Fleas in the kitchen (floor, sink, furniture, cabinets)
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I was gone this weekend, and came home and found fleas in my kitchen sink area. The area is dry, and I don't leave food around. There are not a lot of them, maybe 10 or 15. I have not had this problem before. Since there are so few, I don't want to bomb the house. What can I do? I am in Indiana.
Do you have pets? That's an unusual area for fleas. You usually find them in rugs, around furniture, etc. Are they jumping on you and biting? They may be some other kind of tiny insect.
Your best bet is to get a can of insecticide spray and spray the baseboards/ Then if you keep seeing them, remove everything out of the cabinets and spray well in there too.
If you really only have a few and not an infestation, here is a low-tech, no insecticide way to deal with them. Tonight, set a bowl of soapy water on the floor in the kitchen and put a desk lamp beside it, with the bowl underneath the lamp. Turn the lamp on when you go to bed. The fleas will be attracted to the light and jump to it, and then will land in the bowl of soapy water where they will drown. I've done it and the bowl was full of dead fleas in the morning.
If you have pets, do you treat them with Advantage or Revolution? We have 4 pets but haven't had fleas since we started using Revolution on all of them.
What is strange... We have no pets. I have not checked the carpets near the door but will. I think they are attracted to the light in the kitchen which I have left on. They don't bite, so I suppose they could be knatts? They are big enough to see. I cleaned up the whole kitchen area with soapy water. That seemed to help, as this morning there were only a couple.
This is really prime season for fruit flies, are you sure that's not what they are? Did you throw an old banana or something down the disposer before you left? A flea's body is hard, you have to crack it to kill it. Sit a glass of wine out on your counter and if its fruit flies they will kamakazi into it.
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You said that you were gone for the weekend. They are most likely gnats that hatched in the sink trap. A little bleach, and a good hot flushing should take care of them.
Fleas are flat, hard, and mean. They are attracted to heat. You have to use fingernails to crush them, and they pop.
It sounds like fruit flies to me. I recently picked some tomatoes from my garden and had them on the counter for a few days. I found that the overripe tomatoes were attracting fruit flies. After removing those, the flies were gone. I hope you find the source.
After the input from the others, I don't think they are fleas afterall. They look more like knatts than fleas. I don't know what a fruit fly looks like. As someone suggetsted, I put a little bleach and hot water down the drain. I have only seen a couple since then, so I am hoping I have beaten them.
Sounds like gnats to me. You'll never see 10 to 15 fleas hanging around a kitchen. You'll only see them on a pet. The move fast and leap very far and are hard to catch. I doubt they're fleas.
Tidy up and get you some Raid
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