Saturday, July 24, 2010

bugged

As if suffering through the heat and humidity wasn't bad enough, last night we discovered that we have fleas. All six cats are scratching as if they're possessed, I'm covered in red itchy welts and Mike....well, he has one bite. One. I'm fully expecting plague filled buboes to show up any moment now and he's trying to decide if that tiny red dot on his stomach is itchy enough to qualify. Argh.

And to top it all off, the vet said that since our cats all stay indoors it's likely that I gave them the fleas.

Fae is most assuredly not pleased.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine that you got fleas from the upstanding classy library clientele that frequents the stacks.

Ladyfox said...

Poor kittehs! Whenever we get a flea problem around our den we've had good success with the stuff called Advantage. The only thing I dislike about it is not being able to snorgle with our kittehs while they have it on. -_-

Mike W. said...

You mean hobos have fleas!? Who woulda thought. Hope you kill those nasty buggers dead soon.

I was late giving Zack his frontline this month and was praying he wouldn't start scratching.

Bob said...

Raid Yard Guard will kill any fleas currently in the carpets, just herd the cats into a back bedroom while you spray the rest of the house. You might have to repeat the treatment in a few days when any flea eggs hatch out. Turn off your a/c system while fogging.

Robb Allen said...

Yup. The little suckers jump on you while you're outdoors, then you bring them in. It's happened to me as well.

The liquid drops you put on the back of their necks (I believe Advantage is one of them) is as close to a miracle cure as there is. Within a day, you won't see a single flea. The stuff is absorbed into the kitty's blood stream and turns their blood poisonous to the fleas.

Best stuff I've ever used.

Warthog said...

you can also sprinkle borax powder over your carpet. It can be found in the laundry section of your supermarket, it's not toxic to teh kittehs and it kills the fleas dead by dehydrating them.

James said...

One old remedy that killed adult fleas from back when I had the farm is to hang a light bulb over a flat pan of water where the fleas are the thickest. Put detergent in the water to reduce the surface tension. Fleas jump at heat or motion so the little bundles of joy will jump at the light, fall into the water and drown. Flea eggs will be in your carpets and frequent vacuuming will help there, dispose of the bag contents very carefully.

Revolver Rob said...

Borax and table salt!

We had a mammoth infestation of fleas and the exterminator couldn't kill them. Borax and table salt works wonders though. Use it for a laundry detergent, use it to powder the carpets, furniture, mattresses, everything. The borax and table salt also kill the eggs and prevent them from coming back.

If you wash the kitties in Dawn dish soap, it will kill the fleas and not bother the kitties (well too much).

Good luck!

-Rob

OrangeNeck said...

Do you have fleas or do the fleas have you?

DaddyBear said...

Be careful to not overdo it if you go the insecticide route. Cats are sensitive to the poisons, and too much will mess with them. Follow instructions carefully, and be careful to use the formula for cats, not dogs.

Never tried the borax method, but what has been said about the vacuum cleaner is spot on. My mother raised yorkies, and we were continually fighting fleas until we realized we were providing a hatchery in the vacuum.

Good luck, and try not to wear holes in your hide scratching!

B Smith said...

@ OrangeNeck: This begs the question: What gun for fleas?

Dean Carder said...

Simple solution. First salt your carpets heavily. Two days later vacuum. Salt again and repeat for a week. Then run the vac every day. Wash the cats and yourself with Miracle Two soap. No fleas.

Heath J said...

Salt the cat well enough, and it's halfway edible...

Christina RN LMT said...

Make sure you put mothballs in your vacuum cleaner bag, that'll kill any fleas/eggs inside and those the machine sucks up, too.

Anonymous said...

I don't envy you this problem, but it does sound like there are good tools and the experience to use them.

Jim

Roberta X said...

...I have in the past, at some of my more horrible apartments, slept with flea collars on my ankles. Really bad flea seasons, I wore 'em as anklets outdoors, too.

dr mac said...

My method is 1)Deflea all animals with a flea bath and put in car, 2)Deflea humans, 3)Set off flea bombs in each room and nuke the hell out 'em 4)Go on 3 hour car trip, 5)Return and vacumn, 5)Return all animals and humans to previoulsly invaded habitat.

It takes half a day but it works. Considering my lower legs would immediately swell with red blotches, I knew immediately when a flea invasion had taken place. It just made the house inhabitable.

Good Luck !

Old NFO said...

Dr Mack is right, and Borax works wonders on carpet to kill them. I did that before the bug bomb.

Anonymous said...

Diatomaceous earth works as well as borax and its non-toxic to critters larger than fleas. It kills fleas by physical action - under a microscope the particles look like shards of glass. Too small to hurt people and kittehs, but lethal nasty for fleas and flea larva. It works for ants too.

Unknown said...

EW fleas! They like hubby more than me. Thankfully, we haven't had them since eliminating the carpet from the house. Salt on the carpet and a dish of water with a little soap works great. Also, daily baths for kittehs until they are gone. I live with a pair of Siamese so this was a very loud undertaking.

Lissa said...

LOL, the look on Fae's face . . . she looks like you just goosed her with a thermometer :)

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. All 4 of our cats had fleas. Last week was spent bathing them repeatedly, bombing the house, doing laundry, catching said cats & putting collars on them, doctoring our wounds from putting collars on, etc.
We think we've got the fleas taken care of, but only time will tell.

Warthog said...

What gun for fleas? Probably something similar to what Caleb might carry at work? LOL

Glenn B said...

Sorry to hear about your plight. I know that fleasliterally suck. Went to sleep on my uncle's couch in his farmhouse, years ago. Woke up with what looked like red bracelets/welts around the area a few inches above my ankles. I had been wearing socks, sweat pants and a sweat shirt. Wear the pants and socked were separated by about 2 inches of flesh on each leg, I was literally eaten alive by those little boogers. I noticed them when I saw one black dot, then another and yet another appear out from within the fabric of my white socks as I looked at the welts. One continuous welt around each leg mind you that was really badly inflamed. When I moved a hand toward one of my socks all the dots disappeared. Then I moved my hand over the couch and it looked like it was sprinkled with live pepper on the cushion on which my legs had been stretched out. Then I checked the carpetting, the house was crawling wiuth them, probably millions of them.

My uncle tried to blame it on my dogs having been there two months before even though we used a flea treatment and they never scratched themselves except for an odd itch now and again. His dogs, on the other paw, were allowed to wander his 152 acre farm and more, were not treated yet that year for fleasa, and always were scratching. Took him 2 or three flea bomb attempts to rid the whole house of them. Had to do it once, then a set time laterto get any that hatched since the first bombing, then again because he had not gotten em all for some reason the first two times. The flea bombs did work after that third attempt. Good luck getting rid of them.

As for getting ill, I had no ill effect except I itched and then scratched myself bloody for a few days. If you start feeling ill within up to the next month, let the doc know you were bitten by fleas. Probably and hopefully, you will not get ill.

All the best,
Glenn B

Glenn B said...

Did I really write "wear the pants" instead of 'where the pants', jeesh!