The single most troublesome area in which to experience a flea infestation is your bed. You may notice dozens of painful, itchy red bites covering your skin when you wake up in the morning. And to make matters worse, fleas will likely remain here since there’s a readily available source of food — you. With a little but of work, however, you can regain control of your personal sleeping quarters, kicking these blood-sucking parasites to the curb for good.
Wash Your Sheets!
The first step to regaining control of your bed is to wash your sheets. Don’t just toss the comforter in the washing machine and call it a day, but instead remove all of your bedding linens — comforter, sheets, pillow cases and any other remaining linens — and wash them with the hot water setting along with a fair amount of liquid detergent and apple cider vinegar. In addition to making your sheets smell nice, the vinegar will work to neutralize fleas on contact.
Vacuum Your Floors
I can’t stress enough the importance of vacuuming your floors if you’re experiencing a flea infestation. Even if the fleas are largely confined to your bed, vacuuming will help immensely in your battle against these blood-sucking parasites. One study conducted by researches at the University of Florida found vacuuming to eliminate up to 95% of the flea’s population, so don’t underestimate its power.
Are You a Pet Owner?
If so, you should apply a monthly flea treatment medicine to your pet. If fleas have a food source inside the home, they will continue to thrive and reproduce, which will result in some of them finding their way into your bed. It’s not uncommon for dogs and cats to sleep either beside or on their owner’s bed. Of course, this leads to fleas jumping on the bed and attacking the owner. The bottom line is that whether you own a dog or cat, all of your pets need a monthly flea medicine application to keep your bed flea-free.
The key thing to remember is that you need to treat your entire home for fleas, not just the bedding. Washing your sheets may eliminate them from your bed — at least temporarily — but chances are they’ll come back in full force. By treating your home, however, you’ll kick these troublesome fleas to the curb. Feel free to browse through some of our previous articles for more helpful tips on how to exterminate fleas.