Fleased to see you!
Fleas in the home and on our pets can be no joke. Fleas are active most months of the year however with the central heating going on in our homes, their numbers can multiply rapidly causing misery and despair to most home owners.
These blood sucking parasites can live for up to 1 year waiting for a meal, with the female flea laying up to fifty eggs per day. Flea eggs, larva, and pupae are hidden in carpets, furnishings, pets themselves and in their bedding. In the summer months and when our houses are heated the adult flea will hatch in as little as a month.
Many customers who need to have a flea treatment carried out in their home, look quizzical when I ask that they also cut the grass before I arrive. This is due to the fact that fleas will live happily outside in the garden during the summer months and can be easily carried back into the property after the house has been cleared.
Fleas tend to be host specific which means that they are either a cat or dog flea with a specific host on which they like to feed. This however will not stop them taking a meal from a human if their chosen host is not available. The largest flea is the mole flea at a whopping 8mm. The mole flea was responsible for doing the tricks at the Victorian Flea Circus’s. I often see these on the Moles I catch and often consider starting up Lincolnshire’s own Flea Circus!!
Fleas in the home are usually cat or dog fleas and can cause absolute misery to the homeowner. In the UK Fleas do not carry disease but can transmit tapeworm to both dogs and humans. On a human the bite of the flea results in a small red inflamed area usually on the lower leg or ankle. The bite will itch for a couple of days and also looks unsightly.
To help prevent a flea infestation in your home always use a quality flea treatment on your pets and make sure your pet is up to date. Regular vacuuming of furniture, carpet edges around skirting’s and any where your pets may rest. Wash pet bedding often and groom your pet outside to allow eggs to fall from its fur.
If you are in doubt groom your pet with a fine tooth comb over a white tissue, any flecks of flea dirt and eggs will be spotted on the tissue. Many clients try to solve a flea problem themselves using a vast array of products available for domestic use. I recently had a client who had put several kilos of salt on his carpets as he had read on the internet that it killed fleas.
The egg, larvae and pupae stages of the flea are not killed by these off the shelf chemicals. A residual chemical sometimes combined with an insect growth regulator will ensure that all stages of the flea are killed outright, preventing the problem reoccurring when the eggs have hatched.
If you move into a property and experience flea bites then you may have been unfortunate to have taken on the last resident’s flea problem. As mentioned fleas can wait for up to a year for a meal and although tiddles the cat and Mrs Jones vacated months ago, the flea bites may indicate a lingering flea problem.
Our most deadly epidemic the Bubonic Plague arrived in Lincolnshire around 1348, in a few weeks the population had dropped by a third. The Plague was spread by fleas carried by rats to the ports and towns of England. Thankfully fleas in the UK do not carry the Plague and are unlikely to kill us, but do need to be controlled. So Jump to it !!