Question if my cat has flea or not?

I recently adopted a cat (about 1.5 month ago), who is about a year old.

She used to hide in my closet, sitting on my clothes. But one day, when she left that place temporary for food, I saw black little thing on the shirts. Now, I am started to worry about if she has flea.

I have never thought about that. She came as an indoor cat, so I do not think she went out at all from previous home.

I also kept my apartment clean, and also I moved into this new place not long ago (3 month ago) with new carpet.

Anyway, the hard part is that I cannot touch her! I cannot even approach to her. I mean she comes and smell me, but when the time comes for patting, she just runs away crazily. One time I tried to hold her while she was in closet, she scratched me all over, and ran away, hid. Especially given that she is a black cat, it is even harder to tell by looking at her hair without touching her.

So given that I cannot 100% sure if she has flea or not, I am curious if someone can help me finding the problem out.

These pictures were taken from the closet I talked about (her hiding place). I saw these since last week or something.

For me, it looks more like a black dots, or black dandruff.

When I found out about that last week, I kinda ignored it, but I also saw similar black dots thing on my bed yesterday (on my pajama and pillow), where she sit down.

I heard that if these are flea eggs, it should be disappeared after hatching or so?

But I saw these everyday without any disappearance or something.


It is a little hard to see, but black spots/dots on some clothes.


Hair and the stuff I was talking about.


See the black dots?


And this is one I put on my finger.

What I heard was that if I press this thing, I should get something like "pop" feeling or something.

For me, it looks more like a little soil or something. It is really hard to explain, but when I press it, I feel more like smush feeling or something?

It is kinda like when you press the snowball, the form just disappear and so on. Similarly, when I press/smush this thing, it is just gone.

I found these on the place where she sits down with her tummy down. I have not really seen her scratching her tummy or back crazily. She sometimes lay down and show her tummy while scratching her back, but that is once or twice a day for a short period. She does scratch her chin often but that's all I can see. She grooms a lot on her tummy area, but I am not sure if this is her normal behavior or not. No sign on hair loss.

I will definitely try to take her to the vet if needed. But again, catching/holding her is really hard, since she does not 100% trust me yet.

Can you help me on what you think about this? Also if necessarily, what should I do to take her to the vet or cure this by myself or so.

Thanks

It looks like flea poop A test to be positive it to put some of the specks on a white napkin and drip a drop of water on them. If they turn red (bloody) it's definitely flea poop.
Her scratching behavior (chin and belly) sounds like she has fleas, also.
You can purchase Advantage or Frontline Plus from Walmart or pet stores. Be very careful and do research on any other OTC flea products. The two I mentioned are safe, others can be very dangerous and even deadly. Also, most are completely ineffective and a waste of time and money. Of course, your vet will have safe products, also.

The best place to see fleas Is on the tummy, down towards where the legs meet the body, the hair is usually thinner here and you'll see them moving around, Try to see if she'll let you 'part' the hair and look. Any way you treat you'll have to remember to treat her bedding and anywhere else she lays. If I remember right it takes at least a week for more to hatch, so make sure you treat at a later time too!  Also, make sure she doesn't have 'scabs' on her chin, scratching would flake those off too. Good luck to you and your baby!

I guarantee she has fleas.

You need to work on gaining her trust, you obviously adopted her for companionship, but she was likely born into an outdoor situation then tamed to whoever had her, but however it was for her, it was as a young kitten and is lacking human socialization.

Whether you take steps in helping her come around to you or not, eventually she will learn to trust, there is no threat or danger, and you are her caregiver.

Personally I would take steps now in moving this adjustment along, especially since she needs flea treatment.

She went after you when you approached her in the closet out of fear, she was cornered and had no escape route, so it's the only thing she thought she could do. A natural instinct to protect herself. Nothing personal

She finds comfort in the closet, then spend time in the room with her, door shut, laying on the floor and quietly talking in a sweet, non threatening voice.

Lay on the floor, talk to her, sing, whatever.

Keep your hands close to you, not out.

Watch her decide on her own to come to you, sniff you, etc.

Keep it on her terms. Offer treats. Read outloud, take your laptop in there, whatever. Don't reach out for pets too soon, start with her getting comfortable coming out to you, eventually start reaching your hand out towards her but leaving it on the floor. Being down on the floor takes away the intimidation factor of this enormous being towering over her.

Once she will take treats from your hand, keeping the other hand low too, pet her. At first she will shy away a bit, but the treat is too tempting to not just submit to it. She will soon figure out that it didn't hurt and actually felt kinda good

When you are able to easily pet her, zap her with advantage 11, I use this in my rescue and love it, it has an additional med that kills eggs and larvae as well as the adult fleas.

Repeat the treatment every 2 weeks, 3 times in a row, then once a month.

Good luck!

Before you know it, she will come out of the room in search of you.