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9 Smart Ways to Get Rid of Fleas on Your Couch

9 Smart Ways to Get Rid of Fleas on Your Couch

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Spotting a hopping flea while seated on the couch is sure to get an immediate reaction from even the most relaxed person. Taking prompt action to eradicate them will instantly be top of mind, so let’s explore what you can do to wipe out the fleas on your couch.

There are several ways to get rid of fleas on the couch:

  1. Vacuum the couch every day
  2. Wash cushion covers
  3. Use a flea fogger
  4. Try a flea spray
  5. Diatomaceous earth
  6. Set up a flea trap
  7. Install an ultrasonic pest repellent
  8. Natural solutions
  9. Professional pest control

Fleas love couches because they have a lot of dark nooks and crannies to hide and a steady source of hosts to feed on. But if you know what to use, you can completely eradicate all traces of these tiny parasites from your furniture.

How to Get Rid of Fleas on the Couch

Once fleas find a suitable habitat, they can be challenging to get rid of. These parasites are natural survivors who have adapted to thrive wherever they can find a suitable habitat and a ready food source.

If you don’t have pets, you may be wondering how fleas got into your home to begin with. Pets are, however, only one carrier, and they are easy to keep flea-free using specially formulated long-lasting treatments.

Often fleas are brought into a house on other humans or as eggs on furniture or carpets. Before bringing any garage sale bargain soft furnishings into your home, it is always advisable to treat for possible flea infestation.

Fortunately, flea issues on couches are not a new problem, and there are some effective ways to deal with them. It is vital to make the couch environment as inhospitable as possible for fleas at all life cycle stages until they have been completely eradicated.

If your couch is on a carpet, you will need to include it and any other soft furnishings in the vicinity when you are treating your couch. In fact, given that fleas are highly mobile, if you have noticed fleas in any part of your home, they may already be in more rooms.

Eradicating only the adult fleas without killing the larvae and eggs is futile. Some methods will only take care of the problem for a few days before the next generation of pesky fleas hatches and repeats the cycle.

To know how to eliminate fleas from any area, including a couch, effectively, you need to learn more about the life cycle of fleas. The adult fleas that you might have noticed hopping over your ankle while watching television are the end result of a fairly complex process.

Flea Eggs Can take between 2 days and 2 weeks to hatch.Flea Larvae This stage can last between 4-18 days. The larvae must have a dark, humid environment.Flea Pupa Between 4 days and much longer. The pupa can sense an increase in movement, sound, carbon dioxide, which will prompt emergence. This is why you may suddenly note an infestation of fleas if you have been away for a while.Adult Flea The average life expectancy is around 2 -3 months. In perfect conditions can survive up to 18 months. Female fleas can each lay more than 5000 eggs in a lifetime.

So to eliminate fleas from the couch entirely, one needs to remove every trace of them at each of these four stages.

Let’s go through nine effective ways to get rid of fleas on the couch.

1 – Vacuum Relentlessly

You can vacuum continuously to help get rid of fleas on a couch

If you have noticed fleas on your couch, you need to become a ninja with the vacuum cleaner. Each day, you need to remove all the cushions and move the vacuum attachment wands up and down into all the tiny hard to reach spaces.

Push the sofa off its spot and vacuum the floor below. Use the flat fitting to move over the couch’s surface and along the armrests.

Each time you have finished vacuuming, you must clean out your vacuum cleaner bag. Dispose of the contents into a plastic trash bag and tie the top closed, so there is no chance of escape for hatching fleas.

2 – Wash All Removable Covers

In addition to diligently vacuuming the couch daily to combat a flea infestation, you should also wash any covers that you can. Some couches have cushions with removable covers.

Flea eggs and larvae will not survive a dip in hot, soapy water, so to feel confident about your couch surface, wash it if you can do so without damaging it.

3 – Use a Flea Fogger

You can use a flea fogger to help get rid of fleas on your couch

A room fogger is an excellent option to effectively eliminate fleas in an area like a bedroom or living room where there are plenty of soft furnishings and hiding places for fleas. It will kill fleas at every stage of the life cycle, and a once-off treatment is usually enough to take care of the flea infestation for a long time.

To ensure that the chemical mist from the fogger penetrates every section of your couch, remove any top cushions before the treatment.

The only downside to flea foggers is that you need to completely clear the area you are fumigating for at least 6 hours. Foggers release a fine mist into the room over a period of about 2 hours, and once the can is empty, you should leave the room sealed for another hour or two to ensure there are no possibilities of any survivors.

Once you open the treated area, provide plenty of ventilation by opening windows and thoroughly vacuuming the room.

4 – Use a Flea Spray That Is Safe for Furnishings

Not all insecticides are created equal, so before you become desperate about the fleas in your couch and grab the deadliest spray you can find, remember that it also needs to be safe for contact with your skin and your pets. Also, you don’t want to mark up your sofa and ruin its appearance because of one or two pesky fleas.

There are plenty of flea sprays available that can be used safely on your couch and your pets. Sprays are an excellent option if you only need to target your couch and don’t want to fumigate the entire room.

5 – Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth can be used to get rid of fleas on a couch

Diatomaceous Earth is an excellent option to eliminate fleas on couches. Unlike chemical methods, this fine powder kills fleas by penetrating their exoskeletons and causing the insect to dehydrate.

Once you have thoroughly vacuumed your couch, apply a dusting of diatomaceous earth to the dark spots below the cushions and into the area behind the sofa arms. Fleas are primarily nocturnal and avoid light, so you can be sure that if they are on your sofa, they will be lurking in all the hidden areas.

The fine powdery texture of diatomaceous earth can penetrate all areas in and below your couch. There is no odor, and it poses no danger to humans or pets.

Although this method is effective against flea larvae and adult fleas, it will not kill eggs or pupae. If you are bringing pre-loved furniture of unknown origin into your home, it is better to treat it with a spray that will effectively kill fleas at all stages.

6 – Use a Flea Trap

You can use a flea trap to help get rid of fleas

A flea trap is a clever little device that mimics a host body’s warmth to attract fleas that jump towards the source. They then become stuck on the sticky pad in the trap.

If you set a flea trap up near your couch, it will draw fleas out even if they have made themselves at home inside. When purchasing an insect trap that you want to use for fleas, be sure that it is specifically designed to lure fleas.

Unlike flies or other bugs, fleas will not be attracted to regular UV light. It’s not the light they are seeking; it is the warmth as the heat is associated with a warm host.

The sticky pad on the flea trap can be changed regularly, and the neat thing is that you will be able to monitor how many fleas you are catching. So as you get on top of the situation, you will note a decrease in the numbers until you eliminate the infestation entirely.

7 – Try an Ultrasonic Pest Repellent

If the thought of sprays or gluey sticky traps to eliminate a flea infestation in your couch is just a little too hands-on for you, try an ultrasonic pest repellent. Although it does emit a sound, the pitch is inaudible to humans and pets, so it is also a great non-toxic option.

These high-tech pest repellents don’t only repel fleas, so if you plug one in near your couch, your relaxing zone will be completely protected from all sorts of pesky critters, including flies and ants.

Keep your unit near to your couch if that is where you have spotted fleas because these repellents are not effective over long distances. So each room will need its own.

8 – Make a Natural Flea Repelling Solution

Fleas have been causing problems with warm-blooded animals for millions of years. As you can imagine, there have been quite a few remedies invented to try to control them.

When dealing with fleas on a couch, the most important thing to remember is whatever solution you mix must be safe for the fabric. The last thing you want is to have a flea-free couch that has blotchy stains all over the surface.

There are numerous homemade solutions that you can try that incorporate household ingredients like dish soap, vinegar, and salt. These are often combined with flea-repelling scents like rosemary and lemon.

9 – Call in a Professional Pest Control Company

If you have tried everything else and cannot get on top of a flea infestation, you should consider getting professional help. Seek help from a pest control professional, and they will be able to advise you further.

Fleas can hide in cracks in baseboards and every nook and cranny of a couch. If you have an infestation in the home, getting rid of them can be an ongoing challenge. Not all treatments affect fleas in all the stages, so even though you may kill all the visible adult fleas, it may not be long before the next generation hatches and the cycle repeats.

How to Get Rid of Fleas on a Couch Naturally

A flea infestation in any area of your home can be a nuisance, but when they are in a high-traffic area like the couch, it can become a real challenge.

You may not want to risk using a chemical solution that may leave a toxic residue on the fabric’s surface that will be in contact with your family and pets. Fortunately, there are plenty of natural remedies that you can try to eliminate and repel fleas from making themselves at home in your couch.

All-natural methods should be used in conjunction with regular and determined vacuuming. All the cushions on the sofa should be removed, and the vacuum nozzle must be moved across every section of the couch and into crevices where flea eggs and larvae could be hiding.

Also, remember to treat all your pets with long-acting flea treatments so that they are not inadvertently carrying fleas from one area of the home to another.

Let’s go through some natural ways that you can get rid of fleas on your couch:

  • Salt – remove the cushions from your couch and scatter the base with fine salt. Also, cover the carpets with a layer. Leave the room completely closed for at least 2 days, and then vacuum thoroughly.
  • Diatomaceous Earth – Scatter this natural substance all over the couch as well as on the carpet. Be sure to insert some into the dark crevices below the couch armrests. This substance will work much faster than salt to dry out and destroy adult fleas.
  • Make a dish soap trap – If you have a particular problem with fleas on your sofa, try setting a trap for them at night. Mix a saucer of warm water with dish soap and place it under the couch. The fleas will be lured by the warm soapy water, hop in and be unable to jump out because of the slippery dish soap.
  • Natural lemon spray – fleas avoid citrus, so making a spray with lemons is an excellent way to get them to move out of an area. Just be very careful not to spray on the surface of your couch where it may stain the fabric.

To make a flea-repelling lemon spray, boil a couple of thinly sliced lemons in a pint of water. Then let the solution stand overnight before straining and emptying it into a spray bottle. Apply it as a spray.

  • Essential oil-repellent – Fill a spray bottle with water leaving just a bit of space at the top. Then add 5 drops each of cedar oil and lavender oil. Give it a shake and use it as a spray to repel fleas from furnishings.

Final Thoughts

Spotting a flea on the couch can be alarming. Once they get in, it is tough to eradicate them.

There are several ways to treat a flea infestation on the couch ranging from chemical methods to natural remedies made from household ingredients. No matter what you use, one of the most critical things is that the sofa must be vacuumed daily to remove fleas and eggs.

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Sue

Monday 15th of May 2023

You cannot kill fleas in the pupae phase you can only vacuum them up. You would use food grade diatomaceous earth, but don’t—it makes a dusty mess. My advice is vacuum thoroughly every three days, paying special attention to nooks and crannies, wash what fabrics you can and use a flea spray on what you can’t. Flea comb your pet everyday to get the flea dirt out. Get your vet’s recommended flea med.