Why Shop-Bought Flea Sprays and Bombs Disappoint

They cannot reach where the problem is

The larvae are at the base of the carpet pile, under the gripper rail at the skirting, in the gap between floorboards and in the dust beneath furniture. A spray applied across the surface of a carpet reaches the top of the pile and stops.

The cocoons are worse: they are woven into the fibres and resistant to insecticide by design. Nothing on a shelf, and nothing in our van either, kills a flea inside one. The difference is that a professional treatment is chosen and applied to be there when the flea comes out, which is a completely different proposition from a spray that is gone in a fortnight.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

Foggers and bombs are worse than nothing

A fogger releases a mist that settles on horizontal surfaces. It deposits on the top of the carpet, the top of the sofa and the top of the kitchen worktop, and it does not get underneath any of them — which is precisely where the fleas are.

Several also have a repellent effect, which actively drives fleas away from the treated area and deeper into the structure or into the next room. A one-room problem becomes a two-room one and the treatment that follows has more ground to cover.

They also put insecticide on every surface in the room indiscriminately, including worktops and things you would rather it was not on. There is a reason this is the product we most often ask people to stop using.

One distinction worth drawing, because the photographs on these pages show it. A professional applies a residual treatment where the fleas actually are — worked into carpet edges, under furniture, along the skirting — and in an empty property may also use equipment that puts a fine mist into the air to reach an entire room at once. That is a controlled application of a chosen product by somebody who has surveyed the room. A shop-bought total-release bomb is a sealed can that empties itself at the ceiling of a room nobody has looked at. The two are not the same thing, and it is the second one we are arguing with here.

Doing half the job

The other common pattern is treating only one half. The animal gets something off a shelf and the carpet gets nothing, or the carpet gets a spray and the animal keeps bringing new fleas in.

Either way the household settles into that slow equilibrium: never overwhelmed, never clear, everybody frustrated. It is also where a surprising amount of money goes, in small amounts, over several months.

The pet's treatment belongs with your vet — not a supermarket shelf, not a pet shop, and not us. Some products sold for dogs are dangerous to cats, and that alone is reason enough to ask somebody qualified.

What to do instead

Stop spraying. Vacuum hard and often, especially the edges, under furniture and the animal's spots, and empty the cylinder outside each time. Hot-wash the pet bedding. Ring your vet about the animal. Then ring us about the property, and tell us what you have already used — it genuinely affects what we do and when.

The two halves close together, and then patience for a few weeks while the cocoons empty out. That is the whole method, and there is not a shortcut in it.

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