Fleas! Help!!

[ckrickett]

So my SO and I have a variety of cats and we neevr had this problem, we advantage, give baths and check all the time. Then we rescued my friends cat (she was going to bring him to a shelter) and then all of a sudden we have this massive and I mean MASSIVE amount of fleas in our house in just a few short weeks. They are in my clothes, in our bed and completely giving my poor cats grief.

I am not 100% that they came from Him maybe eggs or pupa that have been dormant for awhile and then the hot weather woke them up.

anyways we are trying everything. Baths, vacuuming, sprays , advantage 1 a week. We have bombs but it is so hard to coordinate with the room mates to bomb we haven't done that yet.

anyone have any other tips to help

 

[TravelingGal]

Do not bother with bombing. Trust me on this one. Our apartment had fleas every summer, 4 years in a row (and we had no pets...they came in from the neighbor's infested doormat. Fleas multiply at a ridiculous, exponential rate - so by now you probably have a million fleas in the house, no joke.

Vacuum every day, twice daily if you can and throw out the bag (or if bagless, throw out the dust/crap out and clean the container thoroughly). You can put a cut up flea color in the bag/container to kill what's left. Meanwhile, call a professional and schedule them to treat the house. You will most likely have to do it more than once, 2 or 3 weeks apart. I have no advice for the animals since we didn't have one. We did borax and salt the first couple of years, and that worked OK, but A) we didn't have that many fleas to start with and B) it can be toxic to cats.

The problem you are having can come from one (yes, ONE) stray flea that gets on the house. It's digusting how many eggs one flea can lay, and they, in turn, will each lay that amount of eggs that hatch in 14 days time.

Seriously, if you want to get rid of the problem, call a professional NOW. Otherwise you're in for a rough ride.

 

[TravelingGal]

btw, the reason why sprays and vacuuming don't work long term is that they can get what's out and living, but the eggs can't be killed that way (or by bombs). The pros say their spray will coat the eggs, and when the larvae come out, they ingest the poison from the eggs, but I am not sure how true that is. If you've let this go on for weeks, well, I'm sorry to say you've let it go on that many weeks too long.

Not trying to scare you, but I'm (sadly), well versed in fleas. Baths, sprays, advantage, and vacuuming isn't going to help get those eggs, which are in your house now.

When you call the professional, ask what kind of follow up they have included in their rates. If the problem is bad, don't believe them when they say it will only take one visit. It won't. We had a mild problem and it took two visits two weeks apart to solve.

 

[VRBeauty]

I have had decent luck with bombs, but since you've already tried so many other things without luck, I'd agree with T-gal that it's time to call out the pros if possible. They'll be able to treat both inside and outside the house and give you a clean start. Good luck!

 

[monarch64]

I actually had luck with the flea bomb. Daisy (20 lb. beagle) just had a bout with fleas about six weeks ago. I went to one of the big box pet stores in search of a remedy since I had already Frontlined her before the breakout. (You can't put anything else on your pet until 30 days after you've already done so). He suggested a flea bomb, I bought it, we cleared house for two hours with her on a Saturday morning after vacuuming thoroughly, washing her crate bedding, the living room slipcovers, etc. It seemed to take care of the problem as we have not SEEN a flea since. We leave windows open and doors open frequently, though, and we let Daisy out into a side area (grass) at least twice a day so I am not at all confident that even with her being Frontlined they won't come back.

Damn fleas. She'll be 4 in September and this is the first year she's had a flea issue. She's always been an indoor/outdoor doggie. I just don't know!

 

[gemdandy]

Ask your vet for Ovitrol - works wonders!

 

[ckrickett]

I believe the millions, at least of eggs, there is a space in our attic and we bought a new storage tupperware and in a few weeks there was this black pepper on it, well we think its flea eggs sice the cats love to sit on it. and there was ALOT!!

we have been vacuuming twice a day and run the roomba when we leave the population is down but they aren't gone. We will be calling Orkin soon....

thanks for the advice guys.... also what is orvitol, I haven't heard of that?

 

[TravelingGal]

I actually had luck with the flea bomb. Daisy (20 lb. beagle) just had a bout with fleas about six weeks ago. I went to one of the big box pet stores in search of a remedy since I had already Frontlined her before the breakout. (You can't put anything else on your pet until 30 days after you've already done so). He suggested a flea bomb, I bought it, we cleared house for two hours with her on a Saturday morning after vacuuming thoroughly, washing her crate bedding, the living room slipcovers, etc. It seemed to take care of the problem as we have not SEEN a flea since. We leave windows open and doors open frequently, though, and we let Daisy out into a side area (grass) at least twice a day so I am not at all confident that even with her being Frontlined they won't come back.

Damn fleas. She'll be 4 in September and this is the first year she's had a flea issue. She's always been an indoor/outdoor doggie. I just don't know!

Mon, if you catch it quick enough, the bombs can work. Meaning the first time you see ONE flea or get one bite. Wait a couple of weeks and your chances just go downhill. The first couple of years we had fleas, we combatted them without the pros. As soon as I saw them, we bombed, sprayed, and boraxed and were fine. The 3rd year we had fleas, Amelia had just been born, and I just had to live with them biting me (they weren't biting her, thank god) for the first few weeks, and then we called in the pros. By that time, I knew it was too late to do it ourselves. The 4th year, we called the pros right away, but it still took a repeat visit because outside our door it was infested, the stupid neighbor's cat just sat in front of our door scratching all day.

Good luck Ckrickett@

 

[radiantquest]

We are always pretty lucky with fleas. This seems like a critter year though. We have been having a huge problem with ants this year and we never had them before. Another thing that we have been having problems with is ticks, which is scary.

One of the women I work with says that she used to have a terrible time with her dog and fleas. She said she tried frontline and advantage and everything. She said that the thing that has worked the best is to put a tiny bit of garlic powder in the food so then her dogs eat it and the fleas dont like the taste. I dont know if garlic is bad for animals but she said she asked the vet and he told her it was ok as long as it was just a little bit.

 

[MayFlowers]

I definitely ditto getting professionals for this. SO and I also had fleas for a few summers in a row. We sprayed, vacuumed, did everything you could think of and they still wouldn't go away. We ended up calling professionals to get rid of them and this summer we haven't seen any luckily.

One thing that you could do to help get rid of some of them before the professionals come is to fill some bowls with warm soapy water and place the bowl by a candle or a light on the floor. This draws the fleas in (because of the heat) and they will jump into the bowl and drown. The soap breaks the surface tension of the water, so the fleas sink right to the bottom and can't get back up. This worked for me and SO. We would wake up and find as many as 20-30 in a single bowl. The way I always did it was to place a candle on the floor and then surround it with multiple bowls.