Fixes For Fleas At Sacramento's McKinley Park May Be Difficult To Implement

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Families are complaining about swarms of bugs at McKinley Park, and now the city says it's looking into what it can do to fix the issue.

On Thursday's CBS13 News at 10, a Sacramento family said after visiting the park, their 20-month-old nephew was covered in little black bugs.

The city's parks department responded on Friday with a statement claiming they are looking into the bites:

"We learned indirectly about the possibility that some kids may have been bitten by fleas around McKinley Park from social media. We don't know exactly where and if it was at the park or not, but we will have a pest control expert out next week to see if there is an issue."

Dr. Karen Mullvihill with the Sacramento Animal Hospital says this is the time of the year that fleas love the most.

"The park is a great environment for fleas to live, because they like to live in damp warm places," she said. "They can live under shrubs, in the bushes and things like that."

She says dogs and squirrels that roam the park could be giving any potential fleas a free ride to the playground.

So unless all animals are banned from the park,she says it's tough to completely get rid of any fleas that may possibly be there.

"You can't really spray the whole park. It's just too large an area to do so," she said. "I don't think the city would want to do that. The most important thing to do is flea control on our pets."

The vet says it is those dark places that the younger fleas survive in, and those are the ones that typically bite when there are no animals directly around.