>>>Hate to tell you this *G* but as long as you have a child in school be ready for catching just about everything! :o)
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>>Our daughter went to a sleepover the other week and caught fleas, through a very interesting channel. The bed she was offered was just too soft for her, so she opted for sleeping on the rug. They have cats there. It took us few hours of spraying stuff all over her room, rug and bed specially, then vacuuming it all.
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>>Back home we had a dog which regularly caught fleas and ticks whenever he broke the chain and went for one of his binges (and last time we visited the neighborhood there were a lot of dogs looking like him :), but we never caught anything from him. Not a single flea jumped over. Probably because we never allowed him in. He was a purebred yardianer.
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>It was my understanding that you don't "catch" fleas, as they live in bedding and carpets and under wainscotting, etc. i.e. if you were bitten at someone's house you wouldn't bring them home with you. Ticks and lice otoh do actually live on the body.

Afaik, fleas need blood in order to reproduce, so they take up residence where the blood is - ie - on you or me or our pets. They lay their eggs on the host (us again), but the eggs fall off when we sleep or move around, and often end up in our bedding etc.

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>Yesterday you told me you had no interest in dogs, btw.
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>Until my cat died at 19 we used to have an invasion of cat fleas, esp. every August. ALthough we'd had animals all my life I'd never encountered fleas up north, before I moved down to Brighton. At first they gave me the screaming ab-nabs when I discovered them, but I got used to them after a few years. Once, when wearing white trousers (pants) I went to my local shop. I looked down at my feet and was mortified to see my legs dotted with fleas. Ugh!
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>Yes every year we had to have the house sprayed. One time (very hot summer) it was so bad that it had to be fumigated.