No dog would ever believe it, but it turns out that when it comes to getting rid of common fleas, the vacuum cleaner is man’s best friend.
So conclude researchers at Ohio State University who experimented with fleas at all stages of life, from adult to larvae, embedded in a tightly-woven, kitchen-style carpet.
They found that the upright sweeper was fatal to 96 percent of fleas and 100 percent of the younger critters. Although the insects they tested are commonly called cat fleas, they’re equally at home on dogs, people and most any other animal.
And while there are lots of chemical means to rid a house of fleas, too, they say the average dust collector is nearly as lethal.
Glenn Needham, an associate professor of entomology, and Fred Hink, an emeritus professor at Ohio State, also examined vacuum cleaner bags and did wind current tests on fleas to try to figure out what makes dirt suckers so lethal to the insects.
Needham said it appears that a combination of the brushes, fans and whirling air currents combine to kill the fleas. And while they used only one model in the tests, it’s likely that any functional machine would have the same effect.
“No matter what vacuum a flea gets sucked into, it’s likely a one-way trip,” Needham said.
He figures that the brushes wear away a part of the flea’s outer shell called the cuticle, a waxy layer that covers most insects and helps them keep moisture inside their bodies. Without it, they dry up and die.
“We didn’t do a post-mortem, so we don’t know for sure, but it appears that the physical abuse they took caused them to perish,” the researcher said.
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