really need your advice if you have ever had an insect infestation !!!

[FordnMassey]

Hi,

First rule of war, know thy enemy. Make certain that you are dealing with fleas. Get some on sticky tape/Sellotape and grab a magnifying glass. Google images of Ctenocephalides, the flea group. Wikipedia has good images. If they match, then consider the following.

Most fleas humans encounter are Ctenocephalides canis, the Dog Flea, which is quite happy living on a wide variety of hosts. Humans rarely sustain the population, but are frequently affected by populations created on other animals. In most circumstances a cat or dog is involved. If you have pets, they are now part of the problem and need a flea treatment product applied for the next 6 months. The host animal can left up to 12m prior to the problem occurring. Adult fleas which do the biting are obligate parasites, meaning they don't survive long off their host. Their eggs and larvae tho, which they lay several thousand of each, lay dormant for up to 12 months, then hatch when there is vibration. So you move in and fleas magically appear!

Work out where your host lived, or still lives. A single rat could not create that burden of fleas. Your host lived in or under the house, like pet dogs or a wild cat. It built a huge flea egg population in the carpet/floor board cracks/dry soil which are now hatching progressively and will do for months. Residual insecticidal sprays or those containing insect growth regulators will deal with this burden. Vacuuming the living space is also helpful. It will take 1-2 months to clear them.

And if you didn't bring animals to the house, there's no way those fleas are not your problem to solve.

 

[marhar]

Ok. Mr. Know-it-all to the rescue!
All kidding aside this works. My best friend rented a house after college and a fellow living there had dogs with fleas. It was so bad rooms looked "foggy" about a foot down.
Here's what she needs: 1) a shallow pan 2) dish detergent 3) a desk lamp. Best is those flexible ones you can adjust, usually halogen.
Pan you get at dollar stores...plastic, aluminum, doesn't matter you want large but shallow (18"+ across, about an inch or two deep).
Place pan in center of room (a pan in each room except bedroom even better). Fill a third full of water. Slowly pour in dish detergent...slowly, no bubbles. Just maybe an ounce or two. This covers water making a film. Desk light positioned over center of pan, about 6 inches light to liquid.
Of course exercise safety, light doesn't get too hot and/or can tip into water.
Now! Turn on light at night. As people go to bed. You want bedroom pitch dark.
Fleas are attracted to light and jump in...but they can't get out.
Report back how it works out!

It works, I have seen it work.

 

[bearthebruce]

Your thread started on the subject of insect infestation. We experienced real fun with a bed bug infestation and lived all the bites from bed bugs..

Bed bugs were brought into the house by my son's luggage from a camp he worked in upstate New York one summer.

Bed bugs do not like light and so they come out to feed when we are in bed - hence their name.

Their eggs are so tiny, only when thousands exist do you see them. They like to lay their eggs on the underside of a mattress along the piping - you can see the black mark.

We did not realize the problem until they had gotten into the walls. Their eggs can lay dormant for many years before hatching. The only known way to kill them is heat.

We hired a company to come in and heat our house to 140F for 10 hours... Lots of things had to moved out because that temp starts to effect things.. all electronics had to be unplugged - all that...

5 days after the guaranteed fix heat treatment, the bugs were back... it did not get them all. The company came back and ran the treatment again at no further cost to us.

5 days after the second treatment, on inspection, 1 live bug was found. We chose to stay after this with chemical treatment for 2 years. Mattresses/box springs were slipped into plastic sealed "bags" to prevent any live bugs from laying eggs there or any bugs getting out to lay more eggs. Chemical treatment was applied every week for 3 months and then every month thereafter.

Cost? North of $4k... Our lives were deeply impacted for over 2 years..

If you are a traveler, never bring your suitcases into a bedroom. Unpack your clothes in a room with no carpets or furniture.. and if possible, leave your suitcases in a basement or garage where there is no soft hideo hole for the bugs to lay eggs. Better, if in cold climates, leave the suitcases in a cold outside area - Bed bugs are not likely to survive there.

After this episode, I do not bring my suitcases/duffle bags up to the bedroom. They stay in our laundry room/ garage. Doesn't matter where we travel... we don't ever want that mess again.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[dodge man]

It’s a felony but 5 gallons of gas and a bic lighter will solve the problem.

 

[2manyrocks]

........unless there are bugs in the big house, too.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Your thread started on the subject of insect infestation. We experienced real fun with a bed bug infestation and lived all the bites from bed bugs..

Bed bugs were brought into the house by my son's luggage from a camp he worked in upstate New York one summer.

Bed bugs do not like light and so they come out to feed when we are in bed - hence their name.

Their eggs are so tiny, only when thousands exist do you see them. They like to lay their eggs on the underside of a mattress along the piping - you can see the black mark.

We did not realize the problem until they had gotten into the walls. Their eggs can lay dormant for many years before hatching. The only known way to kill them is heat.

We hired a company to come in and heat our house to 140F for 10 hours... Lots of things had to moved out because that temp starts to effect things.. all electronics had to be unplugged - all that...

5 days after the guaranteed fix heat treatment, the bugs were back... it did not get them all. The company came back and ran the treatment again at no further cost to us.

5 days after the second treatment, on inspection, 1 live bug was found. We chose to stay after this with chemical treatment for 2 years. Mattresses/box springs were slipped into plastic sealed "bags" to prevent any live bugs from laying eggs there or any bugs getting out to lay more eggs. Chemical treatment was applied every week for 3 months and then every month thereafter.

Cost? North of $4k... Our lives were deeply impacted for over 2 years..

If you are a traveler, never bring your suitcases into a bedroom. Unpack your clothes in a room with no carpets or furniture.. and if possible, leave your suitcases in a basement or garage where there is no soft hideo hole for the bugs to lay eggs. Better, if in cold climates, leave the suitcases in a cold outside area - Bed bugs are not likely to survive there.

After this episode, I do not bring my suitcases/duffle bags up to the bedroom. They stay in our laundry room/ garage. Doesn't matter where we travel... we don't ever want that mess again.

Sorry for the long post.

My brother and wife visited Mom a few years ago bringing bedbugs, exterminator said they're the world's best hitchhiker. Brother claims they got them from daughter's school.
My wife & I did not visit Mom nor did they visit our house (my brother mentioned over phone they had bedbugs & spent a few $thousand). Thank God my intuition kicked in, we didn't visit.
As Bruce story...you do not want bedbugs! They're hell getting rid of.
When they left I called exterminator we've used here for years for stink bugs. What a hellish process!!!!! A dumpster was delivered. Anything cloth disposed of...furniture, bedding, rugs, etc. Mom's caregivers had to go through a ritual, bathe, clean clothes in their car, bathe again at their home, wash clothes and dryer hottest setting. Exterminator and company owner came out twice. It was hell. Finally, once 100% sure no bugs, we bought new furniture, beds, etc. What a nightmare!
Exterminator was really nice...charged $600.
I sure wish we could get Chlordane. I'd love going to Mexico to buy it if I could smuggle it over...best stuff in the world.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Something else I have I really like is a large ozone generator. I use it in house and garage but you have to use extreme caution. Pets relocated, and returning open all windows.
The truck I bought lady was a heavy smoker. Using ozone generator you'd never know it. Ozone kills mold and insects.

 

[Geodevos]

I'm posting this here bc you guys have never failed me and I [my daughter] has a huge problem....

My daughter and her 3 roommates [all 1 yr just out of college] have rented an older pier & beam home that had an addition w a solid foundation to make it 4 bedrooms. Because the crawl-space to the pier & beam was not secured, an animal entered and climbed up into the walls of my daughters bathroom closet. She heard it scratching in the walls so she reported it to the landlord.

It was discovered that there was a sm water leak in the wall and the animal was seeking both water and prob shelter. This was the during a drought in austin tx this summer, w 30 days of straight 100+ temps and no rain. Once the wall was opened, the leak was found and fixed. The repair person said to leave the wall open until it dried out. This is when a massive flea infestation took place. If you went into the house, your white socks turned black in a matter of seconds.

I called their landlord and told him the house was uninhabitable and you needed to find a place for them to stay. He begrudgingly ok'ed a rented an ABnB for a week, whicg turned to 3 weeks and 3 diff places. An extermination company came and did 2 diff flea treatments 2 wks apart. After spraying/laying powders, using growth reg hormones, inside and out. Then 2 weeks later, the fleas were still there. My daughter and her roommates came 2-4 times per day to vacuum up any and all eggs, larvae, etc. I am going to skip forward bc this would take too long. They collectively logged over 130 hrs of vacuuming.

After hiring another company bc the first one did not cut it, 82 days later my daughter found another flea on the flea trap in her room. She has not been able to sleep in her room in over 3+ months. The handyman, when trying to work on closing crawlspace and other, was bitten countless times on his back, neck, legs, etc. My daughter had to buy a hazmat suit to go inside the house to vacuum each time, they all did, She's spent over $600 on supplies, recleaning her things, which are all in black plastic bags. This is the second time of cleaning.

In order not to make this a novel, I am seeking advice for anyone that has experienced a really bad flea infestation, what you did to rectify? More so if you were in a rental house or a pier & beam house. It's really taken a toll on her especially, bc her room has had the most and continued issues. Pls let me know what questions you have and sorry for the long post. I thank you in earnest for any & all advice...nothing is more personal than when it comes to your immediate family. thank you very much.

 

[Geodevos]

Fleas are great hitchhikers, it's important to know. They have four life cycles, mostly invisible, and we don't know we are spreading them. Out of town visitors kept bringing them into my house, infesting my animals, and it took several episodes till I finally connected the dots. Flea infestation followed visitors from Phoenix every single time. I informed them and they were offended, insisting they had no fleas. They stopped visiting and I haven't had fleas again in 4 years. My remedy has been a product called Selamectin , I think a brand name is Stronghold and at least one other. It's a spot-on the back of the neck type. It kills all stages on my cats and the remaining ones in the house eventually jump i on the cats and they die too. It takes a few weeks to rid the house of the stragglers but it works. The key is to stop bringing in more wherever they are coming from. If house pets are not involved, the foggers may be the only way out. With pets I would never use foggers because the stuff settles everywhere and the pets will get it on their coats. Fog bombs are a nightmare for man and beast and a very last resort.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Fleas are great hitchhikers, it's important to know. They have four life cycles, mostly invisible, and we don't know we are spreading them. Out of town visitors kept bringing them into my house, infesting my animals, and it took several episodes till I finally connected the dots. Flea infestation followed visitors from Phoenix every single time. I informed them and they were offended, insisting they had no fleas. They stopped visiting and I haven't had fleas again in 4 years. My remedy has been a product called Selamectin , I think a brand name is Stronghold and at least one other. It's a spot-on the back of the neck type. It kills all stages on my cats and the remaining ones in the house eventually jump i on the cats and they die too. It takes a few weeks to rid the house of the stragglers but it works. The key is to stop bringing in more wherever they are coming from. If house pets are not involved, the foggers may be the only way out. With pets I would never use foggers because the stuff settles everywhere and the pets will get it on their coats. Fog bombs are a nightmare for man and beast and a very last resort.

That's the way it was with brother & his wife, feelings be dammed! We're not having bedbugs in our home. Never had those or fleas and don't want them! I was mad they brought them to my mother's home. Lot's of pests like that are nightmare getting rid of.