Possible fleas...

My cat is really fluffy, so I should probably check her skin more frequently than I do. Today I picked her up and noticed some small, tight mats on her belly between her thighs. So I roll her over to snip them away with scissors(don't have an electric clipper, and they were too tight for a comb) and find what looks like flea dirt! Her fur in that area has always been pretty thin, but now it's even more so.(Some of you might recall another thread of mine regarding PJ's recent frequent hairballs, which seem to be gone, but I probably should have looked for something like this at that time)  Her skin doesn't look irritated, but the stuff looking like coffee grounds worries me. I took some of the black stuff on a tissue and wet them but they stayed black, so I'm not really sure if it is flea dirt. I expected it to turn a rusty colour. But I don't have any first-hand experience with fleas. I couldn't find any eggs or fleas on PJ. However, digging through her fur on various parts of her body I found some more coffee ground type stuff in other areas. On her back, especially close to the base of her tail, the pores on the skin seem to be clogged with brownish stuff like built up oils or something. The thinned out area on her belly has the most "coffee grounds", though.

PJ is an indoor-only cat, and all her recent vet checkups were good, including bloodwork. She has been acting perfectly normal; no excessive grooming or scratching. But  I'm not really sure what it could be besides fleas. The vet said they could prescribe a flea treatment, but I'm going to take PJ in for a checkup just to make sure. We've had a kitten here for 2 months as well, but he's not showing any signs of fleas. I haven't seen any signs on furniture, bedding, etc. or on any of the people who come here regularly. I know indoor cats can get fleas, but I wonder if this might be something else? I've never dealt with fleas before, so I have no idea.

If it does turn out to be fleas, I'd like to know if anybody would recommend a specific brand or type of flea treatment. I have many tarantulas and a snake, so I am concerned about them getting poisoned. I've heard horror stories about Frontline regarding both. I would think that any treatment applied externally could harm my other pets(being carried into their enclosures via airborne cat dander or hair)...is it possible to treat fleas with something like a pill or injection, rather than a topical pesticide? Also, for flea larvae/eggs/whatever in fabrics/carpets/bedding/etc, is intensive vacuuming and laundering usually sufficient? I really wouldn't want to be spraying poison all over the place, and I have no idea where all the people and animals would go while "bombing" the place.

EDIT: Looking up fleas, I found that most people recommend disposing of the vacuum bag every time you vacuum.....do bag vacuums still exist??? If I use my regular(modern) filter vacuum, will fleas survive in the vacuum?

No fleas!!!! Thank God!

Okay, so the vet was pretty puzzled when I brought PJ in, seeing a perfectly healthy indoor cat and a crazy owner spouting nonsense about fleas. They took a look at the black specks I found and agreed that it looked at first glance like flea dirt. They went over PJ with a flea comb and found no fleas. They took some of the black stuff and checked it under a microscope and with saline solution. No flea dirt. The stuff on PJ's belly was actually real coffee grounds(the vet smelled it after wetting it, which I didn't do lol) and the stuff on PJ's body was a mystery mix of dirt and oils and stuff. They told me that it seems like PJ is getting lazy with grooming, which apparently is common with older cats. This cat is so getting a bath today. One of the vet techs recommended Duoxo Seborrhea Spot On treatment, which she uses on her own older long-haired cats and she assures me that it makes a big difference in the coat quality on the lazier groomers. I got a 4 week sample, so I'll try it out. They said the ingredients are pretty inert. I'll have to double-check that myself just to be sure.

I'm still curious about flea treatments, though. Does anyone have any ideas for what would be safe in a home with tarantulas and reptiles? Even though the chances of PJ getting fleas are slim, it would be good to know if it ever does happen.

You can flea collars in the vacuum to kill the fleas inside. I'm not sure what would be a safe flea treatment for the home since I'm not sure diatomaceous earth is safe for tarantulas. If fleas happen, I would just recommend a safe drop-on treatment from the vet.

Hmm, DE might be an option...not 100% safe, but I think the snake and larger Ts would be okay. I'd worry about the babies, but they're much easier to relocate.

But I wonder about whether the stuff is safe to inhale? It's pretty fine, so everyone would be breathing it in...