There is nothing more frustrating for homeowners than a flea infestation. Each year, many homeowners battle these tiny parasites that enjoy making their colonies deep within carpet fibres. The truth of the matter is that you can spend lots of time and money trying to knock the flea infestation down, but unless you address the infestation in the carpet, it is a losing battle.
With so many products on the market available to kill fleas, does carpet cleaning kill fleas?
Professional carpet cleaning is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to eradicate a flea infestation. Professional carpet cleaners use equipment and techniques that can completely remove a flea colony and help to destroy the flea life cycle.
Going to war against fleas is easy to get wrong; we all make the mistake of using spot treatments to try and destroy fleas. This helpful guide will explore the relationship between fleas and carpets. There is a lot to address when it comes to a flea infestation in your home. Read on to find out how professional carpet cleaning can solve a flea problem sometimes in as little as one visit.
Why Do Fleas Infest Carpet?
Fleas are small, parasitic pests that typically feed on common domestic pets like dogs and cats. Fleas have only two goals during their lifespan: to feed and reproduce. They feed by sticking a small beak into the skin of their host and extracting blood; this is similar to how mosquitoes and bed bugs feed.
Fleas are not initially attracted to a house and human blood is not their preferred blood of choice; however, fleas will bite humans. Fleas typically make their way into a house via your pets. Once inside, fleas living on your pets may decide to branch out into the home, and carpets are considered perfect spots for the deposit of flea eggs.
Once flea eggs hatch inside of the carpet, an endless flea life cycle will play out right inside of your home with you and your pets providing the food for an entire colony of fleas. It is crucial that you remove fleas as soon as you notice a problem because the longer the infestation remains, the more difficult it will become to remove it.
Fleas do not actually seek out carpet when inside of a home. Instead, the fleas will typically spend all of their time living on the fur of your pets. Fleas lay upward of 4050 eggs per day, with the eggs hatching in as little as a few days.
Once the eggs have hatched, adult fleas will prefer to hide the larvae that emerge from the eggs. This is where carpets come into focus. Adult fleas are attracted to the tiny spaces that exist between carpet fibres, which makes a perfect gestating ground for flea larvae during the weeks-long development process.
In short, fleas infest carpet because it provides a safe and secure area for eggs to gestate.
Does Shampooing Carpet Get Rid of Fleas?
Using a vacuum is the best way to get rid of fleas on the surface of the carpet. A vacuum cleaner can also suck up fleas eggs and larvae, yet the vacuum doesn’t always address the problems. For one thing, a vacuum cleaner does not kill the fleas; the vacuum simply removes the insects.
To kill fleas in the carpet, you will need something more potent than the suction of a vacuum. How water extraction cleaning, steam cleaning, and sometimes, even regular shampooing of the carpet is the best method to take.
It is important to remember that shampooing of the carpet will not address pet bedding and other areas around the house, including furniture, where fleas may be hiding. You will have to wash and dry pet bedding thoroughly and have a pest control specialist do a treatment of the hard-to-reach areas that fleas can congregate.
Carpet cleaning shampoo has chemicals that can kill the fleas instantly. Additionally, the warm or hot water that is used can also address the problem by drowning the fleas. There are many ways to kill fleas individually, but you have to kill the entire colony to eradicate the problem.
What Is the Fastest Way to Get Rid of Fleas in Carpet?
Fleas like to hide and this makes it hard to make sure you have successfully removed all fleas from your home. There is no denying that the fastest way to get rid of fleas in your home is to hire a pest control specialist to provide treatment to the home.
While you are waiting on pest control, vacuuming is recommended to help remove as many fleas from the home as possible. As previously mentioned, vacuuming alone is not enough, therefore, a carpet cleaning specialist can step in to help destroy the problem in certain areas. You can even have your bed and furniture cleaned by utilising this service.
Carpet cleaning technicians can use hot steam cleaning on furniture to help destroy the colony inside of furniture and underneath the structures. Carpet cleaners can thoroughly clean all carpet in the home and destroy a flea colony in one session. Depending on the set up of your home, professional carpet cleaners can also clean around the area where your dog and cat sleeps.
Carpet cleaning is without a doubt the fastest way to destroy fleas inside of the carpet. Steam clean equipment can reach high enough temperatures to destroy fleas on contact. Steam cleaning can also administer the hot steam underneath baseboards to kill fleas on contact at the edge of the walls.
If steam cleaning is not enough, and it should be understood that the steam may not reach far enough into hiding spots to destroy fleas, hot water extraction is another trusted method that is more lethal than steam.
With water, pressure, and carpet cleaner, hot water extraction is like a tsunami of energy blasted into the carpet. All the hiding insects and their eggs cannot survive such an assault.
Will Steam Cleaning Your Carpet Get Rid of Fleas?
Having your carpet steam cleaned can remove a flea colony. Steam is commonly used in pest control when destroying bed bugs due to the high heat that is used during the service. This is certainly a service that you should consider to keep the other areas in your house where flea colonies hide free of the insects.
By itself, steam cleaning is not the best use of techniques against these insects. These insects use hiding as a primary defense mechanism, therefore, steam can only go so far as to penetrate deep into structures to destroy every flea.
Can Fleas Survive in Carpet?
Not only do these insects survive in carpet, but they also thrive within it. In extreme infestations, you may consider getting rid of the carpet completely. But this is thankfully not always necessary. Most flea infestations can be treated effectively by a pest control technician and a thorough carpet cleaning.
It is important to have the other areas of your home treated as well because the insects will not just be on the carpet. Furthermore, it is crucial that you regularly wash your dog or cat to ensure the insects are destroyed on a dog or cat.
If not properly treated, these insects can survive in the carpet in a continuous cycle that can span many flea generations. One thorough carpet cleaning session can destroy a colony, yet it is sometimes recommended to have a follow-up session just to be sure the insects are removed from the carpet completely.
FAQs
Q: Can fleas survive the washing machine?
In most cases, no these insects cannot survive going through the washing machine. If the detergent does not kill them, the rapidly flowing water will likely drown the insects. It is recommended to wash all bedding and fabrics inside of the home that can fit inside of a washing machine.
Q: Will a hairdryer kill fleas?
If you can successfully aim a hairdryer at fleas at the highest temperature, this can destroy the insects. The heat does the trick, yet this is not a good way to get the insects out of your home. You will have to have your carpets and furniture completely serviced to destroy the colonies inside. Additionally, a pest control professional is necessary to ensure that all the other areas of the home have been treated to remove the insects.
Q: How do I destroy flea colonies without bombing?
Bombing is not always a good strategy to remove a flea infestation. More often than not, this will only cause the insects to disburse further into the walls, the furniture, or other sections of the home where they may not have previously been.
To adequately destroy a flea colony, the insects must be removed from pets, and then all the sections of your home where the insects multiply must be thoroughly treated to destroy the large numbers of fleas inside of the home. Using a bomb will likely only make the problem worse than it is.
Summary
Using a carpet cleaning service is one of the best decisions you can make to destroy these rapidly multiplying pests. Our team of highly skilled experts will ensure that all carpet cleans are carried out to the best quality and customer satisfaction is guaranteed. We can provide the required services to destroy a flea infestation and answer any questions you may have about this common problem.
If you are looking for a professional carpet cleaning service in any of the areas we cover, then contact us today.
