@anniereborn: I just want to add that with fleas, they’re about the size of a sesame seed so they look like dirt unless you know what to look for and where. The adult flea will lay where he (or she) can jump onto a host, so they will be on the floor near a path, and they smell blood which is when they jump on to the host walking by. The dog or cat flea doesn’t prefer human blood, so they jump on, bite and jump off.
I found out after the fact that the problem with bombs (flea bombs) is that the bomb goes throughout the room, so obviously on top of cabinets and the tops of hard furniture – all over. The flea is not going to be up there, he’s going to be on the floor waiting for the blood to walk by. The professional exterminator only sprays on the floor, he is not spraying up high, where the fleas will not be. They will be in soft furniture, like couches and beds.
I learned so much about fleas when I had them, I could have taught a course haha. They were very frustrating, to the point where I cried when I called the pest control place to inquire about services, and the lady asked “who is living in the house?” I told her “I have a 12 week old baby.” She said “that’s nice.” I started crying and said “It might be nice if I didn’t have fleas but I feel like they’re everywhere.” I told her i was having the rugs ripped up and she told me not to, because once the exterminator comes, you literally don’t see one living bug in the house. I ended up having the rugs ripped up anyway, because I didn’t want the baby to be crawling (when she was big enough to crawl) on a rug that had been doused with pesticide. It was a big relief, though, when I signed up for the pest control services, because I no longer had to deal with trying to figure out how to eradicate the fleas and what my next step would be.