Fleas are both a nuisance and potentially harmful. Fleas are small, flat, wingless insects that bury themselves in hair next to mammals’ skin. Most commonly found on dogs and cats, you can find them by inspecting your animals’ skin. They do bite, leaving a mark that makes it easy to identify their presence. They can transmit diseases to humans and cause discomfort and an unhealthy appearance in animals. In addition they are carriers for many diseases and parasites like heart worm, typhus, and even the plague. To help prevent flea infestations, regularly wash your pet and its blankets, bed, and other areas. Scout Pest Control can also help with fleas.
If you do have a problem with fleas, here are several steps you can take.
First– Treat your pets with a high quality product to eliminate the fleas, and put them on a residual flea control plan like Frontline Plus or Advantix Plus. The advantage of the “plus” in these products is that they add in an IGR, or birth control for the fleas. This will help break the flea life cycle faster than the regular versions.
Second– All the pets bedding will need washed. If the pets spend a lot of time on a particular couch, or in a particular area, it will need washed as well if possible. Fleas are constantly dropping eggs, and often times they will fall off your pet and onto whatever the pet us resting on.
Third– If the pet is an indoor pet then all the floors in the home will need to be vacuumed thoroughly. After vacuuming you should empty the contents into an outdoor trash, preferably having it sealed in a plastic sack. Vacuuming will help eliminate the habitat and conditions immature fleas need in order to develop and survive. Vacuuming should start as soon as an infestation is spotted, and should be continued at least once a day for at lease ten days after a treatment has been performed. For outdoor pets, the lawn will need to be mowed, and leaves and other loose debris will need to be raked up in order for the treatment to be effective.
Fourth– Call Scout Pest Control to come and perform a customized flea treatment at your home. This is a thorough and intense treatment. Toys and other small items should be picked up off the floors or ground and put away. When your technician arrives he will need to know where pets spend most of their time, and any favorite resting areas they may have. After treatment is completed you will need to leave the treated area for four (4) hours to let the area ventilate.
Last of all, make sure to keep vacuuming and monitoring for further activity. Fleas can be difficult to eliminate, and at times require multiple treatments to get rid of them entirely.
Ticks
Ticks attach themselves to the body usually in constricted areas like sock or belt lines or climb to the head. They cause discomfort as they bite and feed on animal or human blood, but they also carry many diseases including Lyme disease, typhus, and more. You should avoid tick-infested areas if possible. When going into areas that may have tick problems, we recommend that you wear long sleeves, pants, and a hat. It is also helpful to tuck your pants into socks or boots and wear a tick repellant. Scout Pest Control’s treatments can reduce tick populations around your home.
Once a tick problem is established it can be difficult to control. Some female ticks have the ability to lay thousands of eggs in hiding areas that are inaccessible to most products. These eggs will often hatch over a matter of months, causing ongoing problems and headaches. The best prevention against ticks is to keep your pets treated using any number of highly rated products on the market. In addition, our service is designed to help prevent tick populations from taking hold. We can even customize treatment to ward off invasion from problem areas if you live near the woods, or open fields and have higher than normal tick pressure.
Some things that contribute to worse than normal tick problems are:
Having you home near or next to an open field. In open fields there are commonly rodents and other wildlife, most of which can be hosts for ticks. As these animals move and nest they spread the tick population, often even into you yard or home. To combat this we work to exclude and eliminate rodents from the home, we can bait to reduce rodent populations, and we service your yard with a repellent granule to help drive off any ticks that do make their way in.
Neighbors with pets that aren’t treated against ticks can be a concern. We have had several customers combat continual tick problems that came about because of a lack of diligence of their neighbors. If one of your neighbors has a high number of pets, or doesn’t treat their pets regularly against fleas and ticks those pets can contribute to these parasites spreading into other areas.
Indoor/Outdoor pets can also contribute to flea and tick problems. Some of the pet treatment options do not harm fleas or ticks until after they feed on the pet. It can happen that these pests latch onto your pet while it’s outside, and then due to scratching, combing, or something else they drop off of the pet inside before feeding. In these cases they will look for a new hosts which often can include Human Beings. With our yard treatments we help prevent the presence of fleas and ticks in your yard,
Even a perfect treatment has the ability to be compromised. If you do encounter fleas or ticks in between your normal services we will gladly return to take care of them again. Just give us a call or send us an email letting us know you have an issue!