Fleas

My cat is a house cat 24/7 can she get fleas? We have a stray cat out here on our farm, could we have brought the fleas in from outside? Help!!

Yes you can bring fleas inside with you. Often they'll jump on you and when inside will jump off and onto your kitty since a cat's body temps are normally higher than a humans.

Just to be on the safe side you can treat her with something like Frontline, Revolution or Advantage. Often with Frontline you can apply it once and it will kill fleas up to three months. Steer clear of over the counter flea controls like Hartz.

...and it has been absolutely terrible trying to get rid of them. We have vacuumed constantly, thrown out wool pillows and blankets he slept on, put Frontline on religiously once a month with a bath at the two-week mark after application - and there are STILL fleas in our apartment, although we have almost gotten rid of them now. It's been a nightmare.

My advice is: Frontline works, but only if the environment is regularly cleaned to get rid of the eggs and fleas that AREN'T living on the cat. And believe me, there are plenty of those!!

there is a new product called FleaBreeze and it works well to get the fleas off the furniture. I found it at the feed store and used it all last year and just started using it again. The fleas will burrow down into the bottom of the carpets as well as along the baseboard. If you are in a house you can sprinkle diachotumus earth crystals along the whole outside of the home to keep them from gaining entry inside. Flea bombs work well too, just make sure you remove the cats prior to using it and about 5 hours afterward.

Note that when you vacuum up fleas it doesn't kill them. It won't take long after you finish for the fleas to crawl back out of the machine and continue infesting your house!!! The same is true for washing them down the sink while combing the cat. Come back 15 minutes later and you'll find all those fleas you thought you had drowned crawling out of the drain! Ick!

hissy,
Does FleaBreeze work on carpet as well as furniture? Our furniture is leather so I don't think they are hiding there.

Yes, it does. I spray it along the baseboards and the edges of the carpeting

We found out that it was just a false alarm. I did indeed have a flea on me but it must have come from outside. Trix is clean. I've checked her over several times not to her liking but I didn't find anything on her at all. Thanks for all the help!

Just because you can't see them, does not mean they are not there. The best way to check for fleas, is to lift your kitty's chin and gently scrape away from the hair. Have a piece of white paper underneath to catch the scrapings. If small black specs fall, you can bet your kitty has fleas.

The vet told me to check her skin for "pepper". He said that was the stuff that fleas leave behind and I would more than likely see the "pepper" from the fleas than the actual flea itself. But I will try the paper trick and see what comes of it. Thanks

The pepper your vet is refering to(otherwise known as flea poo) is what Hissy is talking about. Also check her hind quarters, fleas love it there just as much.

Yep....our 3 totally indoor cats having started getting fleas Blah

Where do the fleas come from? If you move to a new place or something where the animal there was infested and the place wasn't cleaned right that I could see. But if you've been in the same place forever do they just come in from outside on their own? or do they come in on someone? I guess I thought that your animal had to be around one that already had fleas to get fleas. Is that a myth am I misinformed?

I think both....they can certainly come in on someone....but in our case, we have a gap under our door...we get baby lizards inside all the time because of it,I'm sure fleas come through as well. Remember, fleas are tiny..they can fit through almost any gap.

Oohh that makes me mad. Well I hope the spider and crawling insect spray I use around the windows and doors will keep them out. I just really hate bugs...especially ones that are hard to see and cause such a problem. Thanks for the info.

Hi Sparkycat,
Our cat being an indoors cat I was as surprised as you when she suddenly had fleas. since we have 2 cats I thought the other cat was rsponsible for the problem.Our breeder, however , told me that we can get them in on our shoes.I found that advantage was very helpful but you have to know the weight of your cat because you buy it according to the weight. We didn´t have to throw anything away or had to vacuumclean more than normal.Was pretty easy . As catfleas don´t bother humans it didn´t affect us at all..Well, that´s it for today All the best Elisabeth

Our indoor cats had fleas......What I did was bought them flea collars, thouroughly vacuumed the carpet..then every night since I've gone over them with a flea comb.....the number of fleas I find on them is way down now. I don't know if this would work if there was a real heavy infestation.....but for us it worked well. Good luck

lotsocats wrote "Note that when you vacuum up fleas it doesn't kill them. It won't take long after you finish for the fleas to crawl back out of the machine and continue infesting your house!!! The same is true for washing them down the sink while combing the cat. Come back 15 minutes later and you'll find all those fleas you thought you had drowned crawling out of the drain! Ick!"

So, when I flushed the fleas I combed off my cats down the toilet, I wasn't just being paranoid then. I really didn't think they could crawl back up the sink drain, though. I can verify that they do not come back after being flushed.

I used to think bugs vacuumed up would die in the bag, but they don't, as you said. After vacuuming for fleas, the bag has to be thrown out outside.

If you want to drown fleas, dunk them in soapy water - that kills the little suckers (sorry, biters). I think it has something to do with insects trapping air around their bodies, and the detergent gets rid of the "surface tension" keeping the air there.

I too have recently had my 24/7 indoor cat contract fleas. I purchased Advantage and am bombing the apartment tomorrow (while poor Jedi is at the vet getting neutered!) I don't understand how he got the either. He is now 5 months old and we had him for about 3 months or so with no problems. Suddenly he starts scratching like crazy! A search of his body soon turned up a couple of hithc hikers which I removed and burned. Hopefully, with the Advantage adn bombing the place he will be OK.