Christopher Baker

paul wheaton wrote:I think you don't need to worry about it being "too bright" - other than wasting energy. And, yes, making the rest of the room dark through the night is helpful.

The lamp you have is fine.  

Keep one flea trap in each room - including rooms where you think you do not have fleas.  Keep the traps there every night.   Reset the traps daily.  The key is that you need to KNOW what your progress is.  And you need a way to KNOW that you are making progress and that you have eliminated all the fleas.  

Hey, just wanted to give an update.

Since my last post, a faulty toilet upstairs flooded part of the basement, so i ended up removing all the carpet. 2 nights before i reset a trap. but didn't reset it the following day as i was out of the house till the day after. So attached is a pic of the trap just before i started removing the carpet in this room. so don't mind the piece of carpet fiber that made it in. even though it sat for a little while longer, with the new bulb in the lamp. that is about what i was seeing nightly.  the Dimmer and warmer bulb was more concentrated on the plate and not lighting up as much of the surrounding area, i believe that was drawing the fleas in closer.

paul wheaton wrote:Each room should have a dish of soapy water with a light.   You need to be measuring your progress.  For example, if each dish got 30 fleas a night, and now with the DE you are down to 8 fleas per night, you are making progress.  Here is a link to a cheap lamp that will work great with a dish of water:  http://amzn.to/2v94NHb

And here is how you set it up:



Keep in mind that there is a life cycle to fleas that lasts four weeks.  Therefore, if your solution works 100% then you will continue to see fleas at the same load for four weeks.   It is possible that a few fleas will come out six to eight weeks later, but it will be very few.

You are trying to get all those fleas that are currently eggs/larva/etc. to come on out, get DE on them and die.  

You are worried that your efforts are not working.  Therefore, you need the flea traps so you can see that your efforts are working.  Plus, of course, the flea traps help.  

Thanks for the reply!
Looking at the time since last post and between posts i wasn't expecting one so soon.


So at first i was setting a trap but after a few nights it only had like 3 or 4 in it, while my socks had quite a lot of them.   i was suspecting that maybe the lamp was too bright lighting up too much of an area to draw them into the water. using one of these with a bright Led bulb, same bulb i use every where. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Gooseneck-Organizer-Desk-Lamp-Multiple-Colors/21500122
Think ill be working at my computer with all the lights off except the trap from now on.

the effected areas currently are my basement room and the hallway and stairs outside the door. upstairs is hardwood.

Ill keep the 4 week time frame and load in mind. Knowing that actually helps a lot.

Hello all,

tl;dr - im going crazy.

Made an account just for this thread.

So little more than a week ago i realized i had a flea problem. but i believe it started more than a month ago. I've never had them before so i just didn't know the signs. About a month ago i noticed a single itchy bump on my left shin that i didn't think too much about. then all of a sudden almost 2 weeks ago, i went from that one, to over 50 just on my left leg, and 30 on the other. After seeing one on me one night i started googling, found out they were fleas and started freaking out. i spent hours vacuuming day and night. The room i have them in isn't too large but i vacuumed the carpet in all directions multiple times, didnt matter if it was 4am i was vacuuming. It didnt seem to help, so i started steam cleaning the carpet after vacuuming every day, It also didnt help. I also mixxed 1 bottle of Brags apple cider vinegar with water into my 1gallon pump sprayer. was soaking my legs, carpet, recliner, pretty much everything in the stuff. i kinda thought it was helping at first, but after 2 days of that i was still getting bit up like crazy.

So after more googling i found the article on DE and decided to try it. Now i cant get Food Grade locally, the best i could do is get the "Safer Brand DE" from home depot, listed as Bed Bug, Flea, Ant, Crawling Insect Killer
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Safer-Brand-4-lb-Diatomaceous-Earth-Bed-Bug-Flea-Ant-Crawling-Insect-Killer-51703/206857782  
Ive been putting this stuff down on the carpet, and well everywhere, since Monday, its now the following sunday. Ive seen 0 improvement, if anything it seems worse.. Last sunday i started wearing knee high white socks. not getting as many bites, but thats mostly because ive been picking them off once i stop moving around the room. i usually get about 5-10 on me just walking from the door across to my computer chair, and vise versa.

Im sure ive been putting down too much of the stuff. as i have green carpet that is now frosted in white. Ive nearly used the entire 4lb bag in a week, I vacuum first with a shop vac, then with our shark navigator vacuum, then again with the shop vac just in case the other vacuum had some jumping around, then i apply the DE.  Im using a woolite brand delicates washing bag to dispense the DE, its the only mesh like thing i had that had holes small enough to to dust the DE.   Ive tried working it into the carpet with a brush, but it just seems to disapear? not sure if its really going deeper or if its just going into the air. so after im just dumping more back on top so i can see it.


Im just utterly overwhelmed at this point. IF some one tells me that ripping out the carpet right down the the concrete will aid in this Please say so. and ill have it ripped out and burned in the backyard within the hour.


I have 2 cats, that ive started combing daily, they turn up a few fleas before they wont let me comb them any more, i had put flea collars on them, but after a day or so, they got extremely sluggish looking, getting worried i took them back off, now they seem fine. the flea collars now reside in the vacuums..   Using poison is also out of the question, i have too many things that would be effected, such as makeup brushes to alot of other things that i would never feel safe using again. i would move them out of this room, but im afraid of spreading the fleas to other areas. However over the past hew days ive strongly considered everything from fogging to just dumping gasoline and moving into the local jail after i burn everything down.

Please tell me to rip out the carpet, so i can regain some sanity.



Also, the cats seem to be fine with this DE. and it only effects me when im trying to blow it out of my laptop and cooling pad fans. i make such a huge cloud in here putting it down id be afraid of it going boom like a saw mill, but any ill effects quickly subside within a few seconds. Ive put out a flea trap, but im not catching many in it. i can catch more on me just by walking across the room than the trap gets in the 9 hours that the lights are off.

The only saving grace so far, is that they aren't in my bed. at least im not getting bitten while im in bed.

And sorry for this post being all over the place, but that about sums up my current mental state



Edit: i also have a gas fireplace in this room.   should i just blast it for a few hours? I just need advice and ideas, if some one told me that rolling around in horse manure would make the fleas leave the house, id probably do it at this point.