Flea Infestations in RM17

Fleas are usually quite visible to the human eye; you’ll most often observe them when they jump to or from a host. If you own a dog, cat or other house pet, or maybe you have just moved into a property in RM17 that has had pets, then you are at risk from flea bites and fleas.

There are 2 species of fleas that cause problems to homeowners and tenants, and they are the Dog Flea (known as Ctenocephalides canis –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_flea) and the Cat flea (known as Ctenocephalides felis – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_flea).

Both species of flea are between 1mm and 3mm in length, the cat flea is more of a reddish brown in appearance, whilst the dog flea is a slightly darker reddish black in colour with long tapering legs, allowing them to jump huge distances and as high as 16cm.

From feeding on just a single blood meal, a female flea can lay over 100 eggs (larva) attaching to the fur of your cat or dog.  These eggs are very small (0.5mm in length) and whitish in colour, once the larva hatch small maggots will emerge, these will then fall off your pet into your animals carpets or bedding. The larvae build a nest in which they mature and, up to 2 weeks after, the adult fleas will emerge.

Flea droppings can be best described as looking like ground black pepper, and a careful search of the property may indicate an infestation of fleas.