Signs of Fleas
The most common sign of fleas is on your pet. If your cat or dog is scratching or biting at their coats this can be for other reasons, however it is a behaviour commonly associated with fleas. You might also see fleas crawling in your pet’s coat or sometimes you’ll see a flea crawling or jumping on your clothes or furniture – they’re flat bodied, red-brown in colour and around 2mm long.
Flea dirt, or droppings, look like ground black pepper and will be visible in your pet’s coat or in their bedding. Using a flea comb over white paper will help you spot this. Flea bites on yourself are another clear sign of a flea infestation and can be a signal that it’s becoming a more significant problem.
Flea Infestations And No Pets
Sometimes other animals, such as rats or squirrels, can bring fleas into your home so it is possible to get a flea infestation even if you don’t have any pets of your own.
It can be a surprise to find you’ve got fleas in your house when you’ve just moved into a new home, and this is likely due to the previous occupant having a flea infestation. Fleas can go into a hibernation like state, called diapause, when they don’t have a regular food source (blood). So, if you’ve recently moved into a new home and suddenly find you have fleas, they’ve felt the vibration of people walking around and have woken up as they know a new blood source has arrived (you).
How To Get Rid Of Fleas
The first thing you’ll need to do is treat any pets for fleas, your vet can recommend the most appropriate flea treatment. This will need to be done regularly to prevent fleas coming back. Wash all pet bedding at 60 degrees and if your pet sleeps on your bed wash your own bedding also.
Hoovering also helps, and it’s important to be thorough – as well as carpets also hoover furniture, soft furnishings and floorboards. You’ll hoover up adult fleas, eggs and larvae. Flea larvae can feed on adult flea faeces and waste matter which collects in crevices and on soft furnishings so hoovering also helps by removing much of the larval food source.
It’s important to empty your vacuum cleaner afterwards and dispose of the hoover bag outside of the house, as fleas will still be alive inside it and might re-infest your home if they’re not removed completely.
There are off-the shelf products, such as flea sprays and powders, available which can help however not all available products interrupt the flea life cycle so can’t always be guaranteed to work in the long term.
If you find yourself with a serious flea infestation in your home, it’s worth engaging the services of a local reputable pest controller that offers a flea pest control service. They’re able to use much stronger licensed products which will interrupt the flea life cycle and successfully remove the fleas from your home. In the long term this may also prove to be the cheaper and least stressful solution.