Fleas

LegacyUser

One of my legs is bitten with flea bites, nothing too serious, mainly around the ankle and shin bone. I've gotten some cream to deal with the itch. My problem is, I don't know how this happened and want to stop this from happening again and am a little worried I now might have fleas in my apt. I've been trying to pinpoint how/when it happened as I don't own any animals and live alone.

How long do bite normally take to appear after you have been bitten?

I only really noticed the bumps yesterday and today they were very itchy. Last weekend I had slept in my sleeping bag on a couch but I've never had an issue with this bag, it had been folded up since I last used it. I threw it into the wash last night, just in case. During the week I had slept at a friend of a friends on an oldish bed, I'm guessing this might be the problem but why is only one leg bitten.

I will wash the bedclothes from my own bed this evening plus all clothes that have been lying around. Is there any way of knowing if I now have a flea problem in my apt apart from waiting to see if more bites appear?

dan_d

I've just been through this!

Firstly I assume you've no pets.

In that case, it would probably be either the bed or the sleeping bag that's caused the problem. Wash the sleeping bag in the hottest wash you have on your machine.

There isn't really any way to see whether or not there are fleas in your house without waiting to see if you get more bites. If it really bothers you and you don't want to wait, you need to buy flea powder for furnishings (not for animals) and basically spread it everywhere that you have soft furnishings - carpets, cushions, rugs, mattresses.Leave it for as long as you can - 24 hours or more - then hoover and make sure you throw out the hoover bag immediately afterwards, as if there's any of the little feckers left alive..they can jump! Wash your bedsheets in the hottest wash possible.You might give your friend a box of the flea powder aswell, and spread it on the bed you slept on in their house, washing the sheets too. The stuff I used smelled okay - strong but sort of like air freshner.

They are nasty little buggers. It took me a long time to figure out that we had this problem, but we did manage to get rid of them (so far so good). The bites were itchy pretty much all the time, from the moment they happened, and unfortunately the cream has a limited effect.

Good luck with it.

curlzy

Are you sure it's flea bites and not just hives?

Wisco

You can get flea spray for the house called RIP spray- many vets stock it, I imagine hardware/DIY places might have it too. I'm assuming no pets/stray cats/friends with pets/etc?
Fleas from dogs/cats don't usually bite people unless they've been isolated (like in a vacant house) for a long time and have no dogs to bite. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately! :rolleyes:) I don't have much experience with human fleas to give you any advice there. I'm also assuming you've actually seen the fleas and it's not some other type of creepy bug?