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Flea control
The Flea Dirt Test
The single most useful thing you can do before ringing anybody, and it costs nothing.
What flea dirt is
Adult fleas feed on blood, and they are inefficient at it. What they pass is largely dried blood, and it falls off the animal along with the eggs. It looks like coarse ground pepper or fine dark grit: on a pale carpet, in a pet's bedding, in the coat around the base of the tail and along the spine.
It matters for two reasons. It is the most reliable sign of fleas that an owner can find without a professional, and it is also what the larvae eat, which means where you find a lot of it is where the larvae will be.
Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.
The test
Two minutes, with things you already have.
- Take a sheet of white kitchen paper and dampen it slightly — damp, not wet.
- Comb the animal over it with a fine comb, working along the back, the base of the tail and the belly, and let whatever comes out fall onto the paper. If you have no animal, scrape some of the specks off the bedding or the carpet instead.
- Leave it half a minute and look at the specks.
Flea dirt dissolves into a rust-red or reddish-brown halo, because it is blood. Soil, ordinary household dirt and dried mud stay dark brown or black and do not colour the paper.
That is the whole test. It is reliable enough that we will act on it over the phone, with one caveat: it tells you there is dried blood there, and flea dirt persists after an infestation has gone. If no animal has been in the property for a long time, say so — it changes what we are looking at.
What it also tells you
Where the flea dirt is concentrated tells you where the animal has been spending its time, and therefore where the eggs and larvae are. A heavy fall in one particular bed or one corner of a sofa is worth mentioning when you book.
Volume is a rough guide to how long it has been running. A few specks is early. Visible grit across a pale pet bed, or dark speckling you can see in the carpet, has been going a while and the treatment will need to cover more of the house.
Photograph the paper and send it to us. It is genuinely more useful than a description, and it saves a conversation.
If the test is negative
If the specks stay dark and nothing reddens, it is probably not fleas — and if you are still being bitten, that is worth knowing not a dead end. Bites around the ankles with no flea dirt anywhere can be several other things, and the answer is a different treatment not a bigger one.
Ring and describe what you have got. Guessing wrong and treating for the wrong insect costs you a visit.
Before you book
Quick Answers
Can I do the test without a pet?
Yes. Scrape the dark specks off pet bedding, a rug or the carpet onto damp white paper. It works the same way - the test is about what the specks are made of, not where they came from.
What if I find flea dirt but no fleas?
Usually it still means fleas: adults are small, fast and good at hiding in a coat or a carpet pile, and flea dirt is the more reliable of the two signs. The exception is a property where no animal has been for a long time, because flea dirt stays put after the fleas have gone. Tell us when there was last an animal in the house.
Tell Us About the Pets and the Rooms
Whether there are pets and what they are on, which rooms are affected, and how long it has been going on.
Get in touch
Book a Flea Treatment
Tell us whether there are pets in the property and what they are on, which rooms are affected, and how long it has been going on. If the property is empty between tenants, say so — that is a different treatment.
- Phone
- 01908 465226
- Message us on WhatsApp
- sales@miltonkeynespestcontroller.co.uk
- Milton Keynes Pest Controller Service
- Address
- South Row
Milton Keynes
MK9 3DQ - Covering
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire