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Thank you for joining me. I’m Ben Sell and this is another episode of Ben’s Pest Control podcast. And today we’re going to discuss fleas. More importantly, we’re going to discuss cat fleas, which are the most prevalent flea in the state of Florida. Now, cat fleas are small, they’re about 1/16 of an inch darkish, reddish brown, they are wingless, and they are blood sucking insects. The cat flea is mostly found on cats, dogs, humans. They are found on rats, they are found on mice, chickens, rabbits squirrels. I don’t know about raccoons, but I believe because they are warm blooded mammals that they most likely could be found on raccoons also. The flea, after about a week or so after becoming an adult, the reason they’re important is because the fleas need a blood meal. And the blood meal is where we get into issues for people because once they they find a horse that they can get blood from. And they will just go to town and they will eat and feed. And though it cause itchy bites, and sometimes they can bleed. One of the things that’s important to know about please is that the entire lifecycle of the fleet can be as short as two weeks or as long as two years. The females seem to like to lay their eggs, especially in the summer months. But the eggs a lot of times will hatch, specifically when it is humid, and that will seem to set it off. And in some cases, we find a Florida that it actually can almost be more humid in a house in winter when people open up their houses. And they then allow that humidity and that can be what sets off sometimes those eggs for hatching. So one of the things we like to say is that when it comes to flea control, you really have two options, you have treating your pet, and you have treating your premises, your house your yard. Now, as a lot of people know in today’s world, and if we’re in my experience, my 27 years and probably the last 25 years, it has become extremely popular. The bike program programs and and treatments for your cat or your dog from your vet, from another store. They have these treatments now that they can give your animal that when the fleet jumps on them, the flea will hopefully get into the treatment and not survive or become even egg lane. Some of the medications are oral, and some of them are actually applied to the back of the neck. And
these treatments have over the years been extremely, extremely effective, as far as controlling fleas for people. Now, what I tell people is that this is just my opinion. I personally do not have any specific data to back this up. But what I tell people is this when you’re doing these treatments, you’re giving your animal really an insecticide. The term insecticide is to side means to kill, and it’s to kill insects. So you’re exposing your animal to an insecticide to try to prevent fleas. And what I find sad about it is is that, you know, I’m not sure we completely know what all of the side effects and the terms and the conditions that exposing our animals to these have. Now when it comes to fleas, to me, it’s kind of a shame because treating your house and your your premises your yard if you need to. Usually controlling fleas for Pest Control standpoint is pretty easy, and can be done, in my opinion, a lot safer by treating the structure. And if you have to just removing the animal to keep them away from the treatment when it’s being performed. So that way, they hopefully minimize as much as possible their treatment to any insecticides that they don’t need to be exposed to. And when it comes to treating the premises. There are a few things we do. We have chemicals that are what we refer to as adult decides to kill the adults. And then we have what we call an insect growth regulator which is Designed to make it so that way the female eggs are hopefully deformed or at least don’t hatch. So those are the two options as far as treatment goes. And when it comes to the, the products you put on your cats and dogs, there are literally lists of different programs that can be used, and each person has to decide for themselves what they’re comfortable with. Now, what I will say is, there have been a few conditions that in my 27 years that that have made it a little bit more difficult to control, please, one of those things that we see is in the exterior of the fleas or outside fleas can be very difficult to control if there’s a lot of sand. And the sand, the reason for that is the sand makes it a very difficult surface to for the pesticide to adhere to. So you’re applying pesticide to sand and the sand is just absorbing it. So you’re not really getting a surface to control the fleas. The other thing that I’ve experienced is that when it comes to flea control, we had one client once that had fleas, really bad and they were in their carpets, and they decided to remove all of their carpets and just had the cement. And pour cement is a lot like sand in that regard, you don’t really have a surface for the treatment to adhere to, to control the fleas. So I tell people all the time, if you have carpet in your house, keep the carpet there, have the professional come in treat the carpet, it makes it a much better application with a lot more effective See, and ability to to kill the fleas in your structure. Now, the last thought I will leave you with on this subject is that I always tell people people will say to me, Well, you know, I don’t know how I got the fleas. So when I started, one of the things I did tell you was the host animals that can carry fleas, the chickens, the rats, the mice, the squirrels, these animals are the fleas can be supported on. So it’s not unheard of that you should start worrying about fleas, when you see that your property may have a problem with let’s say squirrels. If you have a neighbor, or somebody who’s freaking squirrels in the squirrels or out of control,
that can introduce the fleas to your structure. And that may be something that needs to be addressed. Let’s say rats, if a person has rats in their house, that’s a possibility for the rats to introduce the fleas and expose their animals to the fleas. So one of the things that we say is that you may want to consider when you know you’re having a problem with another animal. That animal could be the source and could be what eventually exposes you to the fleas. And you don’t want it because once the fleas hatch out, your life will become a nightmare. They will just attack you they will try to get from you what they need. That’s another thing I apologize I almost forgot to mention. They cannot the female fleet cannot get from human blood what they need to become egg laying adults. So the problem is this, they don’t become reproductive. But if you’re the only meal in the house, and there’s nothing else that there’s no animal, they will go to town on you. And even if they can’t get from your blood, that doesn’t mean they won’t help themselves to it because they just know there’s a blood meal and they’re going to take that meal so they’re they’re pretty bad and frustrating little creature. So if you think you have fleas, and you’d like us to come out and inspect your property, give us a call now at 772 8781972 or feel free to take a look at our website at Ben’Pest.bix is and again this is Ben Sell with Ben’s pest control. Thank you for listening and have a great day.
