Where Do Fleas Hide? 5 Places You May Find Fleas in Your Home
Get the upper hand on hide-and-seek with fleas
Highlights
Fleas like hiding in crevices where they can feed and reproduce in peace.
Common flea hiding places include low-traffic carpet areas, pet bedding, and household furnishings.
Pets and wildlife are typically responsible for carrying fleas into the home.
Overgrown vegetation near the home creates a happy home for fleas.
Finding fleas in your home is an unhappy occasion. As you prepare to launch an attack on these fleas to rid them from your home, you need to answer the question: where do fleas hide?
Aside from the irritating bites, fleas can carry disease to humans and be especially irritating for pets. Dogs, cats, and other animals can experience restlessness, scratching, and other ailments from flea bites. Read on for five places to search for fleas in your home.
1. Dogs, Cats, and Other Household Pets
The most common entry point for fleas in your home or in the yard is through your pets. Dogs, cats, and other household animals can carry fleas into your home. If you think you may have fleas indoors or out, check your pet for signs of fleas.
On dogs, fleas tend to dwell on their tails. Fleas prefer to hide in thick areas and the hair on a dog's tail usually provides this sanctuary. For cats, the opposite is true, as fleas will typically stay away from the tail end of cats. Instead, fleas often prefer the area around a cat's head and neck. That's why flea collars are a popular way to get rid of cat fleas.
2. Bedding and Soft Upholstery
Once inside your home, fleas will search for an ideal location to hide. Pet bedding is often a magnet for flea activity, such as laying eggs and larvae. If any of your pets sleep in the bed with you, fleas will make a home in your bedding as well.
Other areas around the home fleas are attracted to include sofa cushions, upholstery, and other soft furnishings throughout your home. Once fleas hunker down in these areas, they can stay there for weeks on end, enjoying the warmth the area provides. Keeping your home clean by washing bedding in warm water and routinely vacuuming the sofa can help eliminate fleas in your house.
3. Carpets and Rugs
Another soft spot fleas enjoy making a home is in carpets and rugs. If your pet loves laying down on the soft flooring for a nap or to play with their favorite toy, it's likely a flea will jump ship and get cozy. Carpets and rugs tend to be filled with debris and fleas will feed on that.
While vacuuming can help get rid of fleas in carpets and rugs, it's a more difficult task to remove any larvae left behind. Larvae feature a sticky substance that dry vacuums can't always extract. A water-based vacuum cleaning system may be a better option to ensure all traces of fleas are removed.
4. Outdoor Crawl Spaces
While pets can track fleas inside your home and in your yard, other animals are responsible for outdoor fleas as well. Wildlife such as coyotes, deer, foxes, opossums, raccoons, rodents, skunks, and stray cats will bring these insects into your yard.
Small or medium-sized wildlife will tend to search for crawl spaces when navigating across your property to find warmth and while they're there, fleas may make a home as well. Any crawl spaces near a garage, under a deck, around trash cans, or other crevices in the yard could harbor wild fleas.
5. Trees, Bushes, and Other Yard Vegetation
If you're having trouble determining which bugs are biting in your yard, it may very well be fleas. As wildlife meanders through your yard, fleas can make homes in most areas of vegetation. From trees to bushes to tall grass, fleas will hide in shady areas to stay out of the sun.
Maintaining a clean landscape outdoors is one of the best ways to combat fleas in your yard. Keeping the grass and bushes trimmed up means fleas don't have a location to stay out of the sun and they'll end up moving on or dying.
Next Steps If You Have a Flea Infestation
Even if you know how to get rid of fleas effectively, you may still face ongoing challenges. There are some natural ways to kill fleas on your own, but it’s not a guarantee they’ll fix the problem. A flea infestation requires more than a few at-home remedies to remove them. Your best bet to rid your home of these pesky insects is to hire a local flea exterminator. The average flea exterminator cost ranges between $75 to $400 per treatment.