that hatch and the cycle does not need hosts to feed on to keep producing
those fleas are prolly living in your boxes and fabric furniture
The average life span of an adult flea is probably about 6 weeks – but fleas can live as long as a year under certain conditions. A female flea can lay 20 to 28 eggs a day. She may lay several hundred eggs over her life span. These eggs fall off the pet and develop where they land. They are small and can even develop in the cracks in wood floors or other small crevices. A larvae hatches from the flea egg. It takes as few as 9 days to as long as 200 days to go through its growth stages. At this time is forms a pupae and waits for the right time to hatch. Fleas prefer temperatures of 65 to 80 degrees and humidity of 75 to 85 per cent. This range determines the period of time that fleas are a problem in your particular area. For some areas of the country, this is all year. In others, the flea season is relatively short. It is estimated that for every adult flea found on the pet, there are about 10 developing fleas in the pet’s environment.
In other words, you need Orkin to come in a take care of this, and then come back every two weeks for a couple months to go ove the room again. If you vacum, you can get eggs in the works of your cleaner, emptying the bag wont help rid the fleas and then if you vacum into another room it just spreads them back into a new area.
Even adult fleas can last quite a while without feeding, but this is not the biggest problem we have to contend with. A flea-infested animal will have shed eggs all around its environment, and these can actually lie dormant for years if a house is left empty and quiet, only to hatch into larvae once signs of life go booming through the house in the form of footsteps of their owners, use of hoovers, etc.
If you have any suspicion that fleas may be in your home, dormant or otherwise, you would be well advised to use either a carpet and upholstery spray product or flea bomb, preferably before you introduce either pets or new furniture to the home.
The best of these products can keep your home flea-free from one application for up to 9 months.
I guess you probably know about that last part at least already, anyway. As for the room you use for storage and haven’t been able to treat, well, you could try a flea bomb in there, but it really depends how tight the stuff is stacked, and how much space the stuff has to circulate in there.
If it is packed fairly full, then I would say the flea bomb would be ineffective, and you would be advised to move the stuff out for a couple days and finish the carpet and upholstery treatment, even if it is a big hassle.
I am assuming you mean cat or dog fleas. They will probably only live 48 hrs at the very max, but since you are highly allergic, I would say give it a week.
Why did you use diatomaceous earth? I am not sure on the use w/fleas – it is a buildup of dead diatoms- little animal things that have shells with sharp edges.
Setting off a flea spray bomb and leaving the house for a few hours (whatever the label says) will work. It always does.
fleas bite humans just like they bite dogs and cats… if you want to get rid of them you’ll have to get a pest control agency!!! I am talking for my own experience
Forever! no not really! We had a flea infestation a couple of years ago! It was horrible. We fogged the house several times.
we finally got rid of them. They do have foggers just for fleas and they kill the larvae up to 3 months after they hatch. I would do that now and then in a couple of months and see if that helps!!
Good luck!