Year-Round Backyard Flea Prevention: Steps to Take in Every Season

When the weather begins to cool in Northern Virginia, it’s easy to believe that pests like fleas disappear with the warmth.

But fleas technically can’t enter a dormant state without enough below freezing temperatures. This means fleas can remain active. And it only takes one flea to get inside on your cat or dog before your home becomes infested. 

There’s not much worse than spotting those jumping small bugs on your dog’s fur or your favorite living room couch. 

Sure, these pests are tiny, but they carry quite big potentials for diseases like the plague and typhus. And, unfortunately, they can be lurking as close as in your very own backyard. 

You might be scratching your head and asking yourself how to keep fleas out of your yard. The answer is simple: Backyard flea prevention starts with a comprehensive strategy that doesn’t give these pests a chance to sneak in. Let’s learn more.

Backyard Flea Prevention Starts With Having A Better Understanding Of Fleas

Before learning how to battle fleas in your Northern Virginia backyard, you have to know what type of pest you’re fighting. 

You know fleas are wingless insects with long, flat bodies, and you know they dine on blood from animals – wild and domestic. 

Backyard flea prevention is best done by knowing how fleas work. Here, we’ll talk about some of the basics.

Fleas 101

Fleas are basically parasites since they feed off of animal blood. And despite their small size, they actually have big appetites. 

In fact, fleas can eat upwards of 15 times their own bodyweight – yikes! That’s quite an appetite. While fleas eat a lot, they can follow a bit of a fast and feed cycle, where they can wait long periods between meals. This is why yard flea treatments are important because fleas can be present even when they aren’t actively feeding. 

Fleas are actually pretty hard to see – 1 to 2.5 millimeters long – so they can hide in your carpet and mattress fairly simply. Despite their small stature, they move super quick and are able to jump 8 inches horizontally and 5 inches vertically. 

Despite the fact that more dogs may be venturing outside on a regular basis, cat fleas are actually the most common ones you find in your home. And fleas also travel on other animals you might often see outside like squirrels and rabbits, as well as raccoons, mice, foxes, opossums, ferrets, and rats. 

Once fleas get inside your home, they can become tough to deal with. Each flea can live more than three months long, giving females time to make upwards of 500 babies each. So one flea indoors can mean a massive number of fleas in a very short amount of time.

Are Fleas In Your Yard or Home?

If you think fleas are hard to spot on your cat or dog, imagine trying to find them in your backyard. You could have a problem before you even know it. 

Before you understand how to keep fleas out of your yard, you have to know how to figure out if they are there in the first place. 

The first place you might find fleas is on your pets. This is because they are frequently outside and can more frequently be exposed to wild animals with fleas, other pets with fleas, or environments that are full of fleas. 

Once exposed, fleas can be transported through your pets on their undercoat or topcoat to your home interior. 

So if you suspect fleas, first take a look at your cat or dog. Are they constantly itching or scratching? Does your cat or dog have an unusual or irregular appetite? Are they overly tired? Do you notice some hair loss on your pets? Have you seen red bumps on your pet’s skin? These are all signs of flea infestations. 

People can also bring fleas inside. These pests can catch rides indoors on your clothing or outdoor items that you bring in.

Where Can You Often Find Fleas In Your Landscape?

How to keep fleas out of your yard means knowing where they hang out in your landscape. 

When fleas aren’t draining your pets of blood, fleas are creating homes in places that are most comfortable to them. 

In your yard, fleas prefer shady areas with cool, moist air with adequate water and humidity. These areas are normally leaf piles, wood piles, shrubbery, tall grasses, and vegetation. These are the same spaces where you might find wild animals. These kinds of areas shelter fleas and their eggs.

Backyard Flea Prevention Strategies

How to keep fleas out of your yard begins with a bit of outdoor maintenance on your part, as well as annual, regular yard flea treatments to maintain a barrier for flea prevention. 

The following tips can help you reduce your landscape flea populations.

Keep Overgrown Plants Trim & Tidy

As we discussed above, fleas like to hang out in vegetation and moist, cool, shady areas. 

So one way to embrace backyard flea prevention is to keep tall grasses and plants pruned and maintained so they don’t become overgrown. 

This is especially crucial to do at your landscape borders where your yard may back up to woods, prairies or preserves. This is because wild animals are more likely to be found here. 

Also, make sure to keep vegetation trimmed near places where your pets and family members will frequent more often, such as patios, play areas, fire pits, etc.

Mow Your Lawn On A Regular Basis

How to keep fleas out of your yard includes mowing your lawn on a regular basis. 

This is because fleas like to hide in all sorts of tall grasses – your lawn included. 

During the growing season, mow your lawn weekly, keeping it to a 3.5- to 4-inch height. This will help discourage fleas from hanging out too close to your house where your family, friends, and pets are most often present.

Keep Wild Animals Out Of Your Landscape

Fleas can also get close to you and your family members by traveling nearby on small squirrels and mice or even raccoons. 

mice and rodents – everything from rats to squirrels to other small mammals, and even some larger ones.

By mowing your lawn regularly and pruning tall vegetation consistently, you can discourage wild animals – potential flea carriers – from taking up residence in your home landscape. 

Backyard flea prevention is also possible by securing your trash with a tightly sealed lid, so you’re not drawing wild animals closer to your house.

Fight Fleas With Yard Flea Treatments

Even if you follow all of the backyard flea prevention tips we highlighted above, fleas may still find their way to your landscape or home. 

This is when yard flea treatments can really help. 

Professional flea control treatments in Northern Virginia target these pests that have entered your property despite your best attempts at keeping them away. 

Turf’s Up uses a natural, professional-grade product containing cedar oil to control fleas. This oil blocks the scent receptors of fleas, disrupting their bodies’ systems and functions and drying them up. We like to apply this product in three-week intervals from April through October, which is about 12 treatments. 

Our professionals target this treatment to flea hangouts like grasses and groundcovers to help drastically reduce your nearby flea populations.

Turf’s Up Can Help You Battle Fleas & Keep Them Out Of Your Landscape in Leesburg, Ashburn, and Aldie, VA

No one wants fleas in their backyard or their home. It’s not like you’re having an open house for fleas. If anything, you want to prevent them at all costs. 

Get started now with year-round backyard flea prevention tactics so you can be ready when fleas are in their peak seasons from April through November, and also when they may not go completely dormant the rest of the year. 

If you think fleas might be present in your landscape or you’re worried that they will be a problem for you, give Turf’s Up a call. We know how to fight fleas quickly and effectively, and we want to eliminate that stress for you so you can live a flea-free life. 

Ready to learn why Turf’s Up could be your totally awesome choice for flea control in Leesburg, Ashburn, or Aldie, VA? We’re stoked to learn more about you and help you eliminate your fleas once and for all. Get started today with a free quote. Together, we can prepare a customized plan that is perfect for you and your yard. 

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