Why You Never See the Larvae
Flea larvae are tiny, pale and legless, and they move away from light. They do not bite and they do not live on the animal. They burrow down to the base of the carpet pile, into seams and into gaps, and feed on the debris that collects there, including flea dirt dropped by the adults.
So the map of an infestation is not where you notice fleas. It is where eggs fall, which is wherever the animal rests, and then wherever it is dark, still and slightly sheltered nearby.
The Map, Room by Room
Carpet edges and under furniture
The middle of a carpet gets walked on and vacuumed. The strip along the skirting, the area under a bed or sideboard and the space beneath a sofa do not, and that is where larvae gather. The vacuum often misses the last few centimetres against the wall, and so do people cleaning by hand.
Stairs and landings
Carpeted stairs are a corridor every animal uses several times a day. The back of each tread, where it meets the riser, collects eggs and dust and is rarely vacuumed properly. A landing where a dog lies outside a bedroom door is often one of the busiest spots in the house.
Sofas and armchairs
A pet that sits on the furniture sheds eggs into it. They work down into the crease between the seat cushions and the back, the underside of loose cushions and the fabric skirt around the base. The top surface looks fine; the crevices are where the life cycle carries on.
Pet beds, baskets and blankets
The bed is the densest spot in the house, because the animal spends hours there. Washable covers are easy to deal with. The foam inside, a wicker basket, or the carpet directly under the bed is where larvae are left behind.
Gaps between floorboards
Victorian and Edwardian houses, of which Caversham has many, often have bare or partly covered boards with dust-filled gaps between them. Those gaps suit larvae very well. Older floors are covered in more depth on the Windsor page.
The rule of thumb: find where the animal lies down, then look for the nearest spot that is dark, undisturbed and dusty. That is where the larvae are.
Using the Map Before We Arrive
Vacuuming those spots hard, with the crevice tool, removes a good share of eggs and larvae and brings dust out from the edges where treatment needs to land. Lift cushions, pull furniture out from the wall where you can, and clear anything stored on the floor under beds. Then empty the vacuum outside.
The same map tells you which rooms matter. A room the animal never enters can still have larvae if a door is left open or the animal slips in at night. Which rooms to include, and why doing only one moves the problem, is in do you need to treat the whole house.
How the Treatment Follows the Map
A home treatment is usually a residual insecticide applied to floors, carpets, soft furnishings and pet areas, and a growth regulator is often added so larvae cannot develop into adults. The edges, stairs, furniture and the ground around beds are where the most care goes, not the open middle of a room.
Everyone, people and animals, stays out of treated rooms until they are dry, following the instructions on the day, and anything like a baby, pregnancy, asthma, fish or caged pets is raised at booking. Here the price is a fixed £220 and is confirmed before anything is booked.