Have you ever had fleas in your house? Feel free to share your experiences in this thread. Below is my own story.
Back in 2012 I discovered mystery bites on my person, mostly around my ankles and legs. New bites seemed to appear every day or so, and yet I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. The bites itched and looked much like mosquito bites, but I couldn't see how mosquitoes were getting underneath my duvet at night, or perhaps into my trousers somehow. What made the situation even more mysterious was that my wife did not have any bites at all.
Eventually we got a pest control firm to try and deal with it. They sprayed something "benign", two treatments, but the problem still didn't seem to go away entirely. In the end, it seemed to go away by itself. At that point I was still not sure what had actually attacked my poor legs, thinking it was perhaps mosquitos after all.
This autumn the problem came back with a vengeance. It was getting completely out of control, and my poor legs almost looked like they'd been shot with a shotgun. It was itching like mad. There were bites even on my torso and neck. So I went to my doctor who said that it certainly looked like flea bites. Fleas! How could we have fleas! Although we don't have any animals that live with us, the friendly neighbour cat was a regular visitor at our house ...
We didn't want to believe it, and we had still not seen any bugs anywhere, despite searching very carefully. However, one night the cat was visiting and I did the "wet paper-towel on cat's neck" trick, which in the end revealed one possible blood stain.
The following evening I made the first positive identification. One of the little devils was crawling on my daughter's hair! It was most definitely a flea. While I felt tremendous relief to finally know for certain what was slowly eating me up, other members of the household were less thrilled at the finding. Still, arrangements were made, and a pest control firm was brought in. Three treatments and much anguish later, and the little devils finally appear to have been exterminated.
Back in 2012 I discovered mystery bites on my person, mostly around my ankles and legs. New bites seemed to appear every day or so, and yet I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. The bites itched and looked much like mosquito bites, but I couldn't see how mosquitoes were getting underneath my duvet at night, or perhaps into my trousers somehow. What made the situation even more mysterious was that my wife did not have any bites at all.
Eventually we got a pest control firm to try and deal with it. They sprayed something "benign", two treatments, but the problem still didn't seem to go away entirely. In the end, it seemed to go away by itself. At that point I was still not sure what had actually attacked my poor legs, thinking it was perhaps mosquitos after all.
This autumn the problem came back with a vengeance. It was getting completely out of control, and my poor legs almost looked like they'd been shot with a shotgun. It was itching like mad. There were bites even on my torso and neck. So I went to my doctor who said that it certainly looked like flea bites. Fleas! How could we have fleas! Although we don't have any animals that live with us, the friendly neighbour cat was a regular visitor at our house ...
We didn't want to believe it, and we had still not seen any bugs anywhere, despite searching very carefully. However, one night the cat was visiting and I did the "wet paper-towel on cat's neck" trick, which in the end revealed one possible blood stain.
The following evening I made the first positive identification. One of the little devils was crawling on my daughter's hair! It was most definitely a flea. While I felt tremendous relief to finally know for certain what was slowly eating me up, other members of the household were less thrilled at the finding. Still, arrangements were made, and a pest control firm was brought in. Three treatments and much anguish later, and the little devils finally appear to have been exterminated.