Aside from seeing the fleas with your naked eye, there are other things that you must do to confirm an infestation. You should know where to look for them and know how they look. This way, you can easily confirm an infestation and be able to use or perform control techniques to deal with the infestation.
Where to Find Them
If you are suspecting that you are having a flea infestation in your home, there are top places that you must inspect. This includes your entire home, your pets, and various outdoor areas.
Learning where they live and finding where the infestation is happening as these play important roles in getting the right treatment done in the right locations.
Step 1: Inspect Pet for Fleas
Once you start noticing that your pet scratches more frequently than usual, restless, losing hair, and tend to shake his head, check him for fleas. Seeing flea dirt and adult fleas can be easily found on heavily infested animals.
You can easily find them around the groin area, neck area, leg folds, and on the base of their tails. Get a flea comb and comb your pet’s hair as slowly as possible. After every stroke, check the comb for live fleas and even flea feces.
Make sure that you have a bowl of soapy water ready where you should place the live fleas. You can also put your comb in the water. If the water turns red, then your comb has flea feces on.
Seeing flea bites are signs that your pet is having these pests for quite some time now. Since they feed on the blood, finding bite marks over your pet’s body is also a sign that there is an infestation.
Step 2: Inspect Your Home
Pets in your home are among the most common ways to encounter a possible infestation. You should learn how to check for fleas inside your home. It is also necessary that you know the difference between flea, tick, and other insects to make the inspection successful.
This will help you save more money as it will cut down the cost of getting services. Once confirmed, you should then learn how to get rid of fleas. Below are ways to inspect your home:
· Inspect rugs and carpets
Wear white socks and shuffle your feet slowly over the rug or carpet. After a few seconds, stop and then check for any live fleas using your flashlight. Any live fleas must be tossed in a bowl or water and soap mixture.
· Check pet bedding and crate
Look for flea feces and live fleas. The feces should look similar to coffee grounds. You can confirm that the dirt you found is excreted fleas by placing it in water. Once it turns red, then you can confirm it’s from fleas.
· Inspect upholstered furniture
Make sure that you also check areas where you always find your pet resting. You should also check areas where your dogs, cats, and other pets tend to groom themselves.
Step 3: Check Your Yard
As you spend time finding fleas on your pet, make sure that you also check your yard. Seeing these insects on your pet, there is a chance that they got them outdoors. You should learn where they are hiding outdoors and find where the infestation started.
Some of the common areas where you’ll find these pests are shady and moist areas. Focus inspecting such areas. Put on your pair of white socks and shuffle your feet on the areas. Stop for some time and check for fleas on your socks with your flashlight.
Other hotspots are:
- Any area where your pet tends to play or rest outside
- Around and under bushes and trees
- Around and under porches or decks
- Areas where most leaf debris are collected
When Should You Start Considering Treatments?
As soon as you find signs of fleas in your home, pet, and even outdoors, it is about time that you try various techniques to control your flea problem. There are various flea control products that you can use to slowly but surely get rid of dog and cat flea from your home.
Make it a point to wash pet crates and beddings to get rid of live fleas, larvae, and flea eggs. If all else fail, you can try calling pest control services.
