Finding flea eggs in house

I have been treating Nigel and the whole house for fleas for the last 3 weeks.

Flea combing, and frontline etc

Clean whole of house regulary and have given a second treatment of vet recommended flea killing incecticide spray for the house.

I check him for fleas with the comb every other day and most of the time I see none, but every so often I get one or two off him, along with the flea poop.

Anyway, i am still finding flea eggs on my dining room table when I come home from work. (its where he spends most of his day sitting)

So i clear them all up, but they keep coming back.

Am I doign something wrong?

What else can I do?

Do you know what the active ingredients were in the product the vet gave you to treat the house?

Leslie

I guess my first question would be are you sure they are flea eggs and not tapeworm segments (look like rice).

Secondly the spray you get for your house may not do much depending on how bad your infestation really is. Some years ago we got a barn cat that was infested with fleas. We did the baths, got the sprays from our vet and thought we had a handle on it. We didn't. the sprays did nothing to get rid of the fleas throughout our carpeting and furniture. We finally resorted to getting an exterminator in, taking the cat to the vet for de-fleaing and an overnight stay and taking our daughter and outselves away from home for the required number of hours after the fumigation. That was the only way we finally got rid of fleas. They are very hardy little beggers and can live in carpeting for up to a year I am told.

You will need to treat your house, i.e., carpeting, upholstery, cat's bedding and your bedding too if the cat is sleeping with you.

Do a search on this forum and you'll find mega-information on how to get rid of fleas. This question comes up on an almost monthly basis.

Years ago I dealt with a sand flea invasion much the same way. These aren't like cat fleas, they don't need a host to bring them in - they infested the whole neighborhood including the neighbors houses who did not have any pets.

Only fix for us all was fumigating.

To be honest I can't imagine that you are actualy seeing flea eggs on the table? It sounds more like tapeworm segements. If so, I'd assume that the flea issue is pretty bad and you need to have the vet treat Nigel for tapeworms--tapeworms come from the cat ingesting fleas. Tapeworms suck nutrition from cats!

It takes 3 full months to fully break the flea life cycle so you will need to do treatment on the cat for 3 months.

My dad is an exterminator--we just dealt with fleas and it was awful, but with dad's help things were pretty painless (besides all the flea bites covering my legs)

Leslie

^ Hopefully the person can tell the difference between something as large as a tapeworm segment and anything related to a flea. Could it possibly be flea dirt? In which case, if there's a lot coming off the cat then fleas are pretty bad.

Thanks for all your replies.

It didnt even cross my mind that they could have been worms instead of eggs.

When we went to the vet to get all the stuff to treat him, they gave us a 3 months supply of frontline spot on, plus 1 large pill of drontal worming stuff plus a can of flea incectorcider spray which was fully used and emptied on the day.

I havnt seen so many of the little dots recently, but it was strange that every other week or so a load of them would be on the dining table.

How can I tell if they are wormy bits or eggs?
They are tiny, white, round and there were just loads of them.

I just have to add:

I feel really bad. I am so rubbish as a pet owner and I feel so guilty that I was so nieve in the first place not to notice he had fleas.

The first thing that made me realise he had them was an increasing in bites up my legs and where he drinks in the bath there were little red dots (from flea poop). I didn't have a clue about this stuff, and from what I have learnt on this forum is that as fleas live so long, our last cat probably had them and they have been here dormant for a while and then have come onto our kitten this summer.

I have been trying to tackle them for weeks and thought my house was protected against fleas for 12 months with the house protector spray I was originally sold by my vet a while ago. But it obviously turns out that I had never used enough, and since realising that have used a lot more, but I am still finding the odd little blighters around the place.

I just don't know when to give up and flea bomb the place, but I have heard that even they are sometimes not 100% affective.

Originally Posted by davecat

I just don't know when to give up and flea bomb the place, but I have heard that even they are sometimes not 100% affective.

Click to expand...

As is true of most other options for getting rid of fleas, nothing is ever perfect. With the sand fleas we had to do three rounds of bug bombs. It was a lot of hassle, but there was no other choice for us.

As for not noticing. Everyone has to learn. In the future pay more attention to your cat's fur. How it feels, is there flea dirt or icky patches in the fur, is the cat scratching, do you feel anything in the fur when scratching/rubbing your cat. Look under the chin, around the neck, under the front legs ("armpits"), and on the belly. Lightly brush your fingers backwards through your cat's fur so you can see between the fur and down to the skin. And of course, get a flea comb.


Hopefully you'll get your flea issues under control soon. I can tolerate mosquito bites, but flea bites drive me nuts! It's no fun dealing with that, and even less when they decide you're more tasty.

Dont feel bad--we didn't realize our cats had them either. Unfortunately we have a black and white cat who is mostly black so we didn't see them on him and our red cat has such dense long fur that they went unnoticed.

My dad is an exterminator--with his spray our house was flea free in 3 days!

Leslie