Vacuum The Fleas Away

Has your dog or cat brought home some unwelcome guests; are there little dark spots jumping all around your home, no need to call anyone just get out you vacuum cleaner and whoosh them away.

If your home has been invaded by fleas chances are you have the means to get rid of them right at hand, no need to call a specialist, just take out your trusty vacuum cleaner, A recent study has determined that vacuuming kills fleas in all stages of their lives, with an average of 96 percent success in adult fleas and 100 percent destruction of younger fleas. Glen Needham is an Ohio State University insect specialist and he was so impressed by the study’s findings that he repeated the experiments several times to be sure the findings were correct repeated the experiments several times to be sure the findings were correct. The cat flea aka Ctenocephalides felis was the subject of this study and is the most common type of flea that annoy both humans and their companion animals. Needham also examined vacuum bags for toxicity and exposed fleas to churning air in separate tests to further explore potential causes of flea death. Needham and one of his co-researchers believe that the damaging effects of the brushes, fans and powerful air currents in vacuum cleaners combine to kill the fleas. The research was conducted with a single model of an upright vacuum but the team does not think that model design matters. “No matter what vacuum a flea gets sucked into, it's probably a one-way trip,” said Needham. Needham suggests that it is the vacuum brushes that wear away the cuticle, a waxy outer later on fleas and most insects that allows the bugs to stay hydrated. Without the waxy protection, the adult fleas’ larvae and pupae probably dry up and die, he said. “We didn't do a post-mortem, so we don't know for sure. But it appears that the physical abuse they took caused them to perish,” he said. Homeowners have been advised for quite sometime now to carpet the areas in order to physically remove fleas, and some recommendations went so far as to say the contents of the bags should be emptied, burned or frozen. The fleas in the study were used in groups of 100 adult fleas at a time, as well as groups of 50 pupae and 50 larvae and were vacuumed up from a tightly woven kitchen-type of carpet. Six tests of vacuuming the adult fleas yielded an average of 96 percent of fleas killed; three tests of vacuumed pupae and one test of vacuumed larvae (in their third stage of development) resulted in 100 percent killed. “I did not include eggs in the vacuum study, but I'm sure they would not have survived,” Hink said. Current chemical treatments that are readily available in the marketplace appear to be keeping the flea population in check. “For awhile, fleas owned us. But now they're on the run,” Needham said. “There are all kinds of ways to manage the problem, but how people feel about insecticides and how much money they want to spend factors into what they're going to do for flea control. Vacuuming is a great strategy because it involves no chemicals and physically removes the problem.” Needham is concerned that the effectiveness of some insecticides is likely to decrease as fleas inevitably develop resistance to the currently available compounds. This possibility is the motive behind Needham’s efforts to find other nontoxic ways to kill fleas and other household pests, including studying the use of ultraviolet light. “We're hoping to find that exposure to UV light could knock the flea population down even further. It appears to be a pretty powerful technology for this purpose,” he said. The Royal Appliance Manufacturing Company partially funded this study.