Fleas in house but no animals!!

[Tempjob]

Posting in aibu for traffic...

I have found three fleas crawling on me or the children in the past few days, in our downstairs carpeted lounge. Don't know where they are coming from as we don't have animals and have been living here for 12 years...

The only person to come to the house recently is our nanny (who has cats at home). Could the fleas have been transported on nanny's belongings?

Any tips on how to get rid of them? My daughter has two bites.

Indorex spray will kill fleas in the house. They wouldn't be able to survive for long on humans

You need to vacuum every room, then spray, close the door/windows, leave for an hour, re-vacuum. You may need to repeat this. Use Indorex or RIP Fleas. Stuff from Pets at Home is crap. Indorex doesn’t smell much, the other makes me feel sick. You can go to any vet who will carry these but if you go to Medivet, they will charge you double the retail price.

Yes the nanny probably had a few fleas riding on her belongings into the house.
Fleas cannot live on humans, but they can hop on, get a blood meal (bite you) and then hop off and lay eggs to hatch more fleas. Carpets are ideal for this. So you need to get going with exterminating them before it’s a real infestation.

Doesn’t sound like fleas. They don’t crawl,

Have you got a picture?
What size and colour?

Thanks all, love mumsnet!!!

Nanny has not been in the house since last month, could the fleas have survived that long in our house? Unless we have a mouse infestation... (though not seen any evidence of this)

They are definitely animal fleas because I remember these type of fleas were on my cat when I was a child. They are black jumpy little gits!!

Flea eggs are often dormant and then woken up by vibration eg hoovering. Yes, eggs could be present for weeks, months before hatching. I’ve recently had similar, I was getting bites and pulling fleas off the dogs. I treated them and went crazy with the Indorex, it’s all resolved-for now!

We had this during lockdown!! No pets, and the only place any of us had been was to the supermarket for the past couple of months, and no visitors either! We put it down to work I had been doing in the garden, and wondered if I had disturbed a nest (we get rats, and the garden was very overgrown from when we bought it)
We did a lot of hoovering and washing bedding etc, and after about a week noticed we didn’t see any more, and no problem since.

If the bites are itchy, Afterbite works well.

You have my sympathies, OP - we had fleas a couple of years ago and I thought i was having a break down. And I don't say that lightly...

I was absolutely smothered in bites (mostly) around my ankles and the itching was keeping me up half the night.

But I second Indorex and it worked first time.

Indorex works really well, as others on the thread have said.

Could be the nanny, most likely really

You can also encounter them at parks, in your garden, or wherever really, they're quite alot more pervasive than people think

As PPs have said, Indorex. You can buy it from Amazon if you can't get to your local vets.

In the days before such treatments as Indorex, my sister once had a flea jump off her. She didn't have any pets. She'd just moved into a flat with her boyfriend and the previous tenant had a cat. It took her a fortnight to get rid of them properly, she had to get pest control in.

vet told me that fleas live in grass/lawn in the same way they live in a carpet so you don't need animals to get them. The can also survive dormant for years.

I have cat and dog and the only thing that works is Indorex.

Hoover first, the vibration brings adult fleas to surface.
Spray generously. It is expensive, and we need 2 tins to do our house, because I also spray the sofa/chairs etc.

On same day, change all sheets and wash at 60.

Then once you can go back into rooms, hoover again.

That will kill adults, larvae and eggs, and shou kldeep the house flea free for up to a year.