The very word fleas makes your skin itch and the hairs on your arms rise up, the flea is a parasite, it needs a host to live, it loves animals that we love such as cats and dogs as these animals have fur and are warm blooded. The flea lives on the blood of these warm blooded animals, and that would include you and I and birds, the flea is not fussy about what it feeds on and this makes it a difficult pest to stop.
The flea will often infect your pets first, coming into your home on there backs, burrowing into the fur of your cat or dog and laying eggs, up to 50 a day, these eggs do not have a sticky coating like may other pests, instead the eggs are smooth and often fall from the dogs or cats back, this may sound like good news until you stop to consider where these eggs are falling to. More often than not it is in to your carpet or soft furnishings around your home that your pet loves to lay on. These areas of your home make an ideal fake fur like habitat for the fleas, when they hatch from the eggs.
They can not feed on your sofa or carpets and so they go looking for alternative food sources, as we said earlier the flea is not choosy about who it feeds on, so long as they have warm blood it will do, so it could be your dog, cat, bird, the rats in the basement or your new born child or elderly mother. The same flea will most likely feed on several people or animals in its life time and can transfer diseases from one person to another and in some cases, although not often from one species to another.
Some flea bites are much more dangerous than others, you may just suffer an irritating red bump that itches for a couple of weeks or you may suffer an allergic reaction to the bite and suffer more, if this is the case you must seek medical attention as soon as possible, there are some very nasty diseases that are transmitted by flea bites, so if you go get bitten and suffer a fever or discomfort that is beyond just an itchy bite or the itchiness continues for more than 2 weeks again see a doctor as with everything to do with your health and the health of your family it is best to be safe than sorry.
I do apologise if this has caused you any fear, I would like to say I did not mean to worry you but I can not say that as I did, if you are scared you may be more inclined to deal with the fleas in your home and prevent a full blown infestation.
Prevention is by far the most effective way of dealing with fleas, as the first time you are bitten is often the first you know of their presence and by that time you may have hundreds of fleas and thousands of flea eggs in your home. So using some anti flea medication such as Frontline or Advantage on your pets and having herbs and ceder wood chips around entry points of your home along with flea traps in your house you will be able to deter fleas from entering, kill those that jump onto your pets, stop the breading cycle and monitor the number of fleas in your home.