Sometimes you see fleas and you know that your house has fleas. Other times it may not be as obvious. I’ll go over 9 ways to tell if your house has fleas along with several other things you MUST know when you have a flea infestation in your house.
How Can You Tell If Your House Has Fleas
There are 3 things to look out for in order to tell if your house has fleas.
1. Scratching (either humans or pets)
It’s no secret that fleas bite. And if you or your pets have flea bites then scratching is probably going to be one of your first indicators that your house and/or pets are infested with fleas.
In humans, fleas like to bite your ankles and lower legs. If you are getting flea bites in bed they may also show up on your wrists.
In pets fleas like to bite around the neck, the back of the head, and the tail area.
You are looking for abnormal scratching here. Animals do scratch and even human skin gets itchy from time to time. You want to look for scratching that goes above and beyond the usual.
2. Red skin and visible flea bites
I know that this one seems obvious, but flea bites are a good indicator that you have fleas in your house. Fleas like to bite at night and they are super stealthy so you may not actually ever see a flea but still get flea bites on yourself or your pet.
Flea bites show up as small red, itchy welts on both human and animal skin.
3. Wear white socks
This is a weird one, but it works. If you wear white socks and walk around your house, then you can stir up the fleas and see them as they hop on your socks.
Wearing longer socks will help you not get bit.
You should remove the socks carefully after you’ve shuffled around your house for at least 10 minutes and inspect them to see if you have any fleas.
Bonus tip: Fleas also leave flea dirt behind. This is their poo, which is gross but you will often see the flea dirt before the fleas. You want to look for small black or red-brown specks that sort of look like dust. If you find this you might have fleas!
Where In the House Do Fleas Live?
Fleas can live in LOTS of places in your house, but they love carpets, bedding, and crevices. Anyplace where they can hide and then jump onto you or your pets for a meal works for fleas.
In addition flea eggs are tiny, hard to see, and will fall off of a flea infested animal just about anywhere. That means that fleas can hatch even after you’ve taken care of your adult flea infestation.
For more details on where to find fleas in your house so my post: Where in the House do Fleas Live?
How to Clean Your House with Fleas?
The five steps to cleaning your house with fleas are:
- Start with your dog and cat or other pets and treat them FIRST
- Vacuum all of your floors – even the hard ones
- Use flea spray in your house
- Wash everything you can get your hands on
- Clean your yard
By following these steps in order you can help to get rid of flea infestations and limit the chance of the fleas coming back. You can get more details on these steps in my post How to Clean Your House with Fleas.
How to Treat a House with Fleas?
There are several ways to treat a house with fleas. You can use a flea bomb, you can spray, or you can call in an exterminator.
There are also natural ways to treat your house for fleas and they include using baking soda and salt and vacumming.
You can see more about how to treat your house for fleas in my post here.
Do I Need to Bomb my House for Fleas?
If you have a flea infestation then bombing your house for fleas is one technique that can get rid of the fleas. There are several steps that you need to follow before you bomb your house and I go over those in detail in my post “Do I Need to Bomb my House for Fleas?”
The Bottom Line on Figuring Out If Your House Has Fleas
You might have fleas in your house, but never see the fleas themselves because fleas are good at hiding.
You can tell if your house has fleas by looking for:
- Scratching
- Flea bites
- Doing the white sock test
Once you find fleas in your house there are several ways to get treat your house for fleas – both natural and with insecticides.
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