Pet owners, do you ever deal with fleas?

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I don't have furry pets, so I'm stumped on this one. If you have input, I would appreciate it.

I had a flea on my hand this morning. It was weird. A woman I have known for many years stopped by yesterday, and she has a dog that spends a decent amount of time outdoors. She is, however, a responsible pet owner and cares properly for her dog... that includes flea treatments, grooming, everything. She has never had flea problems in her home and her dog has never had flea problems before. I would have heard about it if they had. Could a random flea have followed her to my house or something? Do fleas do that?

I wonder to if it's possible to get a flea in your house if you do not have animals because of something like weather change driving them in where it's warm. We do have rabbits and squirrels that hang out close to our house and even on our back porch by the door. We also have raccoons and now a skunk that lurk about, so maybe the flea came from one of the outside critters? I dunno. It got real cold here real quick. Do fleas seek warmth like other things do by invading houses in the fall?

Hopefully that was a one time thing and a lone flea. I'd be so annoyed if I end up having fleas and don't even own a pet. Now I will be vacuuming like a lunatic for a week... meh. I wanna know where that thing came from.

Fleas do not only live on a host (ie: dog, cat, human, etc), they live in the ground/soil. Waiting for what they can feed.

They are parasitic, meaning they need blood of a host to feed & live. How they get this, is a means of what is available.

Basically what I am saying is, that you dont need an animal (dog, cat, etc.) to create the presence of fleas.

Not what I wanted to hear thank you though. I just wanted it to be a stray flea from my friend's dog hopping a ride to my house. I get irrational when I find a bug or buggish thing in my house. I know this. Knowing it doesn't help my thought process though. I'm going to be paranoid about a flea infestation until I can go a few weeks without seeing another one.

Neither of my cats have gotten fleas (knock on wood). But today on the Weather Network I saw a photo of a dog with a much more creepy and disgusting infestation - his mouth was full of Asian lady beetles. And they give painful bites and hurt the animal's mouth. That poor dog!

It's funny though that they were called lady beetles instead of ladybugs because they aren't true bugs. But they aren't always female either so it's still wrong. And they weren't being very ladylike at all. When the weather gets colder they look for places to hibernate but I've never actually seen them doing so, certainly not inside a dog's mouth!

So much for ladybugs being "cute". I guess they really aren't. It makes me so sad because I thought they were one of the most non-threatening insects there is.

I don't know but sometimes I have a commendable beardfuzz going on and regularly play fight with the hound and she enjoys headbutting me and isn't the cleanest thing in existence so I probably have fleas but I rinse myself more than her so I have less fleas.

When you vacuum, don't forget to dispose of the contents in a bag you can seal, like a large Ziploc. If you have bags on your vacuum, dispose of the bag by sealing it into a plastic bag or its own bin liner and knotting it tightly before putting it in your trash.

If your vacuum is a bagless model tip the contents down the toilet and flush immediately or tip into a Ziploc, seal and put in the trash, so that any live fleas or eggs can't get out and just start infesting your place all over again.

I have a story about fleas being alive in an empty apartment! It was years ago when I first met my husband. We were looking for our own apartment, and were walking home along our street one day when we noticed a For Rent sign on a house. We called the number and the person said it's open, just go in and look around -- this was back in the 80s and things were loosey-goosey then.

So we strolled down our street to this little house and found the front door unlocked and went in and looked around. We quite liked the place. It was unfurnished, completely empty, and so to sit and talk for a minute, we sat down on the hardwood floors. There was no carpeting, just hardwood flooring.

While we were sitting on the floor talking about if we liked it and if we could afford the rent, etc, we both started feeling stinging sensations. I looked down to see FLEAS on my arms and bare legs!! !

We both were suddenly getting covered in fleas! We jumped up, freaked out, and RAN out of that place like bats out of hell! We ran all the way down our street trying to bat these things off us, and we ran into our apartment and straight into the shower, clothes and all!

We didn't know how long or short a time that place had been vacant, and we didn't even know that fleas could just appear from nowhere -- we figured they came up out from the joins/cracks between the hardwood flooring, as it was ancient and you could see each board of wood didn't completely meet up with its partner. The fleas seemed to have been down between the floorboards. Eeuch!