St Aloysius, who cared for the sick during the Great Plague (1315-1317 I believe) was so kind to fleas that is was said that though his cassock (robe) was swarming with all sorts of vermin, he'd not take the life of a flea! He paid the price... he died of the plague not knowing that fleas were the carrier.

During the dark ages, people thought that the more you suffered, the more likely you would go to heaven. So when people got fleas, they didn't try to get rid of them.

Queen Christina of Sweden amused herself by executing fleas with a miniature cross bow and tiny little arrows! She also had a flea cannon. If you don't believe me, it's on display in a Stockholm museum.

In Europe, women wore flea sticks; tubes with sticky stuff such as tree sap inside. They wore them around their necks or on fur pelts knowing that fleas love animal pelts. The fleas were supposed to nest in the pelts or get stuck in the tubes instead of the wearer's skin. These became the forerunners to fashionable fur stoles and feathered boas!

In ancient Egypt, there were professional flea catchers that caught fleas by dousing themselves in milk and then standing in a room until he was covered in stuck fleas. Then he would leave the room removing a large number of fleas with him.

spreading cow poop all over your floor and letting it harden

The flea has been a pest throughout known human and pet history. And, of course, in addition to being itchy, the flea is a major carrier of disease (all those plagues) from one person to another.

Fleas are attracted by body heat, the carbon dioxide of warm exhaled breath, and by body movement.

After feeding for a few days, the larvae become pupa in a cocoon ...just like a caterpillar... and develop for 2 plus weeks depending on the environmental temperature and so forth. But unlike caterpillars, these pupa emerge as grown up fleas, hungry as heck, and about half the population have not one but two ...oh, forget it already

Fleas lay hundreds of eggs daily, and when they hatch, they hatch into larvae. STARVING larvae. And what do starving larvae and baby fleas like to eat? Their parent's poop (which is mostly dried blood from their parent's victims), that's what. And if there isn't enough prime parental poop around, they eat each other and dead skin cells and dander that are around in the environment.

Fleas are actually mutant flies that took to dining on dead mammals in prehistoric days. Their taste for fresh blood along with other changes are the result of evolution.

It kind of reminds me of the joke about the nerdish guy who liked to think positively: "Hey, I'm just two people short of a threesome!"

Male fleas have not one, but two pricks ....

The acceleration of a flea is 50 times greater than that of the space shuttle after lift off.

Fleas are the kangaroo of the insect world. They can jump 50 - 100 times their body length. If you were as agile as a flea, you could jump about a quarter of a mile!

mostly from "The Encyclopedia of Everything Yucky"

About all the older methods of flea control that no longer work well


This page is about fleas and what you need to know if you want to keep fleas out of your home and off your pet.


It's pretty important.


Toward the bottom of this page is some fun and interesting stuff about fleas to include flea circus' and the unusual sexual anatomy of fleas !


Introduction to fleas:


Fleas, of course, are aggravating little insects that carry disease, frequently cause intense skin reactions and allergies in our pets, and can be extremely difficult to control.


Fleas are notoriously good at becoming resistant to the pesticides we use to control them so many of the products available are nearly useless.


Luckily, there are some very effective products and your vet will tell you about them. As I edit this page in 2014, there are several new products no available that should be extremely convenient and effective.


Diseases Caused by Fleas:


Mild to severe skin irritation and inflammation


Skin allergies and secondary skin infections


Anemia: This is no joke; every vet sees multiple cases a year of pets near death due to blood loss from fleas


Tapeworms are spread by fleas


And less commonly:


Bubonic Plague


Typhus, Prison Fever, & Ship Fever


Haemobartonellosis


Tularemia or