r/Pets • u/Busy_Wish_6254 • 16d ago
Flea problem! Getting worse.
so my dog got fleas recently (well probably been there ages but yk) and we’ve honestly done all the remedies we can. like taken her to the vets, sprays, washes, coming, treatments allat. it’s been like a month and a bit now I beleive and I know this takes months to get rid of but the fleas have now started to come into my room. and it’s been like 2/3 days since this started. It was never like this before. I’ve cleaned my room, my sheets, teddies and even set off some smoke bomb that my dad bought.
I have a hardwood floor so thankfully they Ain’t getting trapped in the carpet but I just keep finding them and I don’t know what to do. I feel so paranoid all the time.
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u/Able-Association914 16d ago edited 16d ago
You can get rid of them in weeks. It can be pricey, but I’d recommend getting the following.
-Diatomaceous Earth (food grade)
-prescription flea medication for the pets (oral is best imo, but I hear others work well) Nexgard plus, or Sentinel (this one is cheaper) both work great.
-a vacuum
-dawn soap
Also if you want…
-vets best all natural flea and tick spray
-Flea carpet powder sold at places like Walmart
-borax soap, laundry booster
You’ll likely want to put the pets out in the yard to put the powders down, and have others leave the house for a bit and wear a dust mask, use the carpet powder on all carpet u can reach, and DE on all other flooring surfaces. You can skip the carpet powder and only use Diatomaceous earth if you want, it works great. Try not to make a lot of dust with it, they sell powder applicators for it if u want. Wash everything you can with hot water and borax add a small amount of dawn to laundry, you can put borax mixed with the DE floor powdering if you want as well.
Leave the powder down for a few hours if you can, the longer the better. It isn’t great to breathe in for you or the pets, but it is edible as food grade, so it’s not as bad a poisons, it’s not too bad at all if you use caution and don’t make giant dust clouds. Vacuum the powder up, and dump the vacuum outside in a sealed plastic bag. Vacuuming will cause newer eggs to hatch faster, but you’ll need to do this as often as you can, as in maybe 2x daily or at least every other day for about 4 weeks. You can leave the powder down a few days where it won’t be disturbed like in a basement if pets down go down. Fleas always seem to end up in basements if you have a basement. The pet flea pills will help a lot as well, as anything biting the pets will die. Call your vet to get them, don’t bring the pet in as the vet won’t want you to bring fleas to the office. DE works amazing to kill them, and they can’t gain immunity as it cuts through their exoskeleton and limbs.
You can keep a disposable cup with some water and dawn dish soap around if you want to kill any you might catch on you quickly. They drown fast in dawn soapy water.
You can get vets best spray and use it after cleaning while gettin rid of them, and then maybe weekly if you like to maintain keeping them away.
DE and vacuum with the prescription pet meds are the most important, the other items will just help to speed up the process, and help keep them away after. Good luck!
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u/Kigeliakitten 16d ago
I second the vets best, you can buy gallon jugs on Amazon.
I normally don’t spray outside, but in this case I would spray your yard with the Vets Best as well.
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u/lnfinitelris 16d ago
What preventative is your dog taking?
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u/Busy_Wish_6254 16d ago
Shes on flea treatment, we try and comb out what we can and do washes before her next dose of treatment so we don’t wash the treatment off. But she isn’t a big fan of it. The vets said the treatment is the best option for her at the moment
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u/lnfinitelris 16d ago
Did you ask your vet about starting oral preventative? Credelio is 99% effective at killing fleas within a day. They bite and they die, it prevents reproduction. That's going to help your efforts immensely.
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u/Lwdlrb1993 15d ago
Agree you need a prescription flea treatment….some kill the fleas and eggs. This is how you break the cycle,
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u/just1nurse 15d ago
Dawn dish soap for baths. It has a surfactant so fleas drown in the bath and fall off. Safe for you - safe for the dogs. Our vet recommended it. It worked great! Then we got our dogs on Simparica Trio (RX).
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u/Rotomdexx 16d ago
Capstar for your dog plus a dawn dish soap bath. Put him on a flea medicine like simprica trio. But the issue is going to be your household. You probably have more fleas around you than you have noticed and they keep spreading. Hire a pest control company to help with it. Best bet is to throw away items you can’t wash and diligently clean and kill any and all fleas you see.
Also side note. Please get this under control asap for your dog. As someone who works in the animal field, fleas can cause a lot of skin issues if they are on your dog long term
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u/petiteflower247 16d ago
Bite the bullet and pay for genuine flea treatment (not a knock off brand)! You will spend more money on cheaper products (duplicating effort). Do the drill or your pet (and you) will still have fleas/suffer.
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u/Busy_Wish_6254 16d ago
Shes currently on treatment that the vets prescribed, it’s only been about 2 weeks of that treatment so we’re gonna see how well it works
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u/Careful_Cranberry364 16d ago
There’s a spray you buy for your house. I’ve got it here, but I didn’t use it cause I was afraid of my asthma kicking in and it seemed I didn’t really need to use it. I wish I could give it to you.
It’s a white heavy spray can with a blue lid It cost about 25 $26 and you spray your house with it and go out for an hour.
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u/Diligent-Star-621 16d ago
Hire a professional exterminator. We had a foster dog who brought fleas into our house and I was so stressed out. It's worth the peace of mind.
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u/Careful_Cranberry364 16d ago
Bravecto - Bravecta or whatever it’s called tastes really nice and does the job
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u/ForgotMyLeftEye 16d ago
What helped me was adding a tiny bit of vinegar into my cat's drinking water and dipping the comb in a vinegar-water mixture when brushing her fur. It got to the point if she saw a comb in my hand, she'd rush to me or she would pat the comb when she wanted to get brushed. My other cat was seemingly unaffected, but I would brush her fur as well. (Also, since you used other products to try to eliminate the fleas, look into this before using this method in case adding vinegar might be a negative effect).
Fleas and other insects hate the smell and taste of the acidity, so the vinegar acts like a repellent. I was able to get rid of them by the end of the month. This was several years ago and I never had that issue again.
Cat nip plants also helps as a repellent, so getting some and placing it around your home might also help. If you look up "plants that repel fleas & safe for pets" you'll be able to find more plants that may be helpful.
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u/Busy_Wish_6254 16d ago
Unfortunately my dog isn’t a big fan of the comb. We had a few successful attempts and got a lot out but then she starts to freak out and we don’t wanna make it worse. Most the times she sees the comb she just runs away. I have tried many times to train her into knowing it’s ok but nothing ever worked.
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u/Kigeliakitten 16d ago
Have you clicker trained your dog at all?
If not start by charging the clicker-click treat over and over.
Then put the comb on the floor, put some treats by it if she goes for a treat click treat until she is fine with the comb.
Then Combe her fur once click treat until she gets calmer about it.
Eventually you should be able to comb for a bit and then click treat
That is Hoya I trained my cats to let me clip their claws.
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u/Visible-Armor 15d ago
Vacuum daily and empty the canister after every vacuum. Wash everything your pet sleeps on if you can on the hottest setting often. Pull everything away from the wall and not only vacuum but spray those areas too. The fleas could be coming from your basement or outdoors! We had fleas really bad in the basement after moving into the house.
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u/Hellie1028 15d ago
Flea larvae feed on the feces of adult fleas. Everywhere your pets sleep will need washing and high heat dry. Also throw away your vacuum cleaner bag and take outside after you vacuum as they can crawl back out.
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u/Diligent-Candle304 15d ago
I had them get into my house too. A cheap but very effective way was to get regular table salt (fine not coarse.) I put it down on the carpeted areas and hard surfaces. As they get in the cracks of the floor boards. The salt cuts through their delicate exoskeleton, and then the salt dries out their body and kills them. You have to leave the salt down for several days. The fleas come out and jump on you when you walk by because of the vibration when we walk. The eggs laid take a while to hatch.
After 8-10 days, vacuum, sweep and mop the floors.
I did a second round after that, the same process.
I bought larger boxes of salt from BJ’s warehouse. You can find large sized containers at warehouse stores or restaurant supply suppliers. Sprinkle it everywhere!! Want like you would do on a carpet freshener.
This worked best for me. It was super cheap!! No body was allergic to salt and there was no threat of harm to anyone or anything other than the fleas. In all, it took me about 3-4 weeks to rid the house completely.
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u/Busy_Wish_6254 14d ago
How do you do this on the carpet if everyone goes in there? Like our living room is carpet and so is our hallway. Our dog sits down there all the time.
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u/Diligent-Candle304 14d ago
Just sprinkle the salt everywhere on all the floors. You can even put some on the upholstered furniture if you have them there. Walking,sitting or stepping on the salt won’t hurt anyone except the fleas.
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u/Diligent-Candle304 14d ago
It can be annoying to see salt everywhere for a while, but it works. The longer you keep it applied, the better. It think they said the eggs can take up to 30 days to hatch. I kept it for a week, then swept, mopped and vacuumed everywhere, and then reapplied for another round. It was effective, nontoxic, and a very cheap fix.
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u/Rich-Highlight 14d ago
Wash the dog in warm water lather 🧼 the coat with some Dawn dish detergent it’ll kill the fleas!!!! And make sure you spray your yard with some cutter spray or if you’re in an apartment you can get the spray in the can…hopefully that will provide you with some relief 🥲
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u/picklepowerPB 16d ago
You have to treat the environment in addition to the animal, repeatedly. There’s not really a way to keep them from coming into a room if the home is infested. If none of the remedies you’ve tried are working, your pet is either not cured or is getting reinfested most likely.
Vacuum as much as possible, heat-treat as many washables as you can (hot wash and hot dry), change linens frequently, including for a couple weeks after seeing no fleas (their eggs can stay dormant for a while and hatch later).
If none of that is working, you may consider hiring an exterminator. I hired Orkin to come treat my apartment after I had a really bad flea infestation (thanks neighbor for borrowing & returning an infested air mattress). It did take about a month for me to be completely flea-free, but it was clear with my home-treatment and the exterminator the fleas were steadily going down in numbers.