Pop quiz…Guess the pest. You don’t need pets present to have them. They are able to jump 6” vertically they can hitch a ride on your shoes or trousers. You need to take them seriously, not just because the discomfort their bites cause but their ability to transmit several diseases. In extreme cases, you can such as plague, highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease and murine typhus acomparatively mild, acute, endemic form of typhus and characterized by fever, headache, and muscular pain. Have you guessed what it is yet? If you said a flea you win, unless you have them, at which time the only thing I have to say is “ouch”.

A female can lay as many as 4-8 eggs after each blood meal, allowing her to produce some 400-500 eggs in her lifetime. Their eggs are not stuck to the hair or body of their host but rather deposited between the hairs. This makes it easy for them to drop off onto bedding or any other areas an infested pet/animal may frequent. Rabbits, spotted skunks, opossum and occasionally rats are common carriers. Here is something to keep in mind, the larvae stage dies at relative humidities below 45% and above 95% and therefore are rarely found outdoors. They also fail to develop at temperatures below 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
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