Fleas Won't Die!

[BabyKittyBoo]

Hi to all!

I am a college student living in off-campus student housing and my cat, Feebie, has recently gotten fleas from sitting by the patio door too often. Typically, I'd put Frontline or something similar on her and they would disappear but now they simply wont die. I have been battling this for almost three months now and I cannot take it any longer! I have given her a bath before, sprayed my entire room with Precor, vacuumed weekly, set up flea traps, washed all of our bedding and clothes. Yet nothing completely gets rid of the problem. They primarily will not stay off of her and I am in dire need of help to get rid of them entirely. Especially on Feebie!

 

[poorsasha]

Hi to all!

I am a college student living in off-campus student housing and my cat, Feebie, has recently gotten fleas from sitting by the patio door too often. Typically, I'd put Frontline or something similar on her and they would disappear but now they simply wont die. I have been battling this for almost three months now and I cannot take it any longer! I have given her a bath before, sprayed my entire room with Precor, vacuumed weekly, set up flea traps, washed all of our bedding and clothes. Yet nothing completely gets rid of the problem. They primarily will not stay off of her and I am in dire need of help to get rid of them entirely. Especially on Feebie!

I feel your pain. I had my last cat on frontline but then it stopped working and i switched to advantage. I got a new cat last fall and within 2 days she was scratching furiously and I found flea dirt on the bed. I put her on advantage which worked for 3 weeks then she was scratching and I was seeing flea dirt again. I waited the week which was a big mistake and gave her another advantage treatment which only worked for only 2.5 weeks. Vet said I had to wait another 1.5 weeks to give her any flea treatment which caused me to get bitten as well as my cat and we had house exterminated. My car then got fleas because my cat and me waited in the car for 4 hours apparently with some fleas while the house was being sprayed. It was a nightmare. I got my cat on comfortis which worked fantastic but you can only get it thru a vet and my vet won't refill the prescription unless my cat has evidence of fleas on her. When we had house sprayed, pest control told us to vacuum daily and to not wash floors if possible for 3 weeks. I was vacuuming for 3 months. I found using herbal sprays on the outside of clothes helps repel fleas, but these sprays are expensive.

 

[kashmir64]

At the same time you use a flea treatment on your cat, also bomb the place with Raid flea and tick. Please do remove the cat during this adventure. I had a massive flea outbreak many many years ago, and Raid killed every one of those things.

 

[red top rescue]

My recommendation would be to continue to use Advantage II on your cat, but use it every 3 weeks (it states you can use it as often as once a week during heavy infestations), which will kill the eggs and larvae as well as young fleas, but also use nitenpyram (generic name, used to be Capstar, now there are many brands). It is a pill that kills every single flea on the cat for 24 hours, so that will get rid of all the adults and thus no new eggs will be added to the environment. Nitenpyram can be given as often as once every 24 hours and it is safe, but it is not inexpensive, so it's not what you regularly want to use as a flea preventative. You may want to use it every few days if you are still seeing live fleas on your cats. It DOES work. They scratch like crazy as the fleas start to die but then there is no more scratching and you can comb out the dead fleas with a flea comb.

To get rid of any fleas that are infesting your apartment, you can get food grade diotomaceous earth at most feed stores. It's a powder that you sprinkle on beddeing, in corners, get it in cracks on hardwood floors etc. and it kills the fleas by dessicating them -- it gets under their exoskeleton plates and they dry out. It is not a poison. Continue to sprinkle DE, work into corners and cracks etc., leave overnight and then vacuum the next day. I have used the these three things together along with washing every piece of human and cat bedding every 3 days and keeping couches covered with quilts so I could wash those too, and since your cat does not go out, you should be able to get ALL the fleas out of your environment and then not be bothered again, unless they come through the door. Perhaps other cats are coming to the door? You may want to keep the door shut during flea season. Also make sure nobody brings any dogs to visit because eeven if they are wearing flea protection, a flea can ride in on them and hop off. It only takes one pregnant flea to infest a whole apartment.