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Pull up your socks, early fall is "flea season"
The most common flea found in school environments, the cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis), can carry or transmit tapeworms as well as the organisms that cause bubonic plague and murine typhus. Adult cat fleas are small (1/16 inch long), oval, wingless, reddish-brown to black insects with powerful hind legs. After mating and feeding, adult females can lay up to 25 eggs a day for three weeks. Within 48 hours, wormlike larvae hatch. In eight to 24 days the larvae spin cocoons in which they will develop into adults. Under optimal conditions, new adults are ready to emerge within two weeks, but they can remain in their cocoons up to a year. These variations in development time account for the sudden appearance of large numbers of adult fleas in "flea season," usually in the late summer and early fall. The population has been building up all year long in the form of eggs, larvae and pupae (cocoons), but rapid development into biting adults cannot be completed until the temperature and humidity are optimal and host cues signal adults to emerge.
Long, white athletic socks worn over the shoes and trouser legs allow you to easily see and count adult fleas as you walk through an infested area. Light traps are useful as well. If 20 or more fleas are caught in a single trap in a week, this probably indicates a serious infestation.
Frequent vacuuming will keep developing flea populations low. Flea larvae are likely to escape capture in carpet by coiling themselves around the fibers. Vibrations caused by the vacuum will stimulate new adults to emerge from their cocoons. These new adults will then be captured in the next vacuuming. Dispose of the vacuum bag immediately. Badly infested areas should be vacuumed daily. Please visit the University of Florida's School IPM Web site (http://schoolipm.ifas.ufl.edu) for more information.
Edited by: Angela Brammer, University of Florida
