MetaChat - I have four cats. One got outside and brought fleas back in.

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30 October 2006

I have four cats. One got outside and brought fleas back in. HELP! Fleas are hell. Especially in a messy house. Do I have to do one massive (impossible) cleaning and sweeping!? Or one room per day?
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So I hear Borax is good and fairly harmless to put down on the rug, mattress, etc and then sweep up.

Right?

Also, tomorrow I'm (hopefully) getting some Advantage (even though it's made by Bayer!) to get rid of the itchy beasts off my cats.

BUT MY HOUSE IS A MESS! There's no way I can clean it all at once. I'm just dealing with cleaning one room at a time, maybe one per day over the next few days, recycling piles of accumulated papers, moving my entire computer station and all the wires and components and sweeping up all the massive dust-bunnies (where most of the fleas seem to be spawning), etc.

Will this kill the fleas? 'Cuz, ya know, they hatch continually.

If the fleas can't get on my cats 'cuz of the Advantage, and I sweep the house over the course of a few days (re-sweeping everything each day as I go), will I get 'em all?

Or do I have to do one massive (impossible) cleaning and sweeping!?

I feel itchy just thinking about this.

post by: shane at: 00:28 | 9 comments

I MEAN, WHEN THE FLEAS CAN'T NIBBLE ON YOUR CATS, WHAT THE HELL DO THEY LIVE ON? FUR SHED BY THE KITTIES? CAT FOOD?

They should just starve. But they say that if you don't sweep them daily you don't get rid of them...

posted by shane 30 October | 00:38

this is also on AskMe, fwiw [Shane, I fixed your allcaps]

posted by jessamyn 30 October | 01:01

thanks!--i e-mailed you about the open bold tag (i guess you fixed that?)

i posted it here first then thought, hmm, better go to askme. this is serious stuff.
;-)

;-(

the allcaps were obnoxious but i kinda liked them.

posted by shane 30 October | 01:07

If they can't feed on your cats, make sure they can't feed on you. Man, I hate fleas. I've been using Revolution on my dog since we got her and she's been flea-free her whole life.

posted by fenriq 30 October | 01:10

Thanks fenriq!

And, *PHEW!*, A COUPLE GOOD ANSWERS ON aSKmE.

[i HATE CAPSLOCK.]

posted by shane 30 October | 01:24

Find the carpet treatment in the pet store that has d-limonene. It's citrus-based and it works really well.

posted by mudpuppie 30 October | 02:03

Shane, I read the thread over on AskMe, and I second the advice you got there from squeak. If anything, squeak sugar coated the issue, and from the answers you initially marked as "best answer," it's apparent that you hope you can just douse the cats and have the problem go away. But with 4 cats and at least 1 human as flea food sources in your home, I doubt you'll be so lucky.

Take the problem seriously, follow recommendations in the AskMe thread for combating all phases of the problem, and you stand a good chance of controlling the problem with minor irritation. But I have seen situations where people went on vacation for a week, leaving a single cat home to be cared for by a stop by friend, and returned to an uninhabitable premises, that had them living in a hotel for a week, while the professional exterminators they had to call did their thing.

As I said over in the AskMe thread, good luck with the yuck.

posted by paulsc 30 October | 06:06

Thanks Paul! I guess I need to clean the whole house and sweep daily, just not freak out and try to clean the whole house in one day.

posted by shane 30 October | 08:18

We have 3 cats and a dog. . .used to have 4 cats and a dog, but age-related attrition has come to visit.

SOME fleas are inevitable. But treatments with Advantage or Frontline, at recommended intervals, keeps them down to a dull roar. Frontline seems to work better for us, except that one of our cats has reactions to it (he salivates like a fiend when it's put on him).

Other than that, normal standards of housekeeping will take care of it.

But I think that having animals suggests a certain level of tolerance for parasites. It does not seem to be a problem for the 3 humans living with them.

Now, peeing on a new down comforter, a slightly lower level of tolerance.

posted by danf 30 October | 10:23

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