Every home-cum-pet owner asks: does laundry detergent kill fleas? It’s a puzzling question since it’s uncool hosting fleas on your bed, pets’ skins, inside clothes, and other places.
This article explains how the interaction between fleas and the laundry detergent goes, what it yields, and more. But before we delve into the fine details, we need to grok fleas, how they affect us, their survival tactics, et cetera.
Read on.
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What Are Fleas?
They’re small, fascinating insects that mostly live and feed on pets. The tiny insects will survive on their host’s blood, dandruff, broken skin, and other particles.
You can also find fleas on your carpet, clothes, in the yard, and other warm and shaded places. They’ll survive away from their hosts, too, for quite some days (mostly before they get to the adult stage).
Fleas have a life span of 100 days, but this is enough for a few of them to multiply into scads! On average, one flea can reproduce between 500 and 2000 more!
When they land on your skin, these insects will cause an irritating and or itchy feeling. Fleas also bite, and their bites can cause diseases and disorders depending on the underlying individual’s skin reactivity.
A common effect of flea bites is the allergy dermatitis, which consists of inflamed rashes on the human skin. Another consequence (on animals) could be anemia. The insects feed on blood, and an excessive number on the skin is likely to lower the blood count of the host.
There are even more effects, but it’s now easy to see that these insects aren’t worth living together with. That’s why it’s essential to know how to get rid of them.
How They Enter Our Clothes
You already know that adult fleas will mostly be found on pets. However, their eggs, larvae, and pupae are also found on carpets, furniture, and other places. If your clothes come in contact with these places, they’ll pick up fleas as well. Fleas can also get into your clothes from your body, the pet, and other areas.
How They Interact With Detergent
The laundry detergent works to kill fleas in many ways. We’ll explain each of them below.
Adult fleas are often very light. They take advantage of this feature — and the fact that water has a surface tension — to stay on top of the water without submerging. When laundry detergent and or soap interacts with water, it breaks the surface tension.
Consequently, fleas present can no longer float but sink and later die inside water. This is only one way through which the laundry detergent kills fleas. Read on.
Fleas often have a waxy coating on their bodies. The wax protects them against chemical and mechanical injuries, and attacks from parasites — not to mention dehydration.
When the waxy coating interacts with laundry detergent, the detergent destroys it, leaving the flea defenceless from quite several dangers. The fleas can, therefore, die due to many causes, including attacks from other insects.
Fleas can also die when the laundry detergent used against them contains antimicrobial properties. Such detergents kill the insects via a complex chemical reaction without a worry.
Other Effective Ways To Remove Fleas Using The Laundry Detergent
Use Hot Water Alongside The Laundry Detergent
The detergent used (apart from the one with antimicrobial properties) may fail to kill the targeted fleas. Adding hot water can, therefore, help to complete the process.
Fleas in all stages cannot survive above 35°C. The mechanical action of hot water works to kill the fleas without a second thought.
Set your washing machine to administer a hot wash to your clothes alongside using laundry detergent. Always ensure that you follow the user’s guide on the detergent’s label to avoid any trouble using the underlying detergent.
Vacuum Your House Regularly
Vacuuming your house often works in many ways to get rid of fleas. It can sweep away all the tiny flea eggs from your floor to the outdoors, where high temperatures are likely to kill them.
Also, it can clean away all the debris that the fleas often feed on, leaving them to die of hunger.
After a few days, however, you’ll likely see fleas again in your house. Don’t worry; repeat the processes. Vacuuming, in the long run, may finally do away with the fleas forever.
Ensure that you vacuum hidden parts of the house. A great addition to vacuuming is properly doing regular cleaning to keep the house smelling fresh and clean.
Comb Your Pet
Flea combs are tools used to physically remove and or kill fleas hidden inside your pet’s fur. The process simply involves combing the pet gently and observing if the fleas are actually coming out before dropping them in hot water with soap.
To do it effectively, start by preparing the small combing area — which you’ll need to cover with newspapers (to trap falling fleas). Then, use a detangler to remove all fur tangles from the pet.
Also, prepare a basin of hot water into which soap is added. You’ll use the hot water solution to wash off the pet comb after each comb.
Comb your pet in the direction of fur growth, starting from the head towards the shoulders to the tail. Remember to do it gently.
Use Anti-Flea Medications
An assortment of medications to fight fleas has flooded the market to your advantage. You need to use the ones that have been proven to work effectively alone.
Use credible reviews and expert recommendations to find such medication; real past users won’t let you down.
Do Regular Laundering For Pet Beddings
While proper laundry can kill fleas, it doesn’t mean that no more cannot find their way into your pet’s beddings and other places.
Proper, regular laundering will keep the fleas away to give you and your pet a happy life, always. Remember to do the laundry with all the guidelines explained above, always.
The Bottom Line
Does laundry detergent kill fleas? Yes, but there are a few more measures that you have to take to keep these troublemakers at bay. This is a godsend article with the essential steps to take to kill and keep fleas away from your pet’s, clothes, and furniture. Use the steps and thank us later.
