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Flea control
Vacuuming, Washing, and What Actually Helps
Vacuuming is not tidying up in this context. It is a control measure, and a good one.
Vacuuming, and why it does more than it looks
Vacuuming a room with fleas in it does three separate things.
It lifts out a useful share of the eggs and the larvae near the surface, though not the ones deepest in the pile. It removes the flea dirt the larvae feed on, which takes their food supply away. And the vibration and warmth of the machine passing over the floor brings adults out of their cocoons — the one stage a treatment cannot reach — into a room that has just been treated.
That last one is the reason we ask you to keep vacuuming after a visit instead of leaving the room alone. Every flea you bring out early is one that meets the treatment while it is fresh.
Concentrate where it counts: carpet edges and the gripper rail, under and behind furniture, the animal's spots, the stairs, and along skirting. The middle of the floor is the least productive part of the room. Empty the cylinder or bag into an outside bin every time.
Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.
Washing
Pet bedding and anything soft the animal sleeps on, at the highest temperature the fabric will take, then tumble dried. The heat of the dryer does at least as much as the wash.
Human bedding too if the animal sleeps on the bed. Throws, cushion covers and small rugs that will fit in a machine are worth doing.
What you cannot wash gets treated instead, which is most of the point of the visit.
What does not help
- Shampooing or steam-cleaning the carpets after a treatment. This is the one that actually undoes the job, by lifting the residual treatment straight back out. Wait as long as we tell you.
- Flea bombs and foggers. A separate article covers these. In short: they do not reach the base of the pile where the larvae are, and many of them repel, scattering the problem.
- Throwing out the carpet. Occasionally justified for other reasons, rarely necessary for fleas, and it does nothing about the sofa, the stairs or the car.
- Waiting for winter. Central heating means a modern British house is a good flea environment all year. They do slow down in a cold, unheated room; that is not the same as going away.
- Salt, herbs and essential oils on the carpet. None of it stands up, and some essential oils are toxic to cats, which makes that one worse than useless.
The honest summary
Household measures reduce the population and make a professional treatment work better and faster. On their own, with a live source running, they will not finish it — a vacuum cannot get down to the larvae at the base of the pile, and nothing you own touches the cocoons.
Vacuum hard, wash what washes, keep the pet's vet treatment going, and have the property treated. In that combination each part makes the others work.
Before you book
Quick Answers
Should I throw the vacuum bag away each time?
Empty the cylinder or take the bag out and put it straight in an outside bin, yes. Leaving it in the machine in a warm cupboard is giving them somewhere to carry on.
Do flea traps work?
A sticky trap under a nightlight catches adults and is genuinely useful for monitoring - it tells you whether numbers are falling. As a treatment it does not touch the eggs, larvae or cocoons, which is where the population actually is.
Tell Us About the Pets and the Rooms
Whether there are pets and what they are on, which rooms are affected, and how long it has been going on.
Get in touch
Book a Flea Treatment
Tell us whether there are pets in the property and what they are on, which rooms are affected, and how long it has been going on. If the property is empty between tenants, say so — that is a different treatment.
- Phone
- 01908 465226
- Message us on WhatsApp
- sales@miltonkeynespestcontroller.co.uk
- Milton Keynes Pest Controller Service
- Address
- South Row
Milton Keynes
MK9 3DQ - Covering
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire