Flea help!!!!!

MissRobyn09

I need help with fleas before I go insane and lose my mind. We were looking after a cat for a couple of weeks and unfortunately she has left us with fleas. They are everywhere we hoovered the house from top to bottom and got the council in to fumegate 6 days ago and we moved out. Went back this morning and theirs still adult fleas jumping all over the place. The pest control guy said to leave it a few weeks and we will see results, I just don't think I can live with them until then but we can't stay away forever. Because the cats no longer there they are biting my 2 year old I feel awful and I'm crying daily over this. Should I have paid more money and got a local pest control company in? Or do I just have to be more patient? I can't go one minute of the day not thinking about bloody fleas

helcat26

Sorry to hear that
Here is an action plan- in no particular order.
1. Cover your child in insect repellent (safe one) and long legs/ sleeves and long pulled up socks and maybe get them to play in an area like the bathroom as you prepare to tackle this.
2. Ring cat owner tell them to treat cat with something like advantage- if they are a friend you don't want them bring fleas around again.
3. Get a flea spray from the supermarket like Pesticide Free Bob Martin Clear Flea & Tick Spray for Dogs,Cats and Home ( would not use anything by Bob Martin for anything else but this is OK as long as you evacuate for a good 2 hours after using DO NOT USE on PEOPLE OR ANIMALS) spray as a fine mist over carpets furnishings, beds if necessary, and cracks in wood floors. Evacuate 2 hours
4. Buy flea bombs like Johnsons for fleas room fogger ( can get these on ebay delivered surprisingly quickly. Treat main rooms. Need to evacuate when you do
5. If you or your child has been bitten anti-histamine cream and age appropriate tablets should easy the symptoms

Room spray is about £7 - you might need 2
Foggers are about 3 for £10
Antihistamine about £4

Good luck

chris_n_tj

First of all stop panicking. Phone the council back up for a respray. empty your hoover and wash the dust bucket. Then empty and wash after every use. Put your little uns soft toys in a plastic bag and put in freezer over night to kill the little sods. Wash all bedding at 60% or hotter if you can. even inside slippers need treating.
We use ,Staykil twice a year and we do the whole house, we have never had fleas in our home but I don't take any chances.
Tell who ever owns kitty's that it has fleas and needs treating, if they are good friends they should offer to pay for your treatments.
If you carry this out it shouldn't take long to be flea free x

thorsoak

DO NOT USE BOB MARTIN PRODUCTS - they are worse than useless! Instead, go to Amazon and get a can of ACCLAIM - this really does work! Hoover down the sides of sofas and armchairs - turn the chairs upside down and spray the bottoms as well. Then leave for a few days - for the Acclaim to work in softening the flea eggs and stop them from hatching - and hoover again.

sheramber

Anything the cat came into contact could have eggs lurking in them.

Any clothes , bedding, cushions, soft toys etc. If clothes have been put in drawers or a wardrobe then everything in there could be affected

The eggs can lie dormant for up to 9 months before hatching out so the fleas you are seeing are probably ones that have newly hatched out.

The beauty of treatments like Acclaim or Zodiac are that they have a long lasting effect over several months so prevent further eggs hatching out.

But you need to treat everywhere- in crevices , along skirting boards, down the sides of furniture. under cushions, on curtains. Wash towels on a hot wash as fleas could have transferred onto them.

If they were on clothing and you travelled in the car, then spray the inside of the car.

Thoroughly hoover all these areas and empty the hoover immediately into a plastic bad and seal and put in the bin. Wash out the dust pan if it has one or pop a flea collar in the bag if it has one. That will catch any sucked up into the bag.

iammumtoone

May sound odd but is there any chance you can borrow the cat back?

This is the quickest way to get rid of them once the cat is treated with advantaqe. The fleas will bite the cat and die. At the same time spray the whole house with indorex.

Leave a bowl of soapy water out at night with a light source over the top of it (one of those table lamps you can angle is ideal). The fleas will jump towards the light and drown in the water. This is a good indicator of how the treatment is working, over time you will catch less fleas.

Good luck

Mupette

Indorex Household Flea Spray

bloody good spray, kills the eggs and the adults, kills the cycle.

I would do one room at a time.

do one room and keep that door closed until the time has passed instructed on the tin.

3 cats and 1 dog here, no flea problem

paddy's_mum

In this battle, the hoover is your saviour.

Hoover, hoover, hoover.

The newly hatched fleas react to the passage of the machine as they would to the vibrations of a passing source of grub (you, a cat, a dog) and will emerge. Bang! - they're sucked up or land on your white socks. Treat the hoover bag as others have suggested.

I would also add that the freezer idea is a good and very effective one, albeit a pain in the butt.

Mupette

paddy's_mum wrote: »

In this battle, the hoover is your saviour.

Hoover, hoover, hoover.

The newly hatched fleas react to the passage of the machine as they would to the vibrations of a passing source of grub (you, a cat, a dog) and will emerge. Bang! - they're sucked up or land on your white socks. Treat the hoover bag as others have suggested.

I would also add that the freezer idea is a good and very effective one, albeit a pain in the butt.

but you still need to kill the eggs in the carpet

MissRobyn09

Thank you for all your responses. I was told by the council not to hoover for two weeks in order to let the chemicals work. I was hoovering for four days non stop before the council came in.

Would I speed up the process by ripping all the carpets up and then just treating the floors, we've only just moved in so we had every intention of ripping the horrible carpets up and putting laminate down anyway. Would this help at all?

I have brought some indorex online but it doesn't come for another week.

I've also rung a pest control company who uses a heat treatment to raise the the temp of the house to 50 degrees which apparently kills everything inc eggs within 8 hours, it's v expensive but just don't know what to do at the moment.

Because of that treatment being down I can't Hoover for two weeks, before we left I washed everything and bagged it up.

sheramber

If you can get rid of the carpets then I would do so then, as you say, spray the floor boards and along the skirting boards.

I don't see any point in treating carpets you intend to get rid of.

I hope you have told the cat owner what has happened so they can get the cat treated.

Of course, if you have just moved in, the fleas could have been there when you moved in and have just hatched out.