The last couple of days at the office, I thought I was bitten by something around the ankles and saw some tiny creature jump off my arm. “I think we have fleas” I said to my two co-workers, who promptly told me they too had been bitten by the little beasties.
We are making plans for their demise, but I have a question about how they got into the building in the first place. I have a dog that doesn’t have fleas – I comb him every day and have yet to see one. One co-worker has two dogs that are also flea-free, and another has cats that don’t have them either, so I don’t think we carried them in.
However, there is a dog that lives next door to the building who is badly infested with fleas. His owner comes in and empties trash and does some maintenance around the office. Could they have hitched a ride on Bruce? In which case, how do we approach him about the problem?
We also had an office cat who has not been in the building since late June. He didn’t have fleas, that I know of. Is it possible for fleas to go dormant or something?
So any factually-based theories on how fleas got into our carpets?
Now 'xcuse me while I go itch.
Usually, fleas come from the animal. Cat and dog fleas specialize in their respective hosts, but will bite humans if no cat or dog is around. It’s certainly possible that one or two of them hitched a ride on Bruce.
Fleas have a normal insect life cycle: egg, larvae, pupa, adult. I don’t know how long a larvae can last without blood, but June through August seems a bit long.
Fleas can also come from rats and mice. And yes, they can hitch a ride on people.
Sounds like mice/rats/hamsters to me
Oh, good grief. I hadn’t thought about mice bringing them in. Perhaps I should mention this . . . or maybe not. Everyone was quick to blame the former office cat (now that he’s not here to defend himself).
We’ve got enough stress in the office right now without all this going on as well. It hasn’t been pretty.
In addition to what’s been previously mentioned: how often does the office carpet get vacuumed?
Fleas tend to take refuge in carpeting.
This should work without stress: notify the janitorial service of the presence of fleas.
Leave out the speculation as to where the fleas came from, and so forth. The service should know how to deal with them, that’s their job.
Once a flea is fully grown, it can live between 2 months and 1 year without feeding. The eggs can take a long time to hatch, and the whole cycle from egg to adult could take as long as 8 months, depending on the environment and species. The larvae don’t need blood to grow.
You’re probably not looking at hatched fleas here, but adults that hitched a ride. Of course, now that they’ve had a blood meal, they’re likely to start laying eggs, which will result in lots of the little buggers. Right now, conditions are optimal in most places (high heat and humidity) so you could get a wave of infestation in another two weeks or so unless you get the area treated.
First, I should explain. We are a small office (read, 2 people in – one of which is me) and a few sales reps who come and go. WE are the janitorial service (we take turns scrubbing the toilets and dusting, etc.) and until yesterday, we didn’t have a vacuum because the PTB didn’t think we needed one. Bruce, our intrepid maintenance person comes in to empty trash cans and haul papers in and out, and that’s about it. So on top of putting a weekly newspaper together, taking phone calls, taking ads, dealing with customers at the counter, and writing, editing, proofreading, etc., I’m dealing with this. No, I’m not frustrated, why do you ask? 
We flea bombed the place last night, then vacuumed the crap out of every surface then threw away the bag. We didn’t see any fleas today and didn’t feel particularly itchy, so I am hoping the problem is gone for the time being. Then again, they could be biding their time. If we stay on top of the vacuuming, we might catch any that escaped the first bomb.