Fleas love you, but for all the wrong reasons. Just like a lousy friend who only comes over to use your TV, fleas invade homes only to serve their purposes. They offer no benefit and instead bring with them a large number of problems. If you’re wondering why fleas infiltrated your Raleigh home, let the experts at Innovative Pest Solutions help you figure out why you have a flea problem and how you can eliminate it.
What Are Fleas
Fleas are small parasitic pests that require a host to survive. Out in nature, fleas will settle down inside the fur of wilderness creatures. Once deeply hidden within the coat of a host, fleas will drink blood to their heart’s content and lay eggs wherever they can. These eggs are completely smooth and often fall off animals to the ground. Inside homes, eggs will fall into carpet fibers and floor cracks where they will later hatch into flea larvae and eventually grow into adult fleas.
How Fleas Get Into Homes
Fleas are mobile pests that invade homes in a variety of different ways. Most commonly, fleas will hop onto an animal outdoors and let that animal carry them into a home. Cats and dogs are often culprits for assisting fleas in their invasion. Squirrels, rats, and mice are also capable of carrying fleas into homes when they invade in search of food, shelter, and water. Although less common, fleas occasionally invade on articles of clothing, used furniture, and other fabric-based materials. Because fleas are so mobile, it is even possible for them to invade through open doors, cracks in a home’s foundation, or even a rip in a window screen.
Fleas Are Dangerous
There is no benefit to having fleas inside a home. However, there are many dangers that fleas pose when they invade. The biggest threat that comes with having fleas inside is the chance of contracting a dangerous disease. Although not all fleas carry diseases, enough do for this to be a serious concern. Here are a few of the most common sicknesses fleas carry and spread and some symptoms associated with each.
- Murine typhus: high fever, severe headaches, weakness, nausea, and chills
- Bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death: Fever, chills, weakness, swollen lymph nodes, and headaches
- Tungiasis: skin inflammation, severe pain, a lesion at the site of infection, and itching
- Tularemia: fever, swollen lymph nodes, chills, headache, exhaustion, and a skin ulcer that forms around the site of infection.
Fleas are also known to cause dermatitis on the skin of humans which most often appears as itchy bumps or a rash.
The Best Way To Prevent Fleas
Because of the large number of ways fleas invade into homes, prevention is often difficult; however, it’s not impossible. Here are a few prevention tips to help keep fleas away from your Raleigh home:
- Keep your grass cut short and your landscaping maintained.
- Remove clutter and debris from your property.
- Fence in your yard to keep out wildlife.
- Seal gaps and cracks in your home’s exterior using a caulking gun.
- Repair torn window and door screens around your home.
- Replace worn weather stripping and or damaged door sweeps.
- Invest in flea prevention for your pets.
- Clean your home regularly.
How To Get Rid Of Fleas
Fleas are much easier to prevent than they are to remove from a home. At Innovative Pest Solutions, we understand how difficult fleas are, and we understand what elimination methods will work to ensure successful flea removal.
You don’t have to live with dangerous fleas jumping throughout your Raleigh home. Reach out to our team today to find your quick and easy solution to pest problems.
