We have a fully-furnished unit with old hardwood floors and area rugs.
There were two sequential tenants, each with dogs. The cleaning ladies then discovered a big flea problem. So far, we have:
Removed all area rugs (put them into a storage shed so the fleas can freeze to death) and washed all bedding twice
Bombed twice (6 bombs for a 1-bedroom unit)
Had the unit professionally sprayed twice under warranty
Washed all the floors with soap water 3 times
THERE ARE STILL FLEAS!
What do we do now? We are out of ideas here–if you know a cure please let us know.
Thanks,
Furnishedowner
A professional pest control company can get rid of them. You just have to let them know it is fleas they are attacking. They will have to spray the house, the yard and the animals. They can’t just spray the house and kill them. They also have to spray differently for the fleas and the eggs. So they have to know what they are doing. We had fleas very badly and I was about to pitch a fit about the fleas not being dead when they all of a sudden were not there anymore. It takes a knowledgeable pest control company and time.
We had very bad fleas in one of our apartments recently. One can of flea spray from Walmart did the job. I sprayed the fleas directly - thousands of them.
Thanks for the responses. We have had our professional pest control company go out twice already. They are going back today to spray the crawl space under the house. Maybe there are skunk or ground squirrel or something other than dog fleas.
We’ve got to get that unit back onto the “available” list.
spray whole house, yard, under house, attic, inside walls, under cabinets. Use nuclear radioactive melt your skin acid based paint removing need a white spacesuit formula at three times the recommended concentration. Repeat every three days for two weeks to get the eggs that keep hatching.
Thanks, everyone!
We went back, washed the floors once more with hot soap water (soap kills fleas), vacuumed again.
The glue board put down by the Pest Control Company had 3 fleas stuck to it. Clara, my cleaning girl, had one flea stuck to her.
We replaced the rugs. Vacuumed again. Clara, the flea magnet, said “Esta Bien!”
The unit is back on the whiteboard–“Available”. Finally.
We just checked a nurse and her husband into the flea unit. Even though it was flea-less, now they’re back! The tenants had fleas jump on their ankles. We had to move them to another unit. They were not happy.
The pest control company owner is going out there today. They are going to look at the critters under a microscope and make sure they are fleas.
continue to vacuum a couple of times a day every day. A heat lamp with a glue board will draw the fleas in since they are attracted to a heat source. That will give you an idea of how big the population is. At this point it’s probably dwindling since they have nothing to feed on combined with the treatments you’ve already done. But the eggs typically don’t hatch until they are presented with an opportunity to feed. Hence there reemergence when your new tenants moved in.
Hire a professional licensed extermination company. Do not do it yourself. A professional company will place bombs strategically throughout the property and garantee the results. They will also guide you as to how to protect personal items and not poison your tenants.
The professional company came out twice again and I think they used Sevin dust. The back yard and crawl space were dusted again. We washed all the bedding yet again and replaced the rugs also. We stuck the small rugs in the freezer to kill the fleas.
The last sticky pest control boards had 3 fleas stuck there. We’re calling in good. The latest tenant checked in today. Thank goodness he had no pets.