Fleas and Flea Control Sydney

Micro Pest Control is one of Sydney's leading flea pest control companies. Micro Pest Control utilizes safe, effective and environmentally friendly treatments when carrying out a flea control service. Check out our fleas and flea pest control video.

Flea Pest Control Price List

The following flea information is a home owners guide to educate consumers about flea identification, reproduction, habitat, flea pest control and how to reduce the chances of getting fleas in the house. Fleas and flea pest control has been an issue presenting itself to humanity since the beginning of time. Fleas are highly specialized blood sucking parasites that generally get introduced to the home by cats and dogs.

Flea Identification

Fleas are light brown to mahogany in colour and roughly oval shaped. Their laterally flattened appearance allows them to move quickly. Fleas are 2-8 mm in length. They have a small head with sawing and sucking mouth parts, and two tiny eyes. Both the male and female rely on blood for their nutrition, but can survive for several months without it.

Flea Reproduction

Fleas have a four stage life cycle. 1. Eggs, 2. Larvae, 3. Pupa, 4. flea adults. The complete life cycle from flea eggs to flea adults can vary from two weeks to eight months.

Female fleas use the blood to nourish developing eggs, she will lay up to 4 eggs after each blood meal. Most female fleas will lay 100 eggs with in her life of approximately eight months. The flea eggs are oval, white to cream in colour and measure 0.5mm in length. The flea eggs hatch when they are vibrated from animal or human disturbance.

Flea Habitat

Fleas are likely to be found where pets feed, rest and play. From late December to late February, I don't take my dog to the park because of all the fleas evident at the park. It's the peak of the flea season. Prolonged periods of warm, humid weather in the summer months provide ideal conditions for fleas to flourish.

Flea control preparation

Micropest requires our clients to carry out a few simple actions before we come around and flea control their house(s) or building.

Flea Pest Control

Micro Pest Control utilizes a treatment called Cislin when carrying out a flea control treatment. Cislin is a microencapsulated pyrethium which has a residual life of approximately three months. A water based flea pest control product.

Micropest treats all the external areas such as gardens and lawns and then all the internal floor areas of a house or building. It can take up to nine days to control fleas because the eggs are impervious to any treatments and must hatch before eliminating the fleas. When the flea egg hatches it lands on a treated service and picks up some Cislin on its legs and when it grooms itself, it injects the pyrethium.

Flea control price list

Micropest provides the following flea pest control service with an approximate price. Please don't hesitate to ring because we do have specials from time to time and we are flexible.

More Information on Fleas

All fleas are small (1.5 to 4.0 mm), laterally compressed wingless ectoparasites of animals and birds. Despite the fact that there are in excess of 70 species known in Australia very few of these are of importance to man. In fact the human flea and cat flea are the only ones we normally encounter.

Disease Transmission

Fleas are notorious vectors of disease, particularly plague, but this disease have not occurred in Australia for over 50 years. The important vector of plague is the rat flea which seldom attacks humans unless rat populations diminish rapidly due to control or disease. Although not common, another disease transmitted by rat fleas, murine or endemic typhus, does occur in this country. Certain intestinal worm parasites of dogs and cats can be transferred to humans by fleas but as in this case the infected flea has to be swallowed this method of infection is not common. On the other hand fleas are a common nuisance ti humans because of their blood-sucking activities. Persistent attacks on children are the one of the causes of papular uritcaria of childhood and the simple cause - flea-bites - is quite often overlooked.

Habitats

Although fleas are fully dependant on their host animal for food, and do spend considerable time on their hosts, their true habitats are really the nests or sleeping places of the host.

Inside the home fleas can breed in floor cracks, carpets and upholstered furniture. This applies to both human and cat fleas. The latter may breed under the house if this is frequented by pets or in the kennel or sleeping places of dogs or cats, and in the garden if soil and climate are suitable. Human fleas have had the reputation of being associated with public buildings such as cinemas and public transport, probably with some justification, but standards of cleanliness, especially in public buildings, have improved rather then deteriorated over the past three decades. This is an interference with an important means of dispersion of these fleas which must travel from place to on the human host. Cat fleas will tend to remain important because the pet population is probably increasing rather then decreasing, because breeding can take place both within and without the home. The statement 'my pet has no fleas' is seldom true.

For both cat fleas and human fleas the suitability of the interior of the home for flea breeding is decreasing. Modern furniture is mostly quite unsuitable and, although modern carpets may have substantially longer pile then previously, the vacuum cleaner does much to remove fleas in all stages of their life history. Domestic uncleanliness certainly favours flea breeding.

Life cycle

Fleas often lay their eggs while in the host but the eggs are not sticky and easily fall off. When feeding, a flea usually takes more blood than is needed to engorge and after a while starts passing droplets of pure blood which dry in small granules. If a cat has slept for some hours on a fabric and the surface beneath the cat is examined it will be seen to be liberally scattered with minute (0.5 mm) but visible pearly white, oval eggs and reddish crystals of dried blood. These may be observed even though a casual inspection of the cat may not reveal the presence of fleas. The dried blood provides food for the larvae of the fleas.

Eggs are laid mostly freely by domestic fleas when temperatures are above 21oC and the relative humidity also high at about 70 per cent. They hatch in 2-14 days and the larval life can be as short as 9-15 days under very favourable climatic conditions but can be extended to 200 or more days especially when temperature are low. When the larva is mature it spins a cocoon using it saliva to cement together particles of the medium in which it is breeding. This is commonly sand, dust or carpet fibres. The length of the pupal stage is influenced by temperature within the wide limits of 7 days to 12 months. Hence a minimum life cycle is about 18 days, but a flea may live for many months. Adult fleas are capable of considerable longevity: 100-500 days when blood is adequately available. Even unfed they may survive for over 100 days. Hence there should be no mystery about flea infestations in unoccupied buildings