Reclaim your outdoor spaces with Mosquito Joe® flea pest control! Don’t mistake fleas as mere annoyances for cats, dogs, and sometimes even humans. Many people don’t realize that fleas also carry diseases, just as mosquitoes and ticks do. That’s why flea pest control is essential to keeping your family and pets healthy and happy.
With Mosquito Joe’s flea removal services and your own flea control efforts, you can reclaim your lawn and backyard for your family’s enjoyment.
What Are Fleas?
Fleas are tiny insects that feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals like cats, dogs, birds, wildlife, and humans. Adult female fleas consume nearly 15 times their body weight in blood daily! Fleas are ectoparasites that live, feed, and breed on their hosts. Lacking dense hair, fur, or feathers to shelter them, humans are not a primary host for fleas. However, people do get bitten by fleas that come in on our pets.
A female flea can lay 2,000 eggs, and it takes anywhere from three weeks to several months to complete the life cycle, depending on conditions. Effective flea control requires addressing all stages of development and killing eggs, larvae, pupae, and biting adults.
Fleas have enormously strong legs and can jump more than 100 times their body length. They easily jump from host to host and from pet to person. Fleas also have sturdy exoskeletons that make them hard to crush and resistant to many chemicals used to combat them. Effective flea control typically relies on several coordinated approaches.
How Do You Get Rid of Fleas?
Their complex life cycle makes fleas particularly challenging to control. Several flea control and prevention techniques are available to pet owners and homeowners, and it is generally necessary to employ more than one to ensure success. The options include:
- Topical Medications – Monthly applications of topical flea control medication can protect your pets by killing and repelling biting adults. These topicals remain effective for several weeks so long as the animal does not get wet. However, make sure you check potential side effects before applying.
- Oral Medications – There are also oral medications that not only provide flea control but also prevent heartworm disease in dogs and cats. Similar to topical applications, review the possible side effects carefully before using.
- Sprays – Another approach to flea pest control applied to your pet comes in a spray form. Some flea and tick sprays remain effective for several months unless the animal gets wet.
- Shampoos – Flea and tick shampoos do a nice job removing adult insects and eggs from your pet’s skin and fur. However, they do nothing to prevent fleas from moving back in. Shampoos are most effective as part of a larger flea control strategy.
- Collars – Flea and tick collars kill and repel fleas by distributing the active ingredient throughout your pet’s fur. Helpful for flea control, collars tend to have a strong smell that some people find off-putting.
- Diatomaceous Earth – Diatomaceous earth, or DE, is a naturally occurring soft rock. In powder form, DE can be sprinkled on pet bedding, carpets, and other areas where fleas congregate. DE dries out fleas, killing them. However, you should avoid applying directly to your pet unless your vet says it’s okay to do so.
- Professional Flea Control – Fleas are stubborn pests that are challenging to control. A comprehensive approach to flea pest control is required to ensure you can enjoy your property free from biters. Regular barrier spray treatments from Mosquito Joe are essential to any flea control strategy.
Flea pest control includes reducing the potential of their places on your property where fleas can make a home. So, take these additional steps before and after any yard treatment for fleas to make it more effective:
- Keep grass mowed and trees trimmed. This is the opposite of curb appeal for fleas – they have nowhere to hide!
- Take care not to overwater your lawn or garden. Fleas love moisture. Without it, your yard is less hospitable to fleas.
- Don’t leave pet food unattended in your yard. This encourages feral pets and wildlife to investigate, and they’ll bring their fleas with them! An essential part of flea control is preventing new infestations. Opossums, raccoons, and stray cats are the worst offenders.
- Use a monthly topical flea control treatment for your pets to remove the fleas’ primary food source.
- Trim back any tree branches and high shrubs that would allow animals to crawl into your attic. If mice or rats can find their way in, fleas will come with them. Seal any openings to crawl spaces, garages, sheds, or under decks where wild animals, stray dogs, or cats could enter your home. Professional rodent control may be necessary to facilitate effective professional flea treatments for your house and yard.
These steps provide excellent flea prevention for your yard.
What Are the Risks of Fleas?
Fleas pose significant health risks for pets and people alike. A single adult flea can bite up to 400 times a day. Each flea bite is itchy; their saliva contains rash-causing allergens. These bites can cause severe skin infections for cats or dogs that scratch incessantly. In addition, some people are allergic to flea bites and become frantic with itching.
According to the ASPCA, fleas can cause anemia and significant blood loss in humans and their pets over time. In some cases, flea anemia can be lethal, especially for very young or elderly cats and dogs. Flea bites can also cause severe skin rashes in people or animals who are allergic to them.
Fleas can also infect our pets with tapeworms. Worse, fleas can carry deadly diseases that they transmit to their hosts through their bites. These diseases include the bubonic plague, murine typhus, tungiasis, and tularemia.
These risks make effective flea control and prevention essential to the health of your pets and family.
Signs That Your Place Is Infested with Fleas
Fleas are hard to see. They look like reddish-brown to black specks that you may spot on your carpets, drapes, upholstery, pet’s skin, or your own. You won’t see them moving. Fleas jump so far and so fast that they seem to disappear. So, you may not see fleas when you have an infestation.
Instead of looking for fleas, watch for your pet scratching and biting at its fur and skin. You may see your dog or cat actually pulling their fur out as they seek to find and control the biters. Another sign is if you find a lot of brown or black debris on your pet’s skin. This is the dried flea poop following a blood meal. Finally, if you find a series of scabs on your pets, especially around their necks, this indicates scratching due to flea bites.
If you note signs of a flea infestation, it is essential to invest in flea control for your pet’s relief and health, as well as your own.
A Flea Treatment Plans That Work for You
Mosquito Joe does more than rid your yard of mosquitoes — we also provide efficient, effective tick and flea control. Our friendly service professional comes to your home to carefully spray your property along the borders, in thick grass, overgrown shrubs, and all locations where fleas like to hide.
At Mosquito Joe, we know it’s not enough to rid your yard of adult fleas. To enjoy your patio and outdoor spaces bite-free, we must target the flea life cycle at every stage. Addressing the entire flea life cycle is critical to producing effective flea control and prevention.
Our barrier spray and mosquito misting systems repel fleas on contact. It penetrates the tough exoskeleton, which makes them so hard to kill. Although fleas can jump enormous distances relative to their size, our application methods cut down their escape routes. Our monthly yard treatment for fleas provides the most successful flea control solution.
Learn more about Mosquito Joe and our effective pest control services.
Why Choose Mosquito Joe For Professional Flea Control Service?
Effective flea control depends upon treating your property, home, and pets simultaneously. Make it easier on yourself, your home, and your pets when you choose Mosquito Joe’s outdoor flea pest control treatment.
Mosquito Joe has provided efficient and effective flea control treatments and many other outdoor pest control since 2010. Our mosquito control barrier treatment also controls and prevents fleas and ticks. So let Mosquito Joe be your first line of defense against these disease-carrying pests. We provide flea and tick control to protect your family, pets, and property.
We are a proud Neighborly company that focuses on the unique needs of your property. And with locations across the US, we have become the local pest control experts for the communities we serve. You can count on excellent flea control results because we stand by the Neighborly Done Right Promise™ and our Mosquito Joe® Satisfaction Guarantee, which backs all our work.
Contact Mosquito Joe Today to Get Started
If you’re ready to enjoy your home and garden free from the irritation of biters Then, it’s time to contact Mosquito Joe for flea control service. Give us a call at 855-275-2563 or submit a quote request form today. It’s time to say goodbye to biters!
