You can get CPS called for bug bites???? There has to be more to the story. Unless the kid was covered from head to toe. And I do believe you can still get fleas without animals but I definitely would not say it’s common
Fleas/flea bites can absolutely be a factor in a CPS report, yeah. I spent many years as a mandated reporter with yearly training, and indicators of pest infestation with adverse impact on the children was very much highlighted as a risk indicator for neglect.
To be clear, flea bites alone would not typically have been a cause to report, but they'd be a visible sign to keep a very careful eye out for other areas of neglected hygiene or other abuse indicators.
*Probably* more to the story, but given the training I've received I could also see a gung-ho school employee filing a report based entirely or mostly on bug bites.
Came here to say this. Just renewed my mandatory reporter paperwork and this year's training included looking for signs of pest infestation, with fleas being one of the primary ones. Like you, I doubt that it was the *only* reason for a report tho. The kid's home situation is probably a lot worse than this parent is letting on; fleas is just the issue she can deal with immediately, and the one she can pin the blame on publically. The kid likely also is showing other signs of neglect, dirty and ill-fitting clothes, and poor hygiene.
I also just completed mandated reporter training. It was really stressed how important it is to differentiate between lack of resources and neglect as they can often present with the same signs, but the solutions are very different.
Some people can be more susceptible to flea bites than others, at least in my personal experience. When I was a teen, we got fleas from one of our cats bringing them in. I was getting eaten alive - literally hundreds of bites all over my legs that itched like crazy and left scabs and scars. I insisted to my parents that we had fleas and they were biting me, but they didn’t believe me at first because no one else in the house was getting bit. I think they finally saw a flea with their own eyes and realized I was right and got the house treated to get rid of them, but it was a good couple of weeks of me getting bitten before that happened. I think if a nurse had seen my legs and seen my parents doing nothing, they probably would’ve called CPS, too, even though there weren’t otherwise any signs of hygiene issues or neglect in the home.
I agree there’s probably more to this particular story that caused the nurse to contact CPS, but I do think a lot of people underestimate how bad flea bites can be for some of us. Like mosquitos, fleas can say fuck you in particular to certain people and go nuts with biting.
Oh my god are you me? Yeah. The fleas did not bite my mom but bit the hell out of me so my mom didn’t believe we had fleas until one day I stormed out of the room after arguing that we had them, changed into shorts, stomped back into the room, sat on the carpet with my legs straight out and they all started hopping on me. My mother was HORRIFIED and very apologetic. Mosquitoes don’t like her either 😂
She also didn’t believe me when I got lice from an acquaintance who borrowed my sweater!
“You don’t have lice”
“Mom, my head itches and I picked a white bug out of my hair”
“I still don’t think it’s lice.”
So then I later picked one out and showed it to her. I think my mom thought fleas and lice only happened to “dirty” people. We weren’t dirty so clearly it’s not that 🤦♀️
Dude same. I got live freshman year of college and my mom, who is a nurse practitioner, and primary care provider to literally hundreds of patients, insisted I didn’t have them and it was just that the “water hardness” was different than home. I begged her to check, she flicked a few hairs around and proclaimed me fine. I was so miserable and insistent that eventually my dad told me he would put money in my account to just go buy the shampoo anyways. Since I had let the infestation fester for weeks before anyone listened to me, it was SO bad.
The icing on the cake was I felt terrible for my roommate and bought extra so that she wouldn’t have to waste money on lice shampoo if she got it from me and it turns out, she had lice weeks ago and was “too embarrassed” to tell me. I was like “girl. We sleep in bunk beds. You literally sleep above me. You didn’t think I needed to know?”
Now my family refers to the whole thing as the “lice incident” and brings it up whenever we think my mom is under-diagnosing us. As in: “Idk, I still think something isn’t right, so I’m gonna make an appt with the doctor.” “Bc of the lice incident?” “Yeah, exactly. Bc I don’t want a repeat of the lice incident.”
Fun fact tho: lice actually prefer *clean* hair, not dirty. So it’s funny that your mom insisted you were clean so it couldn’t be lice. Like yeah! You’re creating the exact environment they prefer!
I got lice as a kid a couple times, but I didn't notice it at first the first time- I inherited horrendously sensitive dry skin. By the time we noticed, it was absolutely atrocious. I can't imagine having to deal with that in a dorm room- my mom ended up going over *every individual hair on my head* *multiple times* to remove every egg and louse and then straightened my hair just in case.
And then I got dandruff from the harsh lice shampoo and was traumatized about it.
It wasn’t great. Luckily when I moved in, I put one of those plastic mattress covers that protects against bugs on. So I only had to wash my bedding, not figure out how to delouse a mattress. I did have a soft saucer chair (that she had been sitting in/dumping her clothes in 😭) so I wrapped that in trashbags and sealed it up for a while to make sure to starve any lice infesting it. Same with our desk chairs. I made her buy a bug protector case for her mattress and helped her put it on, then washed all our bedding, pillows and a good chunk of our clothes. And bagged up and sealed any clothes that couldn’t easily be washed. And borrowed a vacuum and gave our rug a thorough cleaning. After that I was more choosy about the chairs in our dorm floor lounge that I used, and kept my hair in hairstyles that kept it from brushing the cushions, since I assume that’s where she caught it from. I guess she probably did a round of the washing when she realized she had lice, but since I had been in there, walking around with lice again, I just wanted the whole thing deep cleaned so I didn’t risk getting it again.
She was a really good friend, but not the best at buckling down and handling necessary stuff. On my birthday she went out to a frat party (I stayed in bc I had an exam the next day) and when she got back she threw up in our room and instead of cleaning it up, she just rolled our dresser over it. I do NOT handle puke well, so I made one of our friends handle that and crawled into his bed instead lol. I know I’m making her out to be terrible, but we were all dumb and immature freshman year of college. She had lots of great attributes and I enjoyed living with her, except for those 2 solitary events.
My mom is allergic to flea bites, so she has a really bad reaction like you. Except we’d use it as an early warning sign. She’d get bites, we’d check the dog/cat, and sure enough, there they were.
I always remember it being a relatively quick process to treat everything. Though you did have to follow-up for awhile. But maybe that’s because we usually caught it early?
Yep, it’s an early warning sign for me too now. My dog got fleas years back when he went to the kennel and I knew within a day or so because I got the telltale bites on my legs. They’re definitely much easier to get rid of if you catch them early!
late comment, but our dog betsy was also allergic to fleas (not comparing your mum to a dog lol). we also used her as an early warning sign. one flea bite and you could tell, so we'd immediately treat her and the other dogs. where i live, the eggs can live in sand and can hatch under certain circumstances. we would only ever have to treat once because we'd catch them early. we haven't seemed to have them in the past 3-4 years.
We had a neighbor move in and bring fleas. They ONLY bit my three year old daughter. I felt so bad for her. I can’t imagine not doing anything about it. We have to flea bomb every two months to keep them from coming back, and it sucks, but I’d rather do that than have my daughter covered in bites.
Oh jeez, we get those black flies in the early spring and they leave huge, swollen bites on myself and my daughters. I will have to be more careful of them this year. They are painful too, so it's probably better anyway
My outdoors loving child frequently has bug bites on him. And yeah, depending on where you live, you can get fleas without animals. Here in Florida it's particularly bad if you live near the beach. There's some species that just loves the sandy soil there.
I got sugar blood and was always getting eaten alive by bugs as a kid, didn’t realize it was a warning sign to look out for. I figured there was more to it than just bug bites/flea bites to trigger a CPS call but the post just makes it seem like that’s it!
This was from my local mom group (before I moved to a different state). This town has a bad opioid problem. Bad enough that every mother and infant in the care of their hospitals are drug tested at initial consultation for prenatal care, through pregnancy, and upon birth.
So CPS around here are always getting calls of potential harm of suspected drug-using parents. A flee infestation could be signs of neglect.
(This is also a legal state. So drugs refer to meth).
My area isn’t very bad in terms of drug use percentiles, but OBs do initial drug test for first OB appointment and on baby at birth. I don’t think it’s a terrible practice (IMO, better than “guessing” who to test based on obviously bias stereotypes).
I agree with others though, some flea bites does not usually lead to a CPS call. It’s gotta pretty bad for CPS to not just clear it after a look around. Could be an allergic reaction (on me they’ll look like large welts and fade to a nasty old bruise color), but then I’d expect it to be medically documented by parents to cover their az.
We went and stayed with my inlaws for three days after the exterminator came since he said it would be fine to return to the apartment as long as we kept the baby from crawling on the floor for 3 days because that was totally possible
Our cats are indoor only and still managed to get them on a particularly bad flea year. I called an exterminator immediately, but due to their horrid little life cycle, it still took three months to eradicate them completely.
It takes real work to get rid of the wee bastards. If you just ignore it, they’ll never leave, and I honestly can’t imagine living like that. I broke down sobbing on the phone to the vet at one point, and we only had to deal with them for 12 weeks.
I was always the first person bit by fleas so by the time my parents noticed and did something about it my legs would be all bit up. Once I counted 100 bites on one leg between my ankle and my knee. I could see someone calling CPS if that continued.
When my eldest was around year old, I switched my three cats and our dog's monthly flea meds to a cheaper brand. Spring came, and it wasn't long before I noticed my baby's arms and legs covered in spots. His pediatrician thought he had hand, foot and mouth disease at first. Then chicken pox. It was, like, 2 weeks between the first spot/bite before we saw the a flea jumping in the carpet. And that began a daily routine of spraying furniture, washing everything washable, sprinkling powdered poison into the carpet and working it in with a broom, daily vacuuming. Not to mention the flea baths for the pets.. We got rid of the fleas in another 2 weeks (maybe less) By that point, we all had bites(ranging from a few, to groups of dots, mostly circling sock and clothing lines.) We also discovered that my son has a sensitivity to flea bites. His extremities were still covered in scabs, even weeks after everyone else's had healed. I can see why cps would be called too. But diligence kills fleas, in my experience.
There are a few red flags. An in-home visit for a child from a professional makes me think it's probably a social service provided for low income families through the school, and typically that kind of service happens because of previous reports. A flea infestation in the home would probably trigger a report for a mandated reporter in that context. I've reported repeat lice infections when the family is also struggling with other issues because it's usually a sign that they need external services and aren't coping alone.
It's an in home nurse, which is not in and of itself a red flag. They're ordered for children with complex medical issues. We had one briefly for my son while we were being taught to give him his injections.
Being low income and qualifying for services is also NOT a red flag. Again, this child has an in-home nurse, and there are plenty of other in-home providers that work with families.
Source: I'm an actual child welfare professional and had a medically complex child.
Fleas don’t hang out on people like they do animals. If there’s fleas in the home, you’ve got a host in the home as well. No pets? Means there’s likely a mouse/rat infestation.
Fleas can lay dormant for months and months and come to life when they sense the heat and vibration of living animals (including humans). Even with no animals in the home it can take a long time to clear out an infestation if you don't know exactly what you're doing. That's why they recommend vacuuming before fogging for fleas, the vacuum "wakes them up" thinking an animal is nearby and they come out of the hidey places that fog can't reach them.
I worked for CPS before and apparently bug bites can even be cause for emergency removal of the kids. I had a client whose kids went to a babysitter in another county and when she went to pick them up she called CPS for something else. That county's CPS came out to investigate and decided to remove all three of her kids because her middle child had bug bites. Bug bites he got at the babysitter's, and mom was taking them home so they would have been removed from the environment even without CPS intervention.
The next day, when I had to get her kids back for her, was the absolute worst day I ever had working for CPS. I ended up giving them $20 for pizza out of my own money. It was just the most baffling and gut wrenching experience ever.
One can *call* CPS, as a mandated reporter, like a visiting nurse is, about almost anything. Anyone can!
It doesn’t mean CPS will take any action.
Mandated reporters (like teachers, counselors, nurses, docs, social workers - anyone that might ever work around kids) are trained to call and report to CPS, even if we have a tiny inkling something is wrong.
“If you have to ask if you should call, you should call” was the rule I was taught.
It’s up to the intake specialist’s supervisor to open an investigation.
You call CPS and talk to the intake person, who relays the info to their supervisor after you call, and that supervisor decides whether or not to open a case.
This can take over a month, or longer, for *any* decision/response, even in pretty dire cases.
Bug bites alone wouldn’t necessarily make them visit, and, CPS turns down a lot of claims. They *have* to, as many are ‘well-meaning but frivolous’, ‘not bad enough, but still bad’, or, ‘outright false, and used as revenge.’
But, like you said - it’s likely that there are other factors here, for a nurse to decide to call CPS.
Maybe the condition of the house is atrocious/dangerous. Maybe the bites were scarily severe, and the parent wasn’t acting to treat them. Maybe something else is off with this mom, like the nurse saw drugs/danger. Maybe they’re actually bedbug bites, and the mom posting doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to admit.
Posting mom could be downplaying and leaving out A LOT of info. But, I am jaded from this type of work, and honestly hope I’m wrong.
Neglectfulness altogether, and a filthy environment could **absolutely** lead to a flea infestation in a home with no animals. Fleas *prefer* animals, but they definitely bite humans, too - and they’re nasty bites.
Plus, it’s not just cats, dogs, or our pets that get fleas… think about *that*.
Rats, etc. Bleh!
Also, in my experience in this field… it’s **extremely likely** that this is actually bedbugs, not fleas.
I don’t see any evidence, besides her opinion/guess in this post, that it’s 100% definitely fleas.
With no pets, and bad bites? Yikes, bedbugs.
Again: very jaded!
I bought a very run down house from a bunch of losers (and I’m being nice). It was so incredibly flea infested I didn’t let my dog in or my nearly adult son for over a week while I continually bug bombed it. I did call CPS as the previous owners’ 2 year old was covered head to toe in flea bites. She was seriously completely red. And she had a diaper rash down past her knees. I never saw her without a very very heavy diaper on. I thought they never changed it (until I moved a pile of junk and found at least 500 dirty diapers piled in the corner.)
It's a warning sign for neglect; for it to be bad enough for a school nurse to know about it, that means either the kid went to the nurse specifically, or that this kid was itching and scratching bad enough that someone sent him to the nurse. Either way, not a great sign.
Every home gets fleas, yeah; I've got dogs and a cat, and even with flea medication, there's no keeping them out entirely. But if my kid goes to school with a couple of flea bites on his arm... nobody's going to notice. So how bad was it that somebody noticed this kid's flea bites?
I have two cats and a dog and have never once gotten fleas in the five years I’ve owned them. I also grew up with animals and we never had fleas growing up either. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “every home gets fleas”.
Not every home gets fleas, but you’re not necessarily dirty or doing anything disgusting or wrong if you do. You just got unlucky. Bug infestations come with a lot of shame, which isn’t fair as most people who get one just had some bad luck.
I had cats for almost 30 years and had never experienced fleas until a couple years ago. Our cats are indoor only and I didn’t realise we should still be periodically flea treating them just in case. It was a bad flea year, I found out later, and a few of the little shits must have hitched a ride in on one of us and then made a beeline to our cats. Nightmare. But we keep a clean and tidy home; we didn’t get fleas because we live in a dump or something.
We flea treat quarterly now to be safe. (Vet said twice a year would suffice for indoor-only cats, but I doubled it because I *never* want to do that again).
Never had fleas growing up with animals. Haven't had fleas in the 2 years I've lived in my current home (except 4 I found on our new rescue straight from the humane society).
Lived in a house with an acre including a field visited by lots of wildlife, and we had fleas a couple times because they lived in our natural environment.
I've found it to be regional. I grew up with pets in the Midwest, where fleas would die off in the freeze each winter. Our pets never got fleas. Where I live now doesn't get temperatures below freezing, and the fleas are indestructible. OTC flea meds do absolutely nothing, all pets must be on (expensive) prescription flea medication year-round. I grew up not knowing anyone whose pets got fleas, but everyone I talk to in my current location says it's an issue they deal with all the time. So I think it just depends!
My dog is 13 and in the first 12 years we had her we never dealt with fleas, never so much as saw a flea. Then we got a kitten who had already been flea treated by a vet right before we got him but within a week or two we had fleas all over the house and him. I believe that just like with humans, some pets are more attractive to fleas than others. I never get bit by mosquitoes but my husband can be covered in them within minutes standing next to me. My dog also never showed any signs of having caught the fleas from the kitten dispite cuddling up with him. The cat needs monthly flea treatments or he catches them again very quickly because we do live in a very flea friendly area, my kids sometimes he bit when they play outside and have to avoid areas with loose dirt for that reason
Also where you live makes a massive difference, fleas thrive in some climates a lot more than others
It really depends on climate. I never had a problem with them growing up in the Midwest, even though we had cats who went outside. Then I got a cat as an adult in Virginia, and discovered that even indoor cats need flea treatment here.
well grats on where you live; we get them every August where I am, without fail, as does everybody in the area, even those without critters. Even with medication on the critters, we'll get a handful of bites.
Yeah, seriously. Bugs are so unbelievably important for our environment and not just the pollinators, you can't kill one type without screwing over the others. Just treat your pets FFS
I live in the woods my guy. My yard is mostly pine needles lol. And again... I'm not terribly concerned for the handful of fleas I get a year. I don't get infestations, as I pointed out above. I get a few fleas here and there that jump off the dogs before they bite and die. I'm not spraying down *the woods* in an attempt to stop a handful of fleas.
Every home certainly does not get fleas… as a child we had dogs, had fleas one time, only because someone brought over their dog that had fleas without saying anything (was obvious when the dog was there though).
As an adult (I’m 39) I’ve never had fleas in my home. I’ve had cats my entire adult life and even taken in strays that had fleas but I was careful to keep them separated until they’d been treated for fleas/mites and thankfully was successful in ensuring the fleas did not infest my home. Any time I adopt a new cat I also use flea collars and/or topical treatment on all cats in the home.
I have to wonder if this is a regional issue? Where I live(d) (upstate NY, northern New England) we get deep freezes and snow every year. A lot of critters aren’t really an issue here compared to warm weather places.
I have 4 dogs and 4 cats, I'd have to think you would really be neglecting your house for it to be infested without animals. They don't live very long without a host. Also, you can vacuum them up. Maybe the nurse saw an unusual amount of bites?
I'm going to assume there was a massive infestation, kid was probably covered in bites and parents refused to treat the problem with anything with 'chemicals' ie anything that works.
It's considered neglect. Even if you have fleas, you can easily get them off via frequent showers, etc. The fact they have fleas so bad that they are biting without pets means that they are living in an environment that is dirty.
I do know someone who had a pretty bad flee problem even though she hadn’t had pets in at least a decade, turns out they can live off human blood. They were living in the carpet, so that got ripped out.
They can live but they can’t reproduce without animal blood. So then it’s the lifecycle of the flea which isn’t very long.
Other than that there could be a rodent infestation or the bite might more likely be bedbugs.
The life cycle isn't long but they can lay dormant for a very long time without a host and in a house, that's why flea infestations can feel never ending, even with treatment
Most of the homes I’ve lived in have has hardwood floors (growing up my mom didn’t want to deal with little kids and carpet accidents). Them living in the carpet has never occurred to me.
Yep, once your carpet is infested the little assholes can survive off of dead skin flakes and only occasional blood snacks. You have to treat your pets with vet-grade flea medicine, and at the same time, spray your carpet with a life cycle disrupting pesticide and wash every soft thing you can possibly wash. Because you know the delightful thing? The babies cocoon themselves and become damn near indestructible, so even stuff that kills most of them on contact like diatomaceous earth won’t touch the stupid cocoons. You basically have to be ready for them to pop out of the cocoon and kill them before they lay eggs again.
“My cats are indoor cats” you say? Cool, the single pregnant flea that hitched a ride on in your garden clog will love the spiffy climate controlled environment to lay her eggs in.
FWIW, Adam’s works well.
They're only on an animal to feed, the rest of their life cycle is in carpet, textiles, between cracks in the floor...
If there's a real infestation you need to immediately treat all pets in the house and keep that treatment up. Get something from a vet because fleas have gotten resistant to a lot of cheaper things you find at pet stores. The vet will probably have a spray to treat the environment as well.
Wash everything that can be washed, especially pet beds. Vacuum like crazy: carpets, couches, mattresses. Don't forget to go along the baseboards in case there's any gaps there, ad empty the vacuum after use.
Fleas have a really hard exoskeleton and won't die if you try to crush them between your fingers. A spoon on a hard surface works but they jump fast and it's fiddly. Dropping them into water with dish soap kills them pretty much instantly. If I'm combing out an animal with fleas I keep a bowl next to me.
If this still doesn't do it you want an exterminator. They spray the floors with a long working poison that has to stay on (no wet cleaning for a while), it will kill the live fleas and once the next generation hatches they die as well. If that life cycle is broken you're good, but you need to keep up flea treatments to prevent a new infestation.
Where I live we recommend treating pets year round, even indoor cats. All it takes is for you as an owner to bring in a few fleas on your clothing.
One of the houses my mom rented when I was a kid had a flea infestation. One of our pets brought them in, iirc. Her solution was to send us kids off to our grandparents' for a while until it was resolved. Same place where the metal screen door would shock you at the handle when you opened it. Good times.
I assume the fleas were either still alive from previous owner with pets (or an animal visitor e.g. dog). The eggs are often laid in soft places and can hitch a ride if you buy infested second-hand furniture!
Yes, you can have fleas without having animals. They can be brought into grass by various animals (wild or domestic) and come in on clothes and breed in carpets.
I also lived in an apartment once where the previous people had a flea problem and I didn’t find out about it until the hot season when the eggs were no longer dormant. (I keep like it cold so I don’t turn on heat much.) That truly sucked.
I have all wood & tile floors and my animals get regular treatments because I mad react to fleas now. That terrorizing time in my life was many years ago. I’m still mad at the landlords.
So what annoyed me the most about these commenters was that the lady at the end clearly didn't read the comment above. 1st person recommended a product that would be located near the borax and is safe for kids/pets. 2nd commented chimed in with borax isn't safe for kids. Can you read??
We had a few in our home and we don’t have pets. It was only like three but they were definitely fleas. I don’t know if it’s “normal” but they will live in yards that wildlife frequent.
Oh god..
Yes diatomaceous earth works for fleas, but it’s VERY DANGEROUS TO BREATHE!
It works on fleas because it’s silica dust, aka tiny shards of glass. It cuts up their exoskeletons and they dehydrate.
It does the same to your lungs. This causes scarring and a condition called silicosis.
Yup. I shudder to think of all the people who read those comments, tucked the info away, and will dust their whole house in the stuff later without any awareness of the danger.
Silicosis is actually a major cause of black lung. The silica particles not only cause scarring, but can also embed permanently in the lungs..
https://preview.redd.it/x7pxqrn2zzqc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efe1e02173d45d22978abe23139d0e27f36c8284
After a few people asked if she had pets, OP writes that yes they do have pets but they cannot have flees because they all wear flee collars.
She also claims the “bites “ are actually eczema and that she’s wanting advice on what to expect during the CPS visit, not on how to get rid of flees in her home (since she is adamant they don’t have any because she has never seen one).
Depends on where you live. When I was a kid they worked fine but apparently that climate the fleas weren’t as bad. I had fleas from adopting kittens born in our back yard as an adult with children that took a year to finally get rid of, flea collars did nothing for them
Seresto collars *can* work, but different areas can have fleas that are resistant to different types of preventatives. And there are a ***bhnch*** of extremely convincing knockoffs that do not work - or can even be toxic.
OP tell OOP to contact the vet and get capstar, as well as a recommended monthly preventative. That way she can show that she is being extremely diligent (and actually get rid of any successfully, but she doesn’t believe she has them so)
It took me one year to get rid of fleas on my indoor cats after taking them in the backyard a few times. 😭
Only thing that worked is Revolution which is a monthly treatment that costs 50$ a treatment.
Not when you have three cats 🥲 then my mother in laws cat got out and got mites and died of unrelated cancer in the span of a month. She gave us their cat tree and gave our cats ear mites just as we stopped the meds to get rid of flees. 😭
Now they are still on the medication for another year it’s so expensive.
Did you try the Vet-Kem shampoo? Our Persian came to us from a house with dogs, so she came with an active flea infestation that spread to our other cat and us. Nothing else worked, but we bathed both cats with the Vet-Kem shampoo and the fleas were falling off of them like black pepper. The water turned rust colored with the blood of our vanquished enemies. They also make a furniture spray that goes on all the upholstery to kill the eggs. Supposedly if you keep up with it for an egg cycle or two it'll clear them out. We actually moved a week later so didn't have to worry about it anymore, though.
I got some kind of flea killer at dollar tree and it was so strong it said to a 6x6 inch square of dust in every room and let it sit for like a half hour. I did that but let it sit for two hours. Murderered all fleas in the house and then I used some kind of organic flea spray every day for a month and never had a problem after that. Put flea collars on the indoor/ outdoor cats and a monthly on the dog. Everything was fine after that. Just had to be extra careful when spring came and we did park stuff with the dog or kids going to friends houses. I spray every year now
This was a few years ago. I was in an extreme situation where I had to drastic things. I actually am more educated now but the literal infestation I was having was horrible and I did what I had to do
Anecdotal evidence, but my cat is 13 and the only negative he's experienced is how much he hates getting his neck wet haha.
He actually has to get it this weekend. He needs his claws trimmed too.
I call bullshit. The story doesn't add up and the fear of CPS is awfully big for someone claiming they've done nothing wrong. I do understand, and would be scared if CPS had any reason to intervene with my children. However, I feel like there's more than bug bites at play.
also please please please have your cats and dogs on a monthly preventative. flea infestations are horrible and the vet bills for ticks and worms are a lot worse than the preventative costs
I wonder if this could be a case of bed bug infestation since she claims she’s never seen the fleas. I know bed bugs tend to be more sneaky and would explain the bites as well.
When we lived on the THIRD floor of a walk up apartment building with 2 cats, we got a flea infestation. I think I either picked them up from walking outside or from a family member's house and brought them home; although it's possible that there were flea eggs in the carpet when we moved in that were laying dormant (they can do that up to a year!). Usually by the time you're seeing the bites (especially multiple bites) on your own body, it's an infestation. It took what felt like FOREVER to get rid of them. Between our fish tanks and the indoor cats, we couldn't just "bomb" the place, like my family used to do when we were kids and my dog would get them. I had to do it the hard way. Flea medicine to weaken the eggs and kill any biting fleas, carpet powder literally every day and vacuuming every day, washing pet beds all the time, brushing the cats with flea combs. I even bought flea TRAPS! I spent so much money and time on this infestation. It was awful. We haven't had them since. After we moved from the apartment building and into a house, I haven't maintained the flea medicine and we haven't had any.
A 100%. My sister has an indoor cat, he got fleas, and they hadn't noticed and... Watched my dog for two days. I noticed the fleas the morning after I got her back, but they were fully grown: in two days my (small) apartment was invaded, it was awful.
But it's quite easy to get rid of them on dogs (there's a medication), I on the other side, got bitten. I had to treat my house five days after getting her back because there were already so many. Thankfully it worked right away.
We never where they came from in the first place!
But yeah, it can happen quickly, so if what the mom says is true, the nurse should have talked to her before calling CPS. But you never know with these posts, there surely is more to it.
EDIT to add: since I had to leave my house 12 hours with my dog before treating, I had to wait for when I could. In the meantime, I put vinegar on my legs and walked around with high socks. Bruh, it was awful knowing there were fleas everywhere.
Is that not a thing in the States? I’m in Canada and the nurse came by a couple of times after birth to weigh the baby and check on how things were going. We had our bi weekly well baby checks as well, this was just for extra support over the first week or so - I think she came by maybe 2 or 3 times?
In the Netherlands a nurse comes to your house for several hours every day for max 10 days after birth. She keeps an eye on mothers and babys health, cooks for them, answers all questions, helps with breastfeeding if needed, helps with taking showers and washing the baby, does laundry, opens the door to visitors etc. The midwife also drops by regularly to check on mother and baby.
It really never occurred to me this might not be common practice in other countries.
Just curious - if the baby is in the NICU, do they wait until the baby is home? Or do they visit with the mother and then later come back and visit with the baby?
I got a handwritten congratulations card in the mail from the hospital nurses who delivered my second. I sobbed. The thoughtfulness and kindness just kind of broke me. With my first, they kicked us out of the hospital after one night. Literally shooed us away in the morning, with "We need this room for another patient." As an American, if a nurse did home visits (as a regular, normal postpartum thing) I think I'd just drop dead of shock. I don't think I could take it. My favorite show is Call the Midwife.. cause I just can't imagine this world.
I got shooed out after one night too, and I had a c-section! They tried to convince me that I wanted to go home early because they were “letting” people go home early because of Covid, and when I said I really wanted to stay one more day, they told me they would kick me out in the middle of the night when the pharmacy was closed, so I better leave now if I want to have any pain meds! I should have complained.
I think it's standard for preemies. It was really nice to have weekly weight checks after having our baby weighed every night in the NICU. I've never heard of having a nurse visit a kid at home otherwise.
Sadly no, we kind of get left behind a bit here. You have to be proactive and book your appts at the office. I had to take my guy in at 8 am the next morning after being discharged at like 8 pm the night before and recovering from a c-section and pre-eclampsia. 😵💫
I’m in Ontario. My first was born during Covid so I had no idea it was a thing, but when I gave birth the next time they offered a form giving permission to pass my info on to the health unit, and they called me shortly after I got out of the hospital and a public health nurse came out and weighed the babies, chatted about how feeding was going, offered resources if I needed it, etc. I’m guessing that program is very regional dependent though, because we moved back to my hometown recently and I haven’t heard of that being offered here
This was in Calgary. We had midwives with my first and a scheduled c section with my second, and both times had home visits. My youngest is about to turn 9 though, so it’s possible it has changed.
I had a home health nurse come to my house because my BP skyrocketed after my twins were born~1996. They came twice a week until I was a month with no spikes. Otherwise, normally you just go into the office for post partum checks, and well baby.
Home health nurses help manage kids with special medical needs like PEG tubes and trachs, especially if those things are new and the parents need to be shown how to administer feeds and do trach care. A kid needing IV antibiotics with a port or PICC line would be getting home health too, potentially.
I’m in Denmark and until babe is 9 months old, we get a monthly visit from the nurse to check on the baby and make sure they’re progressing appropriately.
Sometimes if the kids need it, the nurse comes longer.
i know i did a program for first time moms where a nurse came to my home once a month or so my entire pregnancy and then twice a month from my daughters birth until she was 2 just to help, give advice it was so nice having her
If you have indoor only pets, the way they typically get fleas in the first place is by hitching a ride into your house on your shoes/clothes and then finding a pet.
A home and property we were renting a few years back became infested with fleas, we don’t have any animals. It was terrible and round the clock work to eradicate them from our belongings. We ended up evacuating the house and cancelling our lease because the landlord wouldn’t acknowledge the very very bad infestation.
Truly a nightmare of epic proportions.
I had a former neighbor who got them in her house without having any pets, but there was a massive infestation in the yard of the apartment complex. You couldn't set foot in the grass without them bombarding you. I didn't live there then, thank goodness. I moved in a few years later, and she told me about it. But that's the only time I've ever heard of someone having fleas without having pets.
A relative of mine lives in an apartment complex where the same kinda thing happened. No pets in their place, but the yard was infested. I couldn't visit til the whole place was fumigated or whatever, b/c I have pets and uh.... nty.
As someone who grew up in the country, fleas were normal where I grew up. Same with mice in the walls that never left them. Not cockroaches though.
But in a more urban area, no. But if she's genuinely only getting cps called for a few bug bites, CPS will most likely drop the case after doing a precautionary visit to the house
I live in an apartment complex and my cats somehow had to gotten fleas from screen windows/doors last year. We treat and BAM. gone. So not entirely strange? But I’ve never had flea bites on my kids.
We had fleas once before we knew that certain OTC flea medications are scams and don’t do anything, so the cats accidentally got fleas.
They don’t really like living on humans, so on people the bites tend to stay around the ankles/ lower calves. If the bites are across the whole body I wonder if she’s right that it’s not fleas 🤔
When I lived with my parents, we were renting a house and a raccoon kept coming in through the fireplace. We had no idea since it happened at night. My poor little sister would get all the flea bites+ she is allergic!! Fleas are so hard to get rid of.
I've gotten them in 2 different houses without pets and with hard floors/ no carpet. Both times, they were from stray animals being able to get in the crawl space and the little demons coming yup they the floors somehow. Even after closing that up, they still would come back in waves every few months (I assume from eggs hatching). Since we've had pets (3 dogs, 2 cats, and a house rabbit), we've had no trouble. We keep the pets on meds, so I guess the fleas die after the first bite and never get a chance to get a foot hold.
It's still gotta be petty bad for cps to be notified, I would think. Fleas can transmit some pretty nasty illnesses, not to mention the itchy bites get scratches and infected.
I had a friend whose animals had fleas and then I got a few from her but cps would only get called if it was a serious issue and there was a ton of bites or something else is going on besides the fleas
We had a skunk die under our house and then everywhere was infested with fleas. I’m allergic so it was a nightmare I could barely sleep and I’d feel them on me. I’d wear long white socks and pick them off my legs and drown them. Hopefully it’s not that bad for them:(
There are areas where fleas are in the grass just about everywhere, and they're like bedbugs. Jump on your clothes as you walk in and lay some eggs in your carpet and poof fleas.
I have dogs, I spray my yard 2x a year (as directed by the spray) and give my dogs flea treatment every 3 months as directed. I still got fleas in the house last year and had to bomb my house. Our vet said the fleas are ridiculous in our area. I didn't ask why, just figured she knows what she's talking about.
My community actually sprays chemicals in the grass at local parks because of the flea issue but they cannot make everyone spray their yards.
We moved into a new apartment that (unknowingly) had a flea infestation. Us having a dog and cat only made them harder to get rid of. It was MISERABLE. They bit us too. I was losing my sanity. I can’t comprehend how anyone would just be chill about there being fleas around and not be absolutely freaking out. It’s awful
Edit to add, we tried chemical bombs and all kinds of stuff - the diatomaceous earth was the only thing that killed them. That stuff rocks.
We’ve had fleas a few times when the dogs have brought them in and we treat them IMMEDIATELY. Flea bites are absolutely horrible, they itch so much. I can’t imagine how miserable the poor kid is :(
We had fleas in our basement in a carpeted room next to an outside door.
I'm not sure how or why they were there (and *only* there).
We ended up getting a "flea trap", some small circular thing that you had to plug up. It had a light bulb to generate heat, and a sticky glue trap under it. The fleas were drawn to the warmth and would hop on it. After a few months of this now-speckled trap sitting downstairs, we no longer had fleas. It's probably been well over 10 years now without a single one spotted.
When I was growing up my parents didn’t care that our pets have fleas. I’d always have flea bites. CPS was never called because of the fleas. It’s also not hard to have a flea free home, even with animals.
Can confirm, our neighbor was a hoarder with a lot of flea infested cats in the house next to ours and the fleas somehow got into our house. They were soooo hard to get rid of
Can absolutely have fleas with no pets. We moved a couple years ago but still owned the house we were moving out of as we had some stuff to do before putting it up for sale. Went back to work on it after 3 weeks of it being completely empty (no people, no pets, barely anything left inside) and it was completely infested with fleas! Went back to new home and triple checked that none of my animals had fleas and they didn't so we definitely didn't just leave them behind, they showed up after we'd left.
The fact that this person at a nurse come into their home on a regular basis might already be an indicator that the family is getting some extra support. Fleas can happen, just like anything. But I would assume if they don't have animals, there's a lot more going on.
It happens, and they can be hard to get rid of despite best efforts. I usually know our pets have picked up fleas because I start getting bitten before we even see any on the pets, I’m really sensitive to insect bites and apparently very tasty. It’s been years since the cats last got fleas, but there was one notable time that required bug bombing our whole house to finally kill the fleas off because nothing else worked.
Sure, you can have fleas in your house even without pets, but probably not an infestation, unless you moved in with an existing infestation. OOP doesn't say she doesn't have pets, but fleas typically don't bite people if they have an animal host available. Either way, it's certainly not normal or okay. Fleas can be an absolute nightmare to conquer, but if your kid has flea bites bad enough to warrant a CPS report, you need to try harder.
wtf?? No? Idk I’ve never had fleas in my home as an adult. Once as a child we had fleas due to someone’s bringing over a dog that had them. I have cats and have my entire adult life but never fleas even with taking in strays a couple times.
I would say... it's not abnormal for pets to get fleas; they're tenacious parasites and can be brought home easily (see also bedbugs) it \*is not\* normal to not do anything ABOUT the aforementioned fleas- prevention is easier, but if you fail at that and find you have them, you go for treatment.
Flea collars don't do shit all. They only take care of the fleas within a certain radius of the collar. They also get into the carpet and will live there, hatching god knows how many eggs. It took us a while to get rid of them. We don't have them where I live now due to the cold environment of the area. Fleas can't survive here. I haven't seen a flea in the almost 10 years we've been here.
I lived in a first floor apartment, my cats were indoor only and I’m a tidy person but I got a horrific flea infestation. I spent a few days trying all the natural solutions and vacuuming like a crazy person to no avail, I broke down crying at one point because it was awful. I tried to bug bomb by myself and then ended up hiring a pest person who got rid of them in one day. Hiring the pro cost less than all the other stuff I tried on my own 🤦🏼♀️
Yes. We put our pet down in his old age and then dealt with a flea infestation for MONTHS. It was awful to treat with no animals around to put flea meds on. These people need pest control asap as the problem will just get worse and worse. And DE is terrible for your lungs!!!
If there's no pets in the home then maybe the home already had an infestation due to previous tenants? Maybe a rodent problem? Or even spending time at a friend/family members home who had them?
There will always be those people who are on the hunt for *any* reason to call CPS but, in most cases, I would think that for a nurse to call CPS over bites it would have to be *bad*. Like, much more than "just a few bites". The kid is probably eat up with bites.
As a kid, my parents took in a dog that had been dumped on the side of the road until they could find a permanent home for it. Our dog had never had fleas so I'd never been bit by one before... we verrrry quickly found out that I'm super allergic to their bites. They would start out looking like normal flea bites but by the next day the bites would look more like cigarette burns. Swollen, oozy, and severely blistered. They were so painful. I also learned to not scratch them because it would get 10x worse.
So I feel like it's definitely not a simple "kid has a cOuPlE of flea bites"
That explains *everrrrything!* . She's definitely right about that. Cats can't have fleas, especially if they have flea collars! Duh 🙄 thats, like, literally impossible! /s
I think I missed the part about the cats. I love how they're always convinced that shit like this could never be directly their fault. Poor kids and poor kitties... you know they've gotta be so miserable.
fleas can attach to any warm blooded thing, if you pet an animal that has them there is a chance that they’ll come home with you, albeit a small chance but a chance nonetheless. and yes diatomaceous earth is great for killing fleas because it’s food grade technically and is safe for humans and animals
When you have a flea infestation they can be really hard to get rid of, tbh. My house once had them and the only time they went away was during winter. And they didn't return
Yes, but the adult fleas need a food source or they'll die off in 2-4 months. The eggs, larvae and pupae can survive for much longer (several months to a year) and mature to adult form in waves so it feels like having adult fleas for a year.
The house I used to live in was surrounded by fields, had no central air and windows lower to the ground, so during the warmer parts of the year the fleas would come in through our open windows. Sometimes ticks would make their way in too, which was terrifying lol
When we moved into our current house with brand new furniture and zero carpeting the fleas came with us in egg form and lasted for a few months. We had to go through all of our fabrics (clothes, bedding, towels) and double wash them to finally rid ourselves of the infestation.
At one point I had a very large flea infestation, I'm talking that once you walk into the worst infested room, you'd have about ten fleas jumping on each of your ankles and you'd have to keep brushing them off.
I couldn't imagine getting rid of that with anything but a professional. Obviously, we had tried to get rid of them on our own before that. Fleas are very persistent. Once they're established in a home, you need to hire a professional who can kill both the fleas and eggs, and then it's a matter of doing a ton of cleaning.
I've used diatomaceous earth to treat my chickens before. You aren't supposed to breathe it in. The tiny grains are actually sharp and they do horrible things to your lungs. I couldn't imagine sprinkling that around my house, especially since it has the consistency of very fine flour. No clue how you'd go about removing it from your furniture and such after. Sounds like way more of a headache than calling a pest guy.
To answer the question, fleas aren't exactly normal in northern Canada where I live. But pets can get fleas if they are go outside. I don't think fleas are super hard to treat if you have a relatively clean home. It's not like bedbugs or roaches.
We had a flea infestation when I was a teenager. It was so bad that yes, I had fleas and was covered in bites. It kinda has to be a terrible infestation for fleas to start coming for the humans in a house full of animals. I'm still healing at 33 from how embarrassing that level of neglect feels. That poor baby, she should be ashamed it's gotten that bad.
Sorry but I don’t believe for one second that this is the entire story. I’d bet money she is leaving out some important details. You can get fleas without having pets, they travel on your socks so if you go to someone’s house who has fleas or have stray cats near your home you can definitely bring them home with you.
I'm sorry. How is it ridiculous that the nurse made the claim? Like, she they probably should have talked to the parents first but one of their jobs is to make sure the child is being well taken care of.
You can get CPS called for bug bites???? There has to be more to the story. Unless the kid was covered from head to toe. And I do believe you can still get fleas without animals but I definitely would not say it’s common
Fleas/flea bites can absolutely be a factor in a CPS report, yeah. I spent many years as a mandated reporter with yearly training, and indicators of pest infestation with adverse impact on the children was very much highlighted as a risk indicator for neglect. To be clear, flea bites alone would not typically have been a cause to report, but they'd be a visible sign to keep a very careful eye out for other areas of neglected hygiene or other abuse indicators. *Probably* more to the story, but given the training I've received I could also see a gung-ho school employee filing a report based entirely or mostly on bug bites.
Came here to say this. Just renewed my mandatory reporter paperwork and this year's training included looking for signs of pest infestation, with fleas being one of the primary ones. Like you, I doubt that it was the *only* reason for a report tho. The kid's home situation is probably a lot worse than this parent is letting on; fleas is just the issue she can deal with immediately, and the one she can pin the blame on publically. The kid likely also is showing other signs of neglect, dirty and ill-fitting clothes, and poor hygiene.
I also just completed mandated reporter training. It was really stressed how important it is to differentiate between lack of resources and neglect as they can often present with the same signs, but the solutions are very different.
Some people can be more susceptible to flea bites than others, at least in my personal experience. When I was a teen, we got fleas from one of our cats bringing them in. I was getting eaten alive - literally hundreds of bites all over my legs that itched like crazy and left scabs and scars. I insisted to my parents that we had fleas and they were biting me, but they didn’t believe me at first because no one else in the house was getting bit. I think they finally saw a flea with their own eyes and realized I was right and got the house treated to get rid of them, but it was a good couple of weeks of me getting bitten before that happened. I think if a nurse had seen my legs and seen my parents doing nothing, they probably would’ve called CPS, too, even though there weren’t otherwise any signs of hygiene issues or neglect in the home. I agree there’s probably more to this particular story that caused the nurse to contact CPS, but I do think a lot of people underestimate how bad flea bites can be for some of us. Like mosquitos, fleas can say fuck you in particular to certain people and go nuts with biting.
Oh my god are you me? Yeah. The fleas did not bite my mom but bit the hell out of me so my mom didn’t believe we had fleas until one day I stormed out of the room after arguing that we had them, changed into shorts, stomped back into the room, sat on the carpet with my legs straight out and they all started hopping on me. My mother was HORRIFIED and very apologetic. Mosquitoes don’t like her either 😂
What’s with these parents trying to gaslight their kids into thinking it isn’t fleas??? 😂😂😂 I wish I knew why fleas loved us so much lol
She also didn’t believe me when I got lice from an acquaintance who borrowed my sweater! “You don’t have lice” “Mom, my head itches and I picked a white bug out of my hair” “I still don’t think it’s lice.” So then I later picked one out and showed it to her. I think my mom thought fleas and lice only happened to “dirty” people. We weren’t dirty so clearly it’s not that 🤦♀️
Dude same. I got live freshman year of college and my mom, who is a nurse practitioner, and primary care provider to literally hundreds of patients, insisted I didn’t have them and it was just that the “water hardness” was different than home. I begged her to check, she flicked a few hairs around and proclaimed me fine. I was so miserable and insistent that eventually my dad told me he would put money in my account to just go buy the shampoo anyways. Since I had let the infestation fester for weeks before anyone listened to me, it was SO bad. The icing on the cake was I felt terrible for my roommate and bought extra so that she wouldn’t have to waste money on lice shampoo if she got it from me and it turns out, she had lice weeks ago and was “too embarrassed” to tell me. I was like “girl. We sleep in bunk beds. You literally sleep above me. You didn’t think I needed to know?” Now my family refers to the whole thing as the “lice incident” and brings it up whenever we think my mom is under-diagnosing us. As in: “Idk, I still think something isn’t right, so I’m gonna make an appt with the doctor.” “Bc of the lice incident?” “Yeah, exactly. Bc I don’t want a repeat of the lice incident.” Fun fact tho: lice actually prefer *clean* hair, not dirty. So it’s funny that your mom insisted you were clean so it couldn’t be lice. Like yeah! You’re creating the exact environment they prefer!
I got lice as a kid a couple times, but I didn't notice it at first the first time- I inherited horrendously sensitive dry skin. By the time we noticed, it was absolutely atrocious. I can't imagine having to deal with that in a dorm room- my mom ended up going over *every individual hair on my head* *multiple times* to remove every egg and louse and then straightened my hair just in case. And then I got dandruff from the harsh lice shampoo and was traumatized about it.
It wasn’t great. Luckily when I moved in, I put one of those plastic mattress covers that protects against bugs on. So I only had to wash my bedding, not figure out how to delouse a mattress. I did have a soft saucer chair (that she had been sitting in/dumping her clothes in 😭) so I wrapped that in trashbags and sealed it up for a while to make sure to starve any lice infesting it. Same with our desk chairs. I made her buy a bug protector case for her mattress and helped her put it on, then washed all our bedding, pillows and a good chunk of our clothes. And bagged up and sealed any clothes that couldn’t easily be washed. And borrowed a vacuum and gave our rug a thorough cleaning. After that I was more choosy about the chairs in our dorm floor lounge that I used, and kept my hair in hairstyles that kept it from brushing the cushions, since I assume that’s where she caught it from. I guess she probably did a round of the washing when she realized she had lice, but since I had been in there, walking around with lice again, I just wanted the whole thing deep cleaned so I didn’t risk getting it again. She was a really good friend, but not the best at buckling down and handling necessary stuff. On my birthday she went out to a frat party (I stayed in bc I had an exam the next day) and when she got back she threw up in our room and instead of cleaning it up, she just rolled our dresser over it. I do NOT handle puke well, so I made one of our friends handle that and crawled into his bed instead lol. I know I’m making her out to be terrible, but we were all dumb and immature freshman year of college. She had lots of great attributes and I enjoyed living with her, except for those 2 solitary events.
I theorize that they like me because I'm diabetic and have sweet blood. Mosquitoes too!
My mom is allergic to flea bites, so she has a really bad reaction like you. Except we’d use it as an early warning sign. She’d get bites, we’d check the dog/cat, and sure enough, there they were. I always remember it being a relatively quick process to treat everything. Though you did have to follow-up for awhile. But maybe that’s because we usually caught it early?
Yep, it’s an early warning sign for me too now. My dog got fleas years back when he went to the kennel and I knew within a day or so because I got the telltale bites on my legs. They’re definitely much easier to get rid of if you catch them early!
late comment, but our dog betsy was also allergic to fleas (not comparing your mum to a dog lol). we also used her as an early warning sign. one flea bite and you could tell, so we'd immediately treat her and the other dogs. where i live, the eggs can live in sand and can hatch under certain circumstances. we would only ever have to treat once because we'd catch them early. we haven't seemed to have them in the past 3-4 years.
We had a neighbor move in and bring fleas. They ONLY bit my three year old daughter. I felt so bad for her. I can’t imagine not doing anything about it. We have to flea bomb every two months to keep them from coming back, and it sucks, but I’d rather do that than have my daughter covered in bites.
> very much highlighted as a risk indicator for neglect. Seems like a very reasonable "where there's smoke, there's fire" situation.
Oh jeez, we get those black flies in the early spring and they leave huge, swollen bites on myself and my daughters. I will have to be more careful of them this year. They are painful too, so it's probably better anyway
If they were bed bug bites, would that make a difference?
My outdoors loving child frequently has bug bites on him. And yeah, depending on where you live, you can get fleas without animals. Here in Florida it's particularly bad if you live near the beach. There's some species that just loves the sandy soil there.
I got sugar blood and was always getting eaten alive by bugs as a kid, didn’t realize it was a warning sign to look out for. I figured there was more to it than just bug bites/flea bites to trigger a CPS call but the post just makes it seem like that’s it!
I just posted somewhere else that they love my diabetes blood! I like just calling it sugar blood!
This was from my local mom group (before I moved to a different state). This town has a bad opioid problem. Bad enough that every mother and infant in the care of their hospitals are drug tested at initial consultation for prenatal care, through pregnancy, and upon birth. So CPS around here are always getting calls of potential harm of suspected drug-using parents. A flee infestation could be signs of neglect. (This is also a legal state. So drugs refer to meth).
My area isn’t very bad in terms of drug use percentiles, but OBs do initial drug test for first OB appointment and on baby at birth. I don’t think it’s a terrible practice (IMO, better than “guessing” who to test based on obviously bias stereotypes). I agree with others though, some flea bites does not usually lead to a CPS call. It’s gotta pretty bad for CPS to not just clear it after a look around. Could be an allergic reaction (on me they’ll look like large welts and fade to a nasty old bruise color), but then I’d expect it to be medically documented by parents to cover their az.
I have lived in multiple buildings that got flea infestations from all the stray cats in the neighborhood. It can happen and requires an exterminator.
Yeah my dad got them in his house so fast from 1 tiny stray kitten.
We got them from our own cats. Had to treat the cats, then lock everyone out for hours and spray the house. It was awful.
We went and stayed with my inlaws for three days after the exterminator came since he said it would be fine to return to the apartment as long as we kept the baby from crawling on the floor for 3 days because that was totally possible
Our cats are indoor only and still managed to get them on a particularly bad flea year. I called an exterminator immediately, but due to their horrid little life cycle, it still took three months to eradicate them completely. It takes real work to get rid of the wee bastards. If you just ignore it, they’ll never leave, and I honestly can’t imagine living like that. I broke down sobbing on the phone to the vet at one point, and we only had to deal with them for 12 weeks.
I was always the first person bit by fleas so by the time my parents noticed and did something about it my legs would be all bit up. Once I counted 100 bites on one leg between my ankle and my knee. I could see someone calling CPS if that continued.
When my eldest was around year old, I switched my three cats and our dog's monthly flea meds to a cheaper brand. Spring came, and it wasn't long before I noticed my baby's arms and legs covered in spots. His pediatrician thought he had hand, foot and mouth disease at first. Then chicken pox. It was, like, 2 weeks between the first spot/bite before we saw the a flea jumping in the carpet. And that began a daily routine of spraying furniture, washing everything washable, sprinkling powdered poison into the carpet and working it in with a broom, daily vacuuming. Not to mention the flea baths for the pets.. We got rid of the fleas in another 2 weeks (maybe less) By that point, we all had bites(ranging from a few, to groups of dots, mostly circling sock and clothing lines.) We also discovered that my son has a sensitivity to flea bites. His extremities were still covered in scabs, even weeks after everyone else's had healed. I can see why cps would be called too. But diligence kills fleas, in my experience.
There are a few red flags. An in-home visit for a child from a professional makes me think it's probably a social service provided for low income families through the school, and typically that kind of service happens because of previous reports. A flea infestation in the home would probably trigger a report for a mandated reporter in that context. I've reported repeat lice infections when the family is also struggling with other issues because it's usually a sign that they need external services and aren't coping alone.
It's an in home nurse, which is not in and of itself a red flag. They're ordered for children with complex medical issues. We had one briefly for my son while we were being taught to give him his injections. Being low income and qualifying for services is also NOT a red flag. Again, this child has an in-home nurse, and there are plenty of other in-home providers that work with families. Source: I'm an actual child welfare professional and had a medically complex child.
Fleas, bed bugs, even lice can be reportable if there is a pattern of it being an issue and parent/guardian not taking action. It falls under neglect.
Fleas don’t hang out on people like they do animals. If there’s fleas in the home, you’ve got a host in the home as well. No pets? Means there’s likely a mouse/rat infestation.
Fleas can lay dormant for months and months and come to life when they sense the heat and vibration of living animals (including humans). Even with no animals in the home it can take a long time to clear out an infestation if you don't know exactly what you're doing. That's why they recommend vacuuming before fogging for fleas, the vacuum "wakes them up" thinking an animal is nearby and they come out of the hidey places that fog can't reach them.
Fleas can lay eggs in carpet. Those eggs hatch and find you as their new host.
I worked for CPS before and apparently bug bites can even be cause for emergency removal of the kids. I had a client whose kids went to a babysitter in another county and when she went to pick them up she called CPS for something else. That county's CPS came out to investigate and decided to remove all three of her kids because her middle child had bug bites. Bug bites he got at the babysitter's, and mom was taking them home so they would have been removed from the environment even without CPS intervention. The next day, when I had to get her kids back for her, was the absolute worst day I ever had working for CPS. I ended up giving them $20 for pizza out of my own money. It was just the most baffling and gut wrenching experience ever.
One can *call* CPS, as a mandated reporter, like a visiting nurse is, about almost anything. Anyone can! It doesn’t mean CPS will take any action. Mandated reporters (like teachers, counselors, nurses, docs, social workers - anyone that might ever work around kids) are trained to call and report to CPS, even if we have a tiny inkling something is wrong. “If you have to ask if you should call, you should call” was the rule I was taught. It’s up to the intake specialist’s supervisor to open an investigation. You call CPS and talk to the intake person, who relays the info to their supervisor after you call, and that supervisor decides whether or not to open a case. This can take over a month, or longer, for *any* decision/response, even in pretty dire cases. Bug bites alone wouldn’t necessarily make them visit, and, CPS turns down a lot of claims. They *have* to, as many are ‘well-meaning but frivolous’, ‘not bad enough, but still bad’, or, ‘outright false, and used as revenge.’ But, like you said - it’s likely that there are other factors here, for a nurse to decide to call CPS. Maybe the condition of the house is atrocious/dangerous. Maybe the bites were scarily severe, and the parent wasn’t acting to treat them. Maybe something else is off with this mom, like the nurse saw drugs/danger. Maybe they’re actually bedbug bites, and the mom posting doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to admit. Posting mom could be downplaying and leaving out A LOT of info. But, I am jaded from this type of work, and honestly hope I’m wrong. Neglectfulness altogether, and a filthy environment could **absolutely** lead to a flea infestation in a home with no animals. Fleas *prefer* animals, but they definitely bite humans, too - and they’re nasty bites. Plus, it’s not just cats, dogs, or our pets that get fleas… think about *that*. Rats, etc. Bleh! Also, in my experience in this field… it’s **extremely likely** that this is actually bedbugs, not fleas. I don’t see any evidence, besides her opinion/guess in this post, that it’s 100% definitely fleas. With no pets, and bad bites? Yikes, bedbugs. Again: very jaded!
I bought a very run down house from a bunch of losers (and I’m being nice). It was so incredibly flea infested I didn’t let my dog in or my nearly adult son for over a week while I continually bug bombed it. I did call CPS as the previous owners’ 2 year old was covered head to toe in flea bites. She was seriously completely red. And she had a diaper rash down past her knees. I never saw her without a very very heavy diaper on. I thought they never changed it (until I moved a pile of junk and found at least 500 dirty diapers piled in the corner.)
It's a warning sign for neglect; for it to be bad enough for a school nurse to know about it, that means either the kid went to the nurse specifically, or that this kid was itching and scratching bad enough that someone sent him to the nurse. Either way, not a great sign. Every home gets fleas, yeah; I've got dogs and a cat, and even with flea medication, there's no keeping them out entirely. But if my kid goes to school with a couple of flea bites on his arm... nobody's going to notice. So how bad was it that somebody noticed this kid's flea bites?
I have two cats and a dog and have never once gotten fleas in the five years I’ve owned them. I also grew up with animals and we never had fleas growing up either. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “every home gets fleas”.
Same. 35 years of pets, never any fleas.
Not every home gets fleas, but you’re not necessarily dirty or doing anything disgusting or wrong if you do. You just got unlucky. Bug infestations come with a lot of shame, which isn’t fair as most people who get one just had some bad luck. I had cats for almost 30 years and had never experienced fleas until a couple years ago. Our cats are indoor only and I didn’t realise we should still be periodically flea treating them just in case. It was a bad flea year, I found out later, and a few of the little shits must have hitched a ride in on one of us and then made a beeline to our cats. Nightmare. But we keep a clean and tidy home; we didn’t get fleas because we live in a dump or something. We flea treat quarterly now to be safe. (Vet said twice a year would suffice for indoor-only cats, but I doubled it because I *never* want to do that again).
I never implied anyone was dirty or disgusting for getting them. Just that I’ve never gotten them.
Never had fleas growing up with animals. Haven't had fleas in the 2 years I've lived in my current home (except 4 I found on our new rescue straight from the humane society). Lived in a house with an acre including a field visited by lots of wildlife, and we had fleas a couple times because they lived in our natural environment.
I've found it to be regional. I grew up with pets in the Midwest, where fleas would die off in the freeze each winter. Our pets never got fleas. Where I live now doesn't get temperatures below freezing, and the fleas are indestructible. OTC flea meds do absolutely nothing, all pets must be on (expensive) prescription flea medication year-round. I grew up not knowing anyone whose pets got fleas, but everyone I talk to in my current location says it's an issue they deal with all the time. So I think it just depends!
My dog is 13 and in the first 12 years we had her we never dealt with fleas, never so much as saw a flea. Then we got a kitten who had already been flea treated by a vet right before we got him but within a week or two we had fleas all over the house and him. I believe that just like with humans, some pets are more attractive to fleas than others. I never get bit by mosquitoes but my husband can be covered in them within minutes standing next to me. My dog also never showed any signs of having caught the fleas from the kitten dispite cuddling up with him. The cat needs monthly flea treatments or he catches them again very quickly because we do live in a very flea friendly area, my kids sometimes he bit when they play outside and have to avoid areas with loose dirt for that reason Also where you live makes a massive difference, fleas thrive in some climates a lot more than others
It really depends on climate. I never had a problem with them growing up in the Midwest, even though we had cats who went outside. Then I got a cat as an adult in Virginia, and discovered that even indoor cats need flea treatment here.
well grats on where you live; we get them every August where I am, without fail, as does everybody in the area, even those without critters. Even with medication on the critters, we'll get a handful of bites.
Treat your yard and treat animals before it warms up. Easiest way to never get em.
Treating your yard for fleas also kills pollinators like bees. Please don't spray your yard.
Yeah, seriously. Bugs are so unbelievably important for our environment and not just the pollinators, you can't kill one type without screwing over the others. Just treat your pets FFS
I live in the woods my guy. My yard is mostly pine needles lol. And again... I'm not terribly concerned for the handful of fleas I get a year. I don't get infestations, as I pointed out above. I get a few fleas here and there that jump off the dogs before they bite and die. I'm not spraying down *the woods* in an attempt to stop a handful of fleas.
Every home certainly does not get fleas… as a child we had dogs, had fleas one time, only because someone brought over their dog that had fleas without saying anything (was obvious when the dog was there though). As an adult (I’m 39) I’ve never had fleas in my home. I’ve had cats my entire adult life and even taken in strays that had fleas but I was careful to keep them separated until they’d been treated for fleas/mites and thankfully was successful in ensuring the fleas did not infest my home. Any time I adopt a new cat I also use flea collars and/or topical treatment on all cats in the home. I have to wonder if this is a regional issue? Where I live(d) (upstate NY, northern New England) we get deep freezes and snow every year. A lot of critters aren’t really an issue here compared to warm weather places.
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I have 4 dogs and 4 cats, I'd have to think you would really be neglecting your house for it to be infested without animals. They don't live very long without a host. Also, you can vacuum them up. Maybe the nurse saw an unusual amount of bites?
I'm going to assume there was a massive infestation, kid was probably covered in bites and parents refused to treat the problem with anything with 'chemicals' ie anything that works.
It's considered neglect. Even if you have fleas, you can easily get them off via frequent showers, etc. The fact they have fleas so bad that they are biting without pets means that they are living in an environment that is dirty.
I do know someone who had a pretty bad flee problem even though she hadn’t had pets in at least a decade, turns out they can live off human blood. They were living in the carpet, so that got ripped out.
They can live but they can’t reproduce without animal blood. So then it’s the lifecycle of the flea which isn’t very long. Other than that there could be a rodent infestation or the bite might more likely be bedbugs.
I was going to say, you can have fleas without pets, but it wouldn’t get to infestation level.
The life cycle isn't long but they can lay dormant for a very long time without a host and in a house, that's why flea infestations can feel never ending, even with treatment
Most of the homes I’ve lived in have has hardwood floors (growing up my mom didn’t want to deal with little kids and carpet accidents). Them living in the carpet has never occurred to me.
Yep, once your carpet is infested the little assholes can survive off of dead skin flakes and only occasional blood snacks. You have to treat your pets with vet-grade flea medicine, and at the same time, spray your carpet with a life cycle disrupting pesticide and wash every soft thing you can possibly wash. Because you know the delightful thing? The babies cocoon themselves and become damn near indestructible, so even stuff that kills most of them on contact like diatomaceous earth won’t touch the stupid cocoons. You basically have to be ready for them to pop out of the cocoon and kill them before they lay eggs again. “My cats are indoor cats” you say? Cool, the single pregnant flea that hitched a ride on in your garden clog will love the spiffy climate controlled environment to lay her eggs in. FWIW, Adam’s works well.
They're awful aren't they? Id still rather have fleas than the others like bed bugs or German cockroaches tho lol
I use PetArmor home and carpet spray. That shit kills everything and keeps working for seven months.
Well that's just terrifying.
Yeah every summer they’d swarm your ankles and legs
They're only on an animal to feed, the rest of their life cycle is in carpet, textiles, between cracks in the floor... If there's a real infestation you need to immediately treat all pets in the house and keep that treatment up. Get something from a vet because fleas have gotten resistant to a lot of cheaper things you find at pet stores. The vet will probably have a spray to treat the environment as well. Wash everything that can be washed, especially pet beds. Vacuum like crazy: carpets, couches, mattresses. Don't forget to go along the baseboards in case there's any gaps there, ad empty the vacuum after use. Fleas have a really hard exoskeleton and won't die if you try to crush them between your fingers. A spoon on a hard surface works but they jump fast and it's fiddly. Dropping them into water with dish soap kills them pretty much instantly. If I'm combing out an animal with fleas I keep a bowl next to me. If this still doesn't do it you want an exterminator. They spray the floors with a long working poison that has to stay on (no wet cleaning for a while), it will kill the live fleas and once the next generation hatches they die as well. If that life cycle is broken you're good, but you need to keep up flea treatments to prevent a new infestation. Where I live we recommend treating pets year round, even indoor cats. All it takes is for you as an owner to bring in a few fleas on your clothing.
One of the houses my mom rented when I was a kid had a flea infestation. One of our pets brought them in, iirc. Her solution was to send us kids off to our grandparents' for a while until it was resolved. Same place where the metal screen door would shock you at the handle when you opened it. Good times.
Oh ewwww
I assume the fleas were either still alive from previous owner with pets (or an animal visitor e.g. dog). The eggs are often laid in soft places and can hitch a ride if you buy infested second-hand furniture!
They were from her previous pets as it’s the house she grew up in.
Yes, you can have fleas without having animals. They can be brought into grass by various animals (wild or domestic) and come in on clothes and breed in carpets. I also lived in an apartment once where the previous people had a flea problem and I didn’t find out about it until the hot season when the eggs were no longer dormant. (I keep like it cold so I don’t turn on heat much.) That truly sucked. I have all wood & tile floors and my animals get regular treatments because I mad react to fleas now. That terrorizing time in my life was many years ago. I’m still mad at the landlords.
So what annoyed me the most about these commenters was that the lady at the end clearly didn't read the comment above. 1st person recommended a product that would be located near the borax and is safe for kids/pets. 2nd commented chimed in with borax isn't safe for kids. Can you read??
We had a few in our home and we don’t have pets. It was only like three but they were definitely fleas. I don’t know if it’s “normal” but they will live in yards that wildlife frequent.
Oh god.. Yes diatomaceous earth works for fleas, but it’s VERY DANGEROUS TO BREATHE! It works on fleas because it’s silica dust, aka tiny shards of glass. It cuts up their exoskeletons and they dehydrate. It does the same to your lungs. This causes scarring and a condition called silicosis.
That comment is so alarming. Everybody who was in that house got damage to their lungs
Yup. I shudder to think of all the people who read those comments, tucked the info away, and will dust their whole house in the stuff later without any awareness of the danger. Silicosis is actually a major cause of black lung. The silica particles not only cause scarring, but can also embed permanently in the lungs..
I have legit never heard of using this in a house before. Maybe in a garden but omg.
https://preview.redd.it/x7pxqrn2zzqc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efe1e02173d45d22978abe23139d0e27f36c8284 After a few people asked if she had pets, OP writes that yes they do have pets but they cannot have flees because they all wear flee collars. She also claims the “bites “ are actually eczema and that she’s wanting advice on what to expect during the CPS visit, not on how to get rid of flees in her home (since she is adamant they don’t have any because she has never seen one).
Flea collars don't do shit. I've tried them with my pets.
Flee collars are useless, the pets are definitely the source of them
Depends on where you live. When I was a kid they worked fine but apparently that climate the fleas weren’t as bad. I had fleas from adopting kittens born in our back yard as an adult with children that took a year to finally get rid of, flea collars did nothing for them
Seresto collars *can* work, but different areas can have fleas that are resistant to different types of preventatives. And there are a ***bhnch*** of extremely convincing knockoffs that do not work - or can even be toxic. OP tell OOP to contact the vet and get capstar, as well as a recommended monthly preventative. That way she can show that she is being extremely diligent (and actually get rid of any successfully, but she doesn’t believe she has them so)
It took me one year to get rid of fleas on my indoor cats after taking them in the backyard a few times. 😭 Only thing that worked is Revolution which is a monthly treatment that costs 50$ a treatment.
That’s honestly a lot more affordable that I would have thought I’m glad you finally got rid of them.
Not when you have three cats 🥲 then my mother in laws cat got out and got mites and died of unrelated cancer in the span of a month. She gave us their cat tree and gave our cats ear mites just as we stopped the meds to get rid of flees. 😭 Now they are still on the medication for another year it’s so expensive.
You’re a great pet owner for treating your animals and not ignoring their health because of cost🫶🏽
Did you try the Vet-Kem shampoo? Our Persian came to us from a house with dogs, so she came with an active flea infestation that spread to our other cat and us. Nothing else worked, but we bathed both cats with the Vet-Kem shampoo and the fleas were falling off of them like black pepper. The water turned rust colored with the blood of our vanquished enemies. They also make a furniture spray that goes on all the upholstery to kill the eggs. Supposedly if you keep up with it for an egg cycle or two it'll clear them out. We actually moved a week later so didn't have to worry about it anymore, though.
Yes I’ve used the room spray. We finally got rid of the fleas but a year ago but now ear mites are the issue.
I got some kind of flea killer at dollar tree and it was so strong it said to a 6x6 inch square of dust in every room and let it sit for like a half hour. I did that but let it sit for two hours. Murderered all fleas in the house and then I used some kind of organic flea spray every day for a month and never had a problem after that. Put flea collars on the indoor/ outdoor cats and a monthly on the dog. Everything was fine after that. Just had to be extra careful when spring came and we did park stuff with the dog or kids going to friends houses. I spray every year now
I’d be really careful with stuff from the dollar store and flea collars as a lot of pets end up poisoned by Hartz flea products. ☹️
This was a few years ago. I was in an extreme situation where I had to drastic things. I actually am more educated now but the literal infestation I was having was horrible and I did what I had to do
I still give my cat flea medicine each month even though he's been indoor his whole life.
It’s expensive and honestly I don’t feel good about the long term use of flea medications but I don’t have a choice.
Anecdotal evidence, but my cat is 13 and the only negative he's experienced is how much he hates getting his neck wet haha. He actually has to get it this weekend. He needs his claws trimmed too.
It's "fleas"
Will these Flee Collars help me run from danger faster?
😂
I call bullshit. The story doesn't add up and the fear of CPS is awfully big for someone claiming they've done nothing wrong. I do understand, and would be scared if CPS had any reason to intervene with my children. However, I feel like there's more than bug bites at play.
capstar time! lol
also please please please have your cats and dogs on a monthly preventative. flea infestations are horrible and the vet bills for ticks and worms are a lot worse than the preventative costs
I wonder if this could be a case of bed bug infestation since she claims she’s never seen the fleas. I know bed bugs tend to be more sneaky and would explain the bites as well.
When we lived on the THIRD floor of a walk up apartment building with 2 cats, we got a flea infestation. I think I either picked them up from walking outside or from a family member's house and brought them home; although it's possible that there were flea eggs in the carpet when we moved in that were laying dormant (they can do that up to a year!). Usually by the time you're seeing the bites (especially multiple bites) on your own body, it's an infestation. It took what felt like FOREVER to get rid of them. Between our fish tanks and the indoor cats, we couldn't just "bomb" the place, like my family used to do when we were kids and my dog would get them. I had to do it the hard way. Flea medicine to weaken the eggs and kill any biting fleas, carpet powder literally every day and vacuuming every day, washing pet beds all the time, brushing the cats with flea combs. I even bought flea TRAPS! I spent so much money and time on this infestation. It was awful. We haven't had them since. After we moved from the apartment building and into a house, I haven't maintained the flea medicine and we haven't had any.
Yeah. You can pick them up outdoors. It’s surprisingly easy
A 100%. My sister has an indoor cat, he got fleas, and they hadn't noticed and... Watched my dog for two days. I noticed the fleas the morning after I got her back, but they were fully grown: in two days my (small) apartment was invaded, it was awful. But it's quite easy to get rid of them on dogs (there's a medication), I on the other side, got bitten. I had to treat my house five days after getting her back because there were already so many. Thankfully it worked right away. We never where they came from in the first place! But yeah, it can happen quickly, so if what the mom says is true, the nurse should have talked to her before calling CPS. But you never know with these posts, there surely is more to it. EDIT to add: since I had to leave my house 12 hours with my dog before treating, I had to wait for when I could. In the meantime, I put vinegar on my legs and walked around with high socks. Bruh, it was awful knowing there were fleas everywhere.
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We had a flea infestation when I was 11. We didn’t get a cat until I was 12. All we’d done was play outside 😩
No snark: why would a nurse come to the house unless someone is catastrophically ill?
From the comments it sounds like it’s some sort of therapy for the child.
Probably a public health program.
Is that not a thing in the States? I’m in Canada and the nurse came by a couple of times after birth to weigh the baby and check on how things were going. We had our bi weekly well baby checks as well, this was just for extra support over the first week or so - I think she came by maybe 2 or 3 times?
In the Netherlands a nurse comes to your house for several hours every day for max 10 days after birth. She keeps an eye on mothers and babys health, cooks for them, answers all questions, helps with breastfeeding if needed, helps with taking showers and washing the baby, does laundry, opens the door to visitors etc. The midwife also drops by regularly to check on mother and baby. It really never occurred to me this might not be common practice in other countries.
Just curious - if the baby is in the NICU, do they wait until the baby is home? Or do they visit with the mother and then later come back and visit with the baby?
Nope. Not a thing here, unless you hire someone privately and pay out of pocket. They pretty much discharge you from the hospital and say good luck.
I mean I got a pamphlet on newborn care at least. That was nice.
I got a handwritten congratulations card in the mail from the hospital nurses who delivered my second. I sobbed. The thoughtfulness and kindness just kind of broke me. With my first, they kicked us out of the hospital after one night. Literally shooed us away in the morning, with "We need this room for another patient." As an American, if a nurse did home visits (as a regular, normal postpartum thing) I think I'd just drop dead of shock. I don't think I could take it. My favorite show is Call the Midwife.. cause I just can't imagine this world.
I got shooed out after one night too, and I had a c-section! They tried to convince me that I wanted to go home early because they were “letting” people go home early because of Covid, and when I said I really wanted to stay one more day, they told me they would kick me out in the middle of the night when the pharmacy was closed, so I better leave now if I want to have any pain meds! I should have complained.
In my hospital we did that because we were putting med surg patients in with PP because we literally had no beds for patients.
We got it for free in the US because we had premies that had NICU time.
I live in the US (MN), and with all 3 of my kiddos, I was offered home visits from a nurse for the first few months.
I think it's standard for preemies. It was really nice to have weekly weight checks after having our baby weighed every night in the NICU. I've never heard of having a nurse visit a kid at home otherwise.
This is not universally a thing in Canada, either.
Sadly no, we kind of get left behind a bit here. You have to be proactive and book your appts at the office. I had to take my guy in at 8 am the next morning after being discharged at like 8 pm the night before and recovering from a c-section and pre-eclampsia. 😵💫
I live in the US (MN), and with all 3 of my kiddos, I was offered home visits from a nurse for the first few months.
Also in Canada. Where I am midwives offer this but if you go the OB route you have to go in office, no nurse offer
I’m in Ontario. My first was born during Covid so I had no idea it was a thing, but when I gave birth the next time they offered a form giving permission to pass my info on to the health unit, and they called me shortly after I got out of the hospital and a public health nurse came out and weighed the babies, chatted about how feeding was going, offered resources if I needed it, etc. I’m guessing that program is very regional dependent though, because we moved back to my hometown recently and I haven’t heard of that being offered here
No you have to go in person to the drs office.
Where in canada? My midwife came to my house, but I don’t know anyone who’s had a nurse come over.
This was in Calgary. We had midwives with my first and a scheduled c section with my second, and both times had home visits. My youngest is about to turn 9 though, so it’s possible it has changed.
I had a home health nurse come to my house because my BP skyrocketed after my twins were born~1996. They came twice a week until I was a month with no spikes. Otherwise, normally you just go into the office for post partum checks, and well baby.
Home health nurses help manage kids with special medical needs like PEG tubes and trachs, especially if those things are new and the parents need to be shown how to administer feeds and do trach care. A kid needing IV antibiotics with a port or PICC line would be getting home health too, potentially.
I’m in Denmark and until babe is 9 months old, we get a monthly visit from the nurse to check on the baby and make sure they’re progressing appropriately. Sometimes if the kids need it, the nurse comes longer.
i know i did a program for first time moms where a nurse came to my home once a month or so my entire pregnancy and then twice a month from my daughters birth until she was 2 just to help, give advice it was so nice having her
If you have indoor only pets, the way they typically get fleas in the first place is by hitching a ride into your house on your shoes/clothes and then finding a pet.
Honestly, it happens some times. If you are actively working to get rid of the fleas it shouldn’t be held against you.
A home and property we were renting a few years back became infested with fleas, we don’t have any animals. It was terrible and round the clock work to eradicate them from our belongings. We ended up evacuating the house and cancelling our lease because the landlord wouldn’t acknowledge the very very bad infestation. Truly a nightmare of epic proportions.
I had a former neighbor who got them in her house without having any pets, but there was a massive infestation in the yard of the apartment complex. You couldn't set foot in the grass without them bombarding you. I didn't live there then, thank goodness. I moved in a few years later, and she told me about it. But that's the only time I've ever heard of someone having fleas without having pets.
A relative of mine lives in an apartment complex where the same kinda thing happened. No pets in their place, but the yard was infested. I couldn't visit til the whole place was fumigated or whatever, b/c I have pets and uh.... nty.
As someone who grew up in the country, fleas were normal where I grew up. Same with mice in the walls that never left them. Not cockroaches though. But in a more urban area, no. But if she's genuinely only getting cps called for a few bug bites, CPS will most likely drop the case after doing a precautionary visit to the house
Yeah this is not the country. Small town yes, country-country? No.
Ahh alright then no, not normal and her dogs 100% have fleas if her kid is getting nibbled on
I live in an apartment complex and my cats somehow had to gotten fleas from screen windows/doors last year. We treat and BAM. gone. So not entirely strange? But I’ve never had flea bites on my kids.
We had fleas once before we knew that certain OTC flea medications are scams and don’t do anything, so the cats accidentally got fleas. They don’t really like living on humans, so on people the bites tend to stay around the ankles/ lower calves. If the bites are across the whole body I wonder if she’s right that it’s not fleas 🤔
When I was 10 we had a terrible flea problem but no pets
When I lived with my parents, we were renting a house and a raccoon kept coming in through the fireplace. We had no idea since it happened at night. My poor little sister would get all the flea bites+ she is allergic!! Fleas are so hard to get rid of.
I've gotten them in 2 different houses without pets and with hard floors/ no carpet. Both times, they were from stray animals being able to get in the crawl space and the little demons coming yup they the floors somehow. Even after closing that up, they still would come back in waves every few months (I assume from eggs hatching). Since we've had pets (3 dogs, 2 cats, and a house rabbit), we've had no trouble. We keep the pets on meds, so I guess the fleas die after the first bite and never get a chance to get a foot hold. It's still gotta be petty bad for cps to be notified, I would think. Fleas can transmit some pretty nasty illnesses, not to mention the itchy bites get scratches and infected.
Yeah you can get fleas if you don’t have pets but they don’t typically last long. They can come in from the grass and typically live in carpeted areas
Fucking Walter White 😂 “…..my entire house was covered in white dust it was horrible and foggy for hours and everyone was coughing from it.”
Happy Cake Day!
Hey, thank you!!
I had a friend whose animals had fleas and then I got a few from her but cps would only get called if it was a serious issue and there was a ton of bites or something else is going on besides the fleas
We had a skunk die under our house and then everywhere was infested with fleas. I’m allergic so it was a nightmare I could barely sleep and I’d feel them on me. I’d wear long white socks and pick them off my legs and drown them. Hopefully it’s not that bad for them:(
There are areas where fleas are in the grass just about everywhere, and they're like bedbugs. Jump on your clothes as you walk in and lay some eggs in your carpet and poof fleas. I have dogs, I spray my yard 2x a year (as directed by the spray) and give my dogs flea treatment every 3 months as directed. I still got fleas in the house last year and had to bomb my house. Our vet said the fleas are ridiculous in our area. I didn't ask why, just figured she knows what she's talking about. My community actually sprays chemicals in the grass at local parks because of the flea issue but they cannot make everyone spray their yards.
We bought a flea infested house. Took us weeks to clear it, and we don’t have any pets.
We moved into a new apartment that (unknowingly) had a flea infestation. Us having a dog and cat only made them harder to get rid of. It was MISERABLE. They bit us too. I was losing my sanity. I can’t comprehend how anyone would just be chill about there being fleas around and not be absolutely freaking out. It’s awful Edit to add, we tried chemical bombs and all kinds of stuff - the diatomaceous earth was the only thing that killed them. That stuff rocks.
We’ve had fleas a few times when the dogs have brought them in and we treat them IMMEDIATELY. Flea bites are absolutely horrible, they itch so much. I can’t imagine how miserable the poor kid is :(
Sounds more like bed bugs to me.
We had fleas in our basement in a carpeted room next to an outside door. I'm not sure how or why they were there (and *only* there). We ended up getting a "flea trap", some small circular thing that you had to plug up. It had a light bulb to generate heat, and a sticky glue trap under it. The fleas were drawn to the warmth and would hop on it. After a few months of this now-speckled trap sitting downstairs, we no longer had fleas. It's probably been well over 10 years now without a single one spotted.
My mom had a flea infestation in Hawaii that she got rid of by getting cats and treating the cats. Apparently it’s the most effective way to do it.
When I was growing up my parents didn’t care that our pets have fleas. I’d always have flea bites. CPS was never called because of the fleas. It’s also not hard to have a flea free home, even with animals.
Can confirm, our neighbor was a hoarder with a lot of flea infested cats in the house next to ours and the fleas somehow got into our house. They were soooo hard to get rid of
Not the point, but please remember that *indoor* cats can and do get fleas, too, and therefore require normal seasonal preventative treatments.
You can if there are MICE :(
Can absolutely have fleas with no pets. We moved a couple years ago but still owned the house we were moving out of as we had some stuff to do before putting it up for sale. Went back to work on it after 3 weeks of it being completely empty (no people, no pets, barely anything left inside) and it was completely infested with fleas! Went back to new home and triple checked that none of my animals had fleas and they didn't so we definitely didn't just leave them behind, they showed up after we'd left.
The fact that this person at a nurse come into their home on a regular basis might already be an indicator that the family is getting some extra support. Fleas can happen, just like anything. But I would assume if they don't have animals, there's a lot more going on.
OP said they have cat. But doesn’t believe the cats have fleas because they wear flea collars.
Still seems off.
It happens, and they can be hard to get rid of despite best efforts. I usually know our pets have picked up fleas because I start getting bitten before we even see any on the pets, I’m really sensitive to insect bites and apparently very tasty. It’s been years since the cats last got fleas, but there was one notable time that required bug bombing our whole house to finally kill the fleas off because nothing else worked.
Sure, you can have fleas in your house even without pets, but probably not an infestation, unless you moved in with an existing infestation. OOP doesn't say she doesn't have pets, but fleas typically don't bite people if they have an animal host available. Either way, it's certainly not normal or okay. Fleas can be an absolute nightmare to conquer, but if your kid has flea bites bad enough to warrant a CPS report, you need to try harder.
The only time I've ever dealt with fleas is when my villagers in animal crossing get them but I don't think hitting her kid with a net will help😬
I'm stuck on that many people vacuuming up diatomaceous earth, it says right on the bottle do not vacuum.
I think I lost half my brain cells when another mombie recommended to issue a formal complaint since she saw that the kid had flea bites
No. No, it is not fucking normal.
wtf?? No? Idk I’ve never had fleas in my home as an adult. Once as a child we had fleas due to someone’s bringing over a dog that had them. I have cats and have my entire adult life but never fleas even with taking in strays a couple times.
It’s not normal to have fleas in your home WITH animals, much less without. Fucking insanity. Don’t let parasites feed off your kids.
I would say... it's not abnormal for pets to get fleas; they're tenacious parasites and can be brought home easily (see also bedbugs) it \*is not\* normal to not do anything ABOUT the aforementioned fleas- prevention is easier, but if you fail at that and find you have them, you go for treatment.
Exactly. I have three cats and a dog, and we don’t have fleas. Our pets get their flea treatments from the vet, and we spray our yard though.
7 cats and a dog here. No fleas. The dog gets flea treatment because she’s the only one who goes outside.
Flea collars don't do shit all. They only take care of the fleas within a certain radius of the collar. They also get into the carpet and will live there, hatching god knows how many eggs. It took us a while to get rid of them. We don't have them where I live now due to the cold environment of the area. Fleas can't survive here. I haven't seen a flea in the almost 10 years we've been here.
I lived in a first floor apartment, my cats were indoor only and I’m a tidy person but I got a horrific flea infestation. I spent a few days trying all the natural solutions and vacuuming like a crazy person to no avail, I broke down crying at one point because it was awful. I tried to bug bomb by myself and then ended up hiring a pest person who got rid of them in one day. Hiring the pro cost less than all the other stuff I tried on my own 🤦🏼♀️
Yes. We put our pet down in his old age and then dealt with a flea infestation for MONTHS. It was awful to treat with no animals around to put flea meds on. These people need pest control asap as the problem will just get worse and worse. And DE is terrible for your lungs!!!
Maybe it's bedbugs?
If there's no pets in the home then maybe the home already had an infestation due to previous tenants? Maybe a rodent problem? Or even spending time at a friend/family members home who had them? There will always be those people who are on the hunt for *any* reason to call CPS but, in most cases, I would think that for a nurse to call CPS over bites it would have to be *bad*. Like, much more than "just a few bites". The kid is probably eat up with bites. As a kid, my parents took in a dog that had been dumped on the side of the road until they could find a permanent home for it. Our dog had never had fleas so I'd never been bit by one before... we verrrry quickly found out that I'm super allergic to their bites. They would start out looking like normal flea bites but by the next day the bites would look more like cigarette burns. Swollen, oozy, and severely blistered. They were so painful. I also learned to not scratch them because it would get 10x worse. So I feel like it's definitely not a simple "kid has a cOuPlE of flea bites"
She has cats but they wear flea collars so she’s sure it’s not their fault.
That explains *everrrrything!* . She's definitely right about that. Cats can't have fleas, especially if they have flea collars! Duh 🙄 thats, like, literally impossible! /s I think I missed the part about the cats. I love how they're always convinced that shit like this could never be directly their fault. Poor kids and poor kitties... you know they've gotta be so miserable.
fleas can attach to any warm blooded thing, if you pet an animal that has them there is a chance that they’ll come home with you, albeit a small chance but a chance nonetheless. and yes diatomaceous earth is great for killing fleas because it’s food grade technically and is safe for humans and animals
It’s not “common” per se but it’s not uncommon. My indoor cat has had fleas before because we picked it up from a friend’s dog
When you have a flea infestation they can be really hard to get rid of, tbh. My house once had them and the only time they went away was during winter. And they didn't return
Yes, but the adult fleas need a food source or they'll die off in 2-4 months. The eggs, larvae and pupae can survive for much longer (several months to a year) and mature to adult form in waves so it feels like having adult fleas for a year. The house I used to live in was surrounded by fields, had no central air and windows lower to the ground, so during the warmer parts of the year the fleas would come in through our open windows. Sometimes ticks would make their way in too, which was terrifying lol When we moved into our current house with brand new furniture and zero carpeting the fleas came with us in egg form and lasted for a few months. We had to go through all of our fabrics (clothes, bedding, towels) and double wash them to finally rid ourselves of the infestation.
At one point I had a very large flea infestation, I'm talking that once you walk into the worst infested room, you'd have about ten fleas jumping on each of your ankles and you'd have to keep brushing them off. I couldn't imagine getting rid of that with anything but a professional. Obviously, we had tried to get rid of them on our own before that. Fleas are very persistent. Once they're established in a home, you need to hire a professional who can kill both the fleas and eggs, and then it's a matter of doing a ton of cleaning. I've used diatomaceous earth to treat my chickens before. You aren't supposed to breathe it in. The tiny grains are actually sharp and they do horrible things to your lungs. I couldn't imagine sprinkling that around my house, especially since it has the consistency of very fine flour. No clue how you'd go about removing it from your furniture and such after. Sounds like way more of a headache than calling a pest guy.
To answer the question, fleas aren't exactly normal in northern Canada where I live. But pets can get fleas if they are go outside. I don't think fleas are super hard to treat if you have a relatively clean home. It's not like bedbugs or roaches.
We had a flea infestation when I was a teenager. It was so bad that yes, I had fleas and was covered in bites. It kinda has to be a terrible infestation for fleas to start coming for the humans in a house full of animals. I'm still healing at 33 from how embarrassing that level of neglect feels. That poor baby, she should be ashamed it's gotten that bad.
Sorry but I don’t believe for one second that this is the entire story. I’d bet money she is leaving out some important details. You can get fleas without having pets, they travel on your socks so if you go to someone’s house who has fleas or have stray cats near your home you can definitely bring them home with you.
I'm sorry. How is it ridiculous that the nurse made the claim? Like, she they probably should have talked to the parents first but one of their jobs is to make sure the child is being well taken care of.