I have a tricky situation. Insect bites have recently started appearing on me when I’m in bed, or lying on my bed. The bites are on my face and neck. So far there are not many bites, so whatever type of insect it is, so far there must be not many of them. This obviously makes them hard to detect, but I don’t want to wait until I have a bad infestation before addressing it. I do not have pets. I’ve not left the house for weeks, as I’m ill. My bed and mattress were new last year. I’ve spoken to pest experts and they said if I had bed bugs, there would be blood on the bedding, and there’s not. (I may buy a bed bug test kit to make sure, though.)
The only person who has come into my house in the last few weeks is a lady who comes in five days a week to do cooking and housework etc for me because I’m ill. I have several times noticed animal hair on the floor after she’s been here. Obviously I’m wondering whether flea eggs could have come in on the animal hair. Today I asked her asked her whether she’s in regular contact with any animals and whether it might be worth considering whether they have fleas. (I said it obviously might not be that at all, but might be worth considering.) She said several cats, from different household, hang out at her house all the time, but that they have monthly flea drops so they couldn’t have fleas.
She also said she has not had any flea bites, so she thinks these cats definitely can’t have fleas. Once in the past, many years ago, I was in a house where one person had a cat that had fleas. While the cat was there, none of us got bitten. Then the cat owner gave the cat to a home, which informed us that the cat had fleas. After that we started getting loads of flea bites. So it seems that when a cat is there, fleas don’t bite humans because they’re biting the cat instead.
I have put a dish of water on the floor to see whether it catches any fleas. So far it has not, but obviously if there are not many fleas at this point, that doesn’t prove that there are not fleas here.
It would be very helpful to have views on whether flea drops are 100% effective. If I’m going to spend loads of money of flea extermination, it will be pointless if this lady will be bringing more flea eggs into the flat. I have chemical allergies, so would need to get chemical-free heat treatment, which costs £1500-£1600 from Rentokil.