How to get fleas out of your basement?

There are quite a few types of fleas that can be found in the basement of a private or apartment building. The common name for such small insects is basement fleas, because most often they start in damp cellars, basements and on the lower floors of multi-storey buildings. The effective methods of control and prevention described in this article will help you in a timely manner to solve the problem of insects.

Fleas always grow in the basement for the same reason - stray animals such as mice, rats and cats. A warm, damp room is a convenient environment for the life of parasites, so they begin to arrange colonies in heaps of garbage and actively multiply.

Gradually, pests are becoming more and more, they climb into apartments, inhabiting the most polluted areas in rooms - behind dressers, under beds and carpets, as well as resting places for pets. If blood-sucking pests have climbed into a residential building, it is useless to carry out pest control only indoors - they will return again. To completely exterminate fleas, it is also necessary to carefully process the basement or cellar - the place of the insect colony.

In a damp room, a variety of bloodsuckers start up - human, dog, cat and rat fleas. All these species look almost the same - it is impossible to distinguish them without special training. Nevertheless, this is not a problem for a person, because the method of destroying them is the same for everyone.

Homes are most susceptible to the invasion of bloodsuckers during dry weather, when the soil dries up and the moisture content in the air drops sharply. Small bugs in such weather penetrate houses and apartments in search of better conditions for survival and reproduction. Cool dwellings with sufficient moisture levels are an excellent place to establish a colony, especially since there is a constant source of nutritious blood in the form of humans and warm-blooded animals.

Most often, the first three floors of high-rise buildings and private houses suffer from the invasion of pests. The most thorough cleaning of hardworking housewives will not be able to protect against insects, because bloodsuckers can reproduce not only in trash, but also in animal hair and in secluded corners.

Having settled in an apartment, fleas bite unpleasantly and can transmit various dangerous diseases to a person. People often face difficulties, because it is quite difficult to get rid of the problem by themselves - disinfestation must be carried out in all dwellings of high-rise buildings. For a private and multi-storey building, the method for exterminating fleas is the same, it consists of several stages: thorough cleaning of the apartment and cleaning of furniture, prevention of infection of pets, spraying rooms with insecticides.

When you have cleaned the house and protected the pets from infection, you can start disinfesting the house with chemicals. The most effective remedy for blood-sucking beetles is a toxic substance in the form of an insecticidal spray or concentrated dust.

Let us consider in more detail the method of destroying small pests using chemicals.

• Before starting pest control, remove or hide food from the room. Cover all household appliances, furniture and kitchen utensils with plastic wrap. And also in the house there should be no pets, children and adults who do not participate in pest control.
• Take care of your safety, because the poison can be harmful if it gets into the respiratory tract or on the mucous surface of the eyes. Put on gloves, goggles, a mask and clothes, which you change immediately after the disinfestation of the apartment.
• After preparation, securely lock all doors and windows.
• Spray the poison with an insecticidal spray, covering an area 50 cm from the floor. Be sure to carry out the procedure in all rooms so that insects do not have the opportunity to hide anywhere.
• At the end of the treatment, carefully remove the protective equipment, change clothes and wash your hands, then leave the room for a couple of hours. Disinsection should take place indoors for at least 2 hours, then the apartment should be ventilated. Airing time usually lasts from half an hour to several hours - it depends on the chosen drug and the time of year.
• After completing the pest control with a chemical agent, be sure to clean the room - Wipe with a damp cloth all frequently used surfaces, floors and windows.

Fleas reproduce at an incredibly fast rate - they can lay eggs before being killed by an insecticide. Spray and dust cannot destroy the eggs, so after a week the pest control must be repeated to get rid of the hatched larvae. To prevent further flea infestations, use special crayons with poison.

Home-made flea poison works as effectively as the best insecticide in the store. Moreover, the destruction of pests using folk methods requires much less money. Consider several effective ways to quickly destroy blood-sucking beetles.

• Flea trap. The most simple and completely harmless method of cleaning the house from bloodsuckers. Making a trap for pesky bugs is quite simple: all you need is a shallow dish, detergent, water, and a table lamp. Pour some water into a saucer and add a couple of drops of dish detergent. Put the soapy solution on the table, place a lamp next to it, turn it on and direct the light onto the plate. Leave the trap overnight - the fleas will be attracted by the light and heat emitted by the bulb, and they will drown in the saucer of water.

• Fragrant dried herbs. Fleas do not like pungent odors very much - fragrant plants act as repellents on them. To scare off parasites from your home, you need to spread dried, strong-smelling herbs on the doorstep, near windows and in the corners of rooms. Dried herbs such as wormwood, mint, eucalyptus, tansy, or sage can help ward off pests.

• Essential oil. An extract of aromatic herbs, when used correctly, is also an excellent preparation against fleas. Wormwood essential oil has a very pungent smell, so it can easily cleanse pests from your home. The method of using such a tool is quite simple: add 1 tablespoon of oil to 1 liter of clean water and stir thoroughly, then pour the solution into a spray bottle and spray all rooms. Essential oil is a very common allergen, so take precautions when using it. After 2 hours after processing, carry out a wet cleaning of the house and open all windows and doors.

• Warming up in the sun. This method has been used for a very long time to eradicate parasites that have settled in the bed. To drive out fleas hiding in a pillow, mattress or blanket, it is enough to take out all the bedding in the sun and leave it to bake all day.

To get rid of fleas in the house once and for all, it is not enough just to erase them - they will quickly return to their original place from the basement or cellar. Insect control will only be productive if you pay special attention to the basement. Let's take a closer look at the activities that must be carried out in a damp room in order to get rid of pests.

• Remove all stale trash from the basement - old boxes with unnecessary things, old clothes in bags, household waste. Cleaning must be done very carefully, because insects can live in the most unexpected places.
• Continue to fight fleas, destroying their habitats: sweep the floor, wash the walls with a damp cloth.
• Carefully inspect the pipes for leaks, in case of breakdowns, you must contact the appropriate controls at home. The water in the basement adds moisture to an already damp room, so there should be no problems with communications.
• To make fleas uncomfortable to live in the basement, the air there must be dry, so the room must be ventilated and dried.
• Another effective method of getting rid of fleas is to starve them by keeping the food source out of the room. Rodents, stray animals and strangers should not get into the cellar, so all windows should be glazed and insulated doors should be installed at the entrance to avoid dampness.
• After completing all the preparatory measures, spray the basement with an aerosol insecticide.

When examining the room after cleaning, be sure to pay attention to the presence of harmful rodents such as rats and mice in the basement. If you find traces of their presence (holes in the walls or in the floor, gnawed household waste or mouse waste products), be sure to contact a professional body that deals with the extermination of small pests. If the problem of rodents is left unattended, fleas will soon return to the cellar and begin an invasion of apartments.

The most effective drugs for fleas are aerosol insecticides. - they easily spread poison in secluded corners and quickly destroy pests. In order to completely cleanse the basement from insects, you need to spray it with chemicals for 2 months. The interval between treatments should be at least 2 weeks - during this time, a new generation of parasites will have time to hatch from previously laid eggs.

Another effective way to kill fleas is with a smoke bomb. The agent heats up the air in the room, dries it out, and releases toxic compounds that penetrate into all nooks and crannies. Vapors from a smoke bomb can easily get rid of not only fleas, but also other microbes, parasites and even mold. The method is very effective, but it can be dangerous for people, therefore it is used with extreme caution.

We suggest taking a closer look at the instructions for the safe use of this tool.

• Before using the checker, you need to take out all food from the house and bring all residents out into the street.
• It is necessary to protect metal objects from corrosion. To do this, they also need to be taken out of the room or greased with grease.
• The house needs to be closed as tightly as possible - lock the doors, close the windows and plug all visible cracks.
• Place the smoke bomb in the basement on the special stand that comes with the kit.In the event that a stand is not provided, refractory bricks, cinder blocks or metal sheets can be used as a stand.
• Before setting fire to the product, put on protection - rubber gloves, goggles, as well as a mask or respirator.
• Light a special wick and quickly exit the basement so as not to inhale the poisonous fumes. The device will emit smoke for approximately 30-60 minutes, sometimes up to 120 minutes. While the smoke bomb is burning, it is strictly forbidden to enter the basement, it is also not recommended to visit it the next day after the disinfestation.
• After 24 hours, it is necessary to open the windows and doors to the basement in order to thoroughly ventilate the room. You need to leave the cellar open for at least two days - this time should be enough for the sulfur smell to completely disappear.
• At the end of the disinfestation, carry out wet cleaning in the basement and dry the room again.

You can use a smoke bomb only in the basement or cellar - the use of sulfuric agent in a high-rise apartment is strictly prohibited, because there is a possibility of poisoning your neighbors with poisonous compounds. Poisonous vapors can easily enter neighboring dwellings through ventilation or small crevices. It is enough for a person to inhale quite a bit of smoke to get serious poisoning. Using a smoke bomb in an apartment is prohibited by law - an article is even spelled out in the Criminal Code, and a certain punishment is provided for violators.

Fighting basement fleas is not an easy task that requires the participation of many people, especially when it comes to a multi-storey building. It is much easier to prevent pests by following simple preventive measures. Let's take a closer look at the methods of preventing the appearance of fleas in the basement.

• Usually people very rarely visit the cellar, therefore, all the things that are stored there quickly turn into unnecessary junk. Such deposits of unnecessary clothing and household waste are a favorable breeding ground for fleas, so it is best to dispose of all garbage right away.
• In the summer, regularly ventilate and dry the basement, so that the air is not too humid there.
• Do a wet cleaning at home once every 1-2 weeks. and put all unnecessary items in the trash can to avoid creating a favorable environment for fleas. Sometimes add tea tree or eucalyptus essential oil to the water for cleaning floors - 1 tablespoon of the concentrate per 4 liters of water. And also for prevention, you can wash the floors with water with the addition of anti-flea shampoo.
• A popular measure to prevent blood-sucking beetles is to use harsh-smelling dried herbs. Spread bunches of dried wormwood, mint, geranium, cloves, or tansy in secluded spots.
• Keep a close eye on the health of your pets - check wool for pests as often as possible. Pets can be protected from infection by wearing a special collar that protects them from bloodsuckers. Periodically treat the wool with special flea drops - in this way, you will prevent blood-sucking beetles on animal skins from entering the house.

For information on how to remove fleas and prevent their spread, see the next video.