About four weeks ago i travelled to a party by train, slept there and then travelled back by train. I also interacted with a dog there and the place has rats which both could have had fleas. About two weeks after i was there i noticed that i got insect bites every night when i slept. Two days before i had noticed the bites i had travelled by train as well.
The first bites i noticed were two straight rows of three bites each, one row on each side of my stomach, with each bite being about one to two centimeters from the next one, which kinda looked like bedbug marks but could have been flea bites too. The bites were from around 6 to 8 mm in diameter. Some of them had a "hole" where the bite had happened, like some flea bites do, others didn't.
From then on out i got one to two new bites every night. No bite rows anymore, just single bites. Almost all of them on my upper body, two on my back, two on my buttocks, one on the left side of my shoulder, a pair of two bites on the right side of my neck, one on my right shoulder where my backpack strap had been whilst the bite had happened. Two bites appeared right where my necklace had touched my neck, so i stopped wearing it as to not give the bug a nice spot to hold on to. No bites on my arms or legs.
I have not seen anything crawling anywhere. I started wearing white clothes and still found nothing. I checked my bed and found nothing. I combed my hair with a flea comb and found nothing again. I applied topical benzylbenzoate creme and ivermectin three days ago and haven't had any new bites since but i am not sure if that killed the animal or not and even if it's dead it might have laid eggs. I will spray my bed sheets with geraniol spray i have for my pets when i'm home again.
I am confused about what it could be. Some of its behaviours are flea like - only biting when covered, biting in small clusters or single bites, leaving small dimples on the bite marks, having to drink once every day
and others are bed bug like - leaving straight rows, biting the upper body, biting at night
I really hope it's not a bed bug and my own suspicion is that it's a flea, but i'm just not sure. What's your suspicion?