My Flea War
Hitler, Mussolini, and Pol Pot had good ideas - when applied to fleas!
Undesired Immigrants
Last fall, after only two months in my apartment in Gresham, Oregon, fleas had invaded. Carbon, Lacey, and Kitty were staying with me at the time. All were scratching, scratching and scratching. My legs itched. Fleas usually don't bother with Humans, but when they are too numerous, they'll chomp on anything warm, soft and near the floor.
Fleas were ruining our culture, productivity and economy. Fleakind had to be mass exterminated!
First thing I did, naturally, was to give the cats flea baths. I usually have on hand some flea shampoo from the grocery store. I'm not sure if the flea toxins in the shampoo really matter. Soapy water alone is dire bad news for fleas.
My flea bath procedure
1) Fill the bathroom sink with comfortably warm water. Stir in a good glob of flea shampoo. The water should feel pleasant to my arm, and not immediately feel cool by evaporation when I pull my arm out. Like one time in chemistry lab back in college. At one point in some experiment, we had to dunk glassware into a thermal bath at just the right temperature. That temperature happened to be about the same as Human body temperature. "You'll put your arm in and want to keep it in there forever" the instructor said. But I babble on about old memories when... WE HAVE A WAR TO FIGHT!
2) Kidnap one cat, treating her real nice. Though the cats are close allies in our desire to put an end to the Flea Race, three-way interspecies diplomacy can be tricky, especially when water is involved. Lock her in the bathroom with myself and the sink.
3) Dunk a hand towel into the warm sink water. Lay it on the cat, rub it around, rub it in. Two or three more dunks, and the cat will be dripping wet. Be sure to get all four (five?) paws, tail, belly, ears. Make it as much as possible like a wonderful warm massage.
4) Mop off most of the soapy water and fluff her up with a dry towel.
5) Time to ship her off to the Dry-Out Clinic. Usually this means dumping the cat outside on a warm, dry, sunny day. The best dry-out clinic whose services I've ever called upon is one called New Mexico. Lots of "dry heat" there. I hear Arizona is just as good. But these are not available in Oregon. In cooler climates, I keep the wet cats indoors with the heat turned up, 80F or so, for about one hour.
6) When all the cats have been processed and put outdoors, or in the Warm Room, I clean up the bathroom, vacuum the house, run the carpet cleaner (I own one, not rented from the grocery) and do other cleaning best done without feline interference.
After a flea bath, the cats scratch almost never for several days.
Note: rather than read my propaganda, the reader may wish to consult a professionally written article such as How to Safely Bathe a Cat
Dishes of Doom
Wiping out an entire population requires Chambers of Death, or whatever equivalent one can concoct out of cheap household materials. I use plastic bowls from Asian-style lunches, the kind you keep in a desk drawer at work, just add a bit of water, pour in the powder or sauce from an envelope, and microwave. Great lunches. Once in a while I take a bagful of used bowls home.
I put at one bowl in every room, maybe two in the rooms inhabited most often by my furry citizens. Every bowl is 3/4 filled with water with a few drops of Dawn dish detergent, which I prefer to call Deadly Fluid of Flea Death. (No, I am not a genius at naming things.) Dawn is alleged to be safer for cats, in case one tries to taste the DFFD. My cats haven't been curious at all, but you, the Decision Makers and Leaders of other households, may want to add a bit of something which tastes bad to cats.
Over each dish there's a cheap-o gooseneck desk lamp with an 11W CFL bulb (equiv to 40W incandescent, about 400 to 500 lumens.) Flea torture experts are unsure whether it's the visible light, infrared, ultraviolet or the slight increase of warmth of the floor and lamp which attracts fleas. But we do know that the new LED bulbs are disappointingly ineffective.
The final touch is a pair of 3x5 or 4x6 cards on opposite sides of the bowl, or wherever they fit without being in anyone's way. These increase the typical number of "volunteers for swimming" by 20 - 50%.
Oddly, these traps catch more fleas if the lamp is positioned over the edge of the bowl, not neatly over the center. Not being a flea psychologist, I have no idea why fleas are more attracted to white cards and an off-center lamp. My "scientists" concentrate on torture and death, not any real science. Well, I don't actually have a staff of "scientists" but rather, it's just me, but again I'm babbling about stuff going off-topic...BACK TO THE WAR!!
BTW, the transparent covers for containers of scones, cookies and such from the grocery's bakery also make great Dishes of Flea Doom. Fleas are about the same color as the carpet here, so I put a sheet of paper or 4x6 card underneath. Then I can count daily the new corpses in the watery battlefield.
D.E.: The First Two Letters in Death
Diatomaceous Earth is a extremely fine powder, made of tiny hard jagged particles, basically microscopic clumps of knife edges. Deathballs to Fleakind. DE particles scratch the exoskeletons of the little bloodsucking ba'erds, which causes them to dehydrate and die. Hopefully, it's a painful slow for the fleas.... bwa ha ha ha....
Quntillions of one-celled critters, the Diatoms, lived and died in ancient oceans, sacrificing themselves to provide, for us today, help with reducing evil. Sort of like Jesus dying on the Cross for our sins, except without the metaphysical implications, profound divine involvement, or anyone starting a religion based on the event.
Hmm... a new religion based on ancient algae... opiate of the masses... thought control through manufactured culture... docile factory workers who won't question authority... I like it!! But this is another topic for another time.
Be sure to get "Food Grade D.E" not the kind for swimming pools or other uses. All the cat sites and all the reputable veterinarian sites, and sorts of other animal health related sites, emphasize this point. So get food grade. I wouldn't question authority.
I sprinkle the stuff on the carpet where the cats rest, around the food and water bowls, and under windows through which I suspect the enemy is infiltrating our domain. I hold my hand low to the floor to drop the DE gently, to avoid stirring up a cloud of it in the air. I spread some on every chair seat that any cat steals from me.
DE can be worked into a cat's fur, but only a little bit, and being careful not to stir it up. No one, Human, Cat, or otherwise wants to breath DE, although a little bit isn't to be worried about. DE spread about for flea control is no danger to cats. It's okay if the cat licks DE off its paws. Farmers add DE to animal feed to prevent worms. DE may be added to cat food to prevent parasites - hooo hoo, don't get me started on those other Enemies of My People!
"Flea infestations can result in tapeworms and cause anemia (especially in kittens)." - found on Catster site.
Note that DE should be dry, used on dry carpet, dry sofa cushions, dry blankets, and dry cat fur. Water causes it to clump up or become a caked-on crust, still somewhat hazardous to fleas, but you will want your DE dry, to have trillions of separate microscopic Flea Deathballs spread all over.
Sometimes Chemical Weapons are Necessary
Normally, when there is not an invasion, my government offers free to all citizen cats, an application of Advantage, the back-of-neck goop, once every two or three months. But this invasion called for stronger stuff.
When the flea infestation was at its worst, Kitty the Official Black & White Tuxedo Cat, or Kitty for short, was losing fur in spots. Like "male pattern baldness" except on a cat and along her side, not on her head. Not wanting her to look like a sideways Mr. Spacely, I took her to the vet. The vet recommended Frontline every three weeks (instead of the generally recommended four) and also gave me a tube of goop, to be applied on the back of the neck just like the flea treatments, to snuff out any flea parasites who may have been swallowed and took up residence within the cat.
The carpet cleaning, DE and flea traps help to reduce the overall population of undesirables, but only flea baths and topical flea treatments get rid of fleas nestled within the fur of the cat.
People I trust have told me that Revolution is superior. I haven't tried it yet, but I like the name!
DANGERS of CHEMICAL WEAPONS
- Don't use anything intended for dogs. These are BAD for cats!
- Apply only the recommended amount with the recommended timing (probably four weeks) unless the vet says otherwise.
- Watch for bad reactions: drooling, tremors, overheating. The well-known brands available at pet stores are fairly safe. Bad reactions are uncommon, but some cats are more sensitive.
- In the hands of caring cat-loving megalomaniacs, flea treatments will quickly wipe out all fleas within your borders. (They work for non-megalomaniacs, too.)
Dud Weapons
During previous invasions we had tried flea bombs, which worked but we didn't like that everything became covered with a fine coat of powder or condensation. Food and plates and had to be covered, and the cats put outdoors. Some flea bomb users find them only partially effective.
We've also tried flea collars, but there are two reasons they didn't work: 1) my cats are smart. PhDs in physics and aerospace engineering, experts in international finance, etc. They always find ways to remove those collars. 2) general opinion seems to be that flea collars just don't work that well, even when kept on.
The Economics Warfront: Decreasing Market Demand
Fleas see invasion of the Cat-Human Kingdom as a net benefit. The reward of fresh cat chomp exceeds the risk and trouble hopping about to find a warm cat while avoiding predators such as birds and bigger bugs who eat fleas. Their balance sheets can be nudged in our favor by making their proposed destination more risky and less pleasant. According to certain unnamed sources, essential oils or other sources of scent for lavendar, geranium, tea tree, rosemary, citronella, and frankensence are big turn-offs for fleas.
So is garlic. Perhaps cooking spaghetti with extra garlic for dinner every night will reduce the flea population? There does not seem to be any reliable research on this topic.
When fleas are out of control enough to bite my legs, I rub on a few drops of rosemary essential oil. This keeps them away for a few hours.
In any case, I keep a bottle of flea spray around, to ocassionally spray around edges of windows, along edges of the floor, and other places I prefer not to use DE or can't easily clean.
Peacekeeping Efforts for Social and Political Stability
As I write this war report, the invasion has been over for a good two months. However, we must maintain a strong Army, even when fleas are not sighted anywhere within our territory.
- I have four flea traps going, lights on all day and night except where I sleep, to monitor for fleas. In a typical week, the traps catch nothing, but may one will catch one flea. Any fleas immigrating and thinking about freeloading off my cats' blood, will not resist the appeal of a warm light bulb.
- Every four to eight weeks or so, either a flea bath or application of Frontline or Advantage.
- Carpet cleaning. I do only one room each weekend, whichever room has gone the longest since the last cleaning. Some weekends, if the flea traps haven't caught anything, I skip it.
- Vacuum every Saturday morning (my usual clean-up time). Even a quick buzz-through neglecting nooks and cranny and behind furniture, is better than nothing.
- Sometimes I spread a little DE in certain strategic entry points, on frequently used chairs, and the carpet under the chairs. Maybe then I wipe my hands on a cat's fur.
- Do laundry weekly, including blankets and sheets, and anything washable not permanently attached to furniture.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Because watching someone push a carpet washer back and forth for several minutes, then spray flea poison along the edges of the carpet in every room, makes for uninteresting TV. Such a show would likely decrease ratings. We conquer quickly, quietly, without any publicity.
Fleakind: Your Day is Done!
About the Author
When not torturing tiny pests or on a murderous rampage against frowned-upon species, Daren Scot Wilson creates 2D and 3D digital art, fixes image processing problems for space scientists and medical device companies, and rarely writes about physics, electronics and music on his WiggleWave blog.
REFERENCES
http://www.oregonlive.com/pets/index.ssf/2015/01/pet_talk_veterinarians_urge_ca.html
http://www.consumersearch.com/flea-control
https://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/what_are_diatoms
http://www.sprcentre.com/sprc/what_is_diatomaceous_earth.htm
http://www.richsoil.com/diatomaceous-earth.jsp +
http://diatomaceous.org/diatomaceous-earth-for-pets-and-animals/
http://diatomaceous.org/diatomaceous-earth-for-bed-bugs-and-insects/
http://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadditivesingredients/ucm091048.htm
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