Apr 24, 2012 – A Flea For All
QUESTION:
I have a CPA firm under contract. Every year about this time we get called out for a huge outbreak of flea adults. Of course they have no pets. Every time we inspect the crawl space it has no evidence of stray animals. The fleas always come up in the bath tub. I recently put a fresh glueboard in the tub and it had over 50 cat fleas. The woman that works close is complaining of getting bit. We have treated with IGR and adulticides with not much success. The owner says they had other companies in years past not able to get rid of them. I am running out of ideas. PLEASE help.
ANSWER:
I too have seen several instances where massive numbers of fleas were appearing a a bathroom of a home. In one case they appeared to be entering through a floor heating vent and in another the entry point was unknown, but I suspect it may have been at the floor / wall junction under the floor molding. In that first case the source turned out to be the crawl space below where some feral animals were spending time, and closing off that access and treating the crawl space resolved the problem. In the second the source was less obvious, but since the crawl space was sealed and no evidence of animals found there, the next possibility was under the deck immediately outside that bathroom. Sealing the bathroom by using caulking around that floor / wall junction probably would have helped keep the fleas outside, and at least would have given the homeowners their bathroom back.
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I have a CPA firm under contract. Every year about this time we get called out for a huge outbreak of flea adults. Of course they have no pets. Every time we inspect the crawl space it has no evidence of stray animals. The fleas always come up in the bath tub. I recently put a fresh glueboard in the tub and it had over 50 cat fleas. The woman that works close is complaining of getting bit. We have treated with IGR and adulticides with not much success. The owner says they had other companies in years past not able to get rid of them. I am running out of ideas. PLEASE help.
ANSWER:
I too have seen several instances where massive numbers of fleas were appearing a a bathroom of a home. In one case they appeared to be entering through a floor heating vent and in another the entry point was unknown, but I suspect it may have been at the floor / wall junction under the floor molding. In that first case the source turned out to be the crawl space below where some feral animals were spending time, and closing off that access and treating the crawl space resolved the problem. In the second the source was less obvious, but since the crawl space was sealed and no evidence of animals found there, the next possibility was under the deck immediately outside that bathroom. Sealing the bathroom by using caulking around that floor / wall junction probably would have helped keep the fleas outside, and at least would have given the homeowners their bathroom back.
The undeniable fact is that the fleas MUST be coming, initially, from some kind of animal, and that animal or animals needs to have been present in the recent past. The fact that you are finding the fleas in a bathtub is interesting, and if they really are entering the tub from the drain it suggests that there is a serious plumbing problem below that point. Even then the plumbing would normally be buried in the soil, but if there is an open break in the pipes in the crawl space then perhaps the fleas somehow are making their way into it. More likely, I would think, is that the fleas are actually falling into the tub from above and getting stuck there. The check on this would be to tape over the drain and overflow openings and put another glue trap in the tub, and if there still are fleas on the glue then the problem is entering from someplace else. They just cannot jump high enough to get out of the tub, nor climb the slick sides of it.
I suggest a very close inspection of the crawl space once again to ensure no wild animals or feral cats are present there, and ensure that the entire perimeter is sealed properly so none can enter. Then inspect the exterior outside of that bathroom to see what may be present that could attract animals to rest or den up. Fleas in this kind of concentration, year after year, tell us that an animal source is nearby and repeatedly using some area for its resting quarters. Even thick shrubbery could attract cats that will breed large numbers of fleas, and perhaps something changes seasonally that causes the host animals to leave and the fleas to seek new hosts, causing their migration indoors.
If you simply need to give some immediate relief from the biting adults a mist of pyrethrum will kill them, but focusing the application on the bathroom, which clearly is not where the fleas are originating, is not going to resolve the problem. You need to take the hunt outdoors and back to the crawl space to find out where and why the host animals are spending time. Once found change the setting to discourage or exclude them permanently.
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