To be so fuckety fucked off with fleas!

[Arachnophobic]

Sorry I so badly need to rant.

Dcat is treated once a month to prevent fleas but despite this the cat has got bloody fleas. There are boxes everywhere, we are trying to move house, and I have just spent £35 on two tins of stuff for the house, which isn't enough. The house stinks and I have done the upstairs, waiting for it to settle will put the kids to bed later then do the down stairs.

I don't need this!!! Found a bite on DS this morning which made me

AIBU to be fucked off and also slightly worried that I won't be able to control these damn things. Not sure I will sleep tonight worrying about this. The cat has had frontline and the house is being treated with RIP fleas.

Please don't flame me if this has been posted in the wrong place!

If you have carpet, try using this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth underneath all radiators and along the skirting boards, then hoover up the next day - very effective but no chemicals so would need to be repeated on a regualr basis. Plenty of online suppliers. Chances are if your heating has come on, any eggs lying dormant are hatching hence the seemingly sudden surge in their number.

H

Advocate is expensive but it really works and is probably cheaper in the long run as you won't be trying lots of things that don't work.

I feel your pain, I had the same problem with my cat recently and wasted a fortune on frontline and various sprays etc for the house and she was still crawling with them . Within 2 days of using the advocate this was a flea free house and I didn't need to use anything else for the carpets or furniture.

Not sure if I'm repeating anyone else, too knacked to read the whole thread - but PROGRAM which is an anti flea jab, works by sterilising the little b@st@rds, so you never get an infestation again is BRILLIANT

Having had our old Cat done after one hell of an infestation that had DH in all his hairiness attacked, covered & screaming like a big girl - within a week - nothing & in the next 3 years of her life - nothing ever again :)

same with our current 2 Cats - neither has ever had fleas :) - it can be hard to find a vet that does it, but thats down to it working too well for their pockets & saving a fortune on flea products - those that DO do it, now say it only lasts 6 months & needs a booster -

so far we've found this not to be true, both our Cats have only ever had one jab each, the older one was 2,1/2 yr ago & its still working, so would advise ignoring the call back until you have flea trouble again

Thanks rockin may I ask how much it was?

Will check back in a min, DP has so fucked me off tonight as well he sees the issue as no big deal and has been both unsupportive and disruptive as I try (alone) to sort the problem out.

So it's me, the cleaning with my iPod tonight so I don't have to talk to him

last one we had done cost us £35 - best £35 I've ever spent :)

You have my sympathy OP. We went through a particularly nasty couple of months in the summer when my sisters elderly cat picked them up on her last trip outside and then died so they all leapt off her and onto DS and me mostly it seemed! We did all the DIY stuff but because the cat was dead it was harder to get rid of them because you couldn't interrupt their life cycle by drugging the cat up. In the end we called the council in, best £75 we've ever spent. They had to come and out do a respray because they weren't all gone and we did move into my parents for a few days over the 2 treatments (mostly because they were away and their shower is so much better than ours, we could have gone back in after 5 hours). Round here if you use a private firm then it's a bit dearer but they automatically book in a second spray 2 weeks after the first whereas with the council you had to ring them up and ask for a second one if they were still a problem.

I did feel like some kind of Victorian urchin while it was going on. It was July and August and I also felt like an eejit going to work in long legs and sleeves, so the rubbish summer was a bit of a help there!

Totally agree that frontline is absolutely crap, last time i used it fleas were back within 3 weeks.
In our old house fleas were a big problem for us and half the street (too many bloody cats!!!)
But I have never really had a flea problem since we moved here 5 years ago, when i do have to treat the cats i used to always use Advocate or Advantage from the vets.

I would never use Bob Martin previously as it was crap and heard too many horror stories.

But i do have to say Bob Martin now do one that has the same ingredient in it as the other two (imidacloprid), I thought i would give it a go as it was half the price that vets charge, it worked I haven't needed to do it for 6 months. (not that i need to do them very often anyway) so will continue to buy this if needed.

This is interesting. We had a huge problem with cat fleas over the summer. Ended up with ds3, only 12 months having an infected bite and needing 3 days of antibiotics in hospital!
We used stronghold every month, sprayed lots and even had new carpets (was intending to do this anyway but did it quicker because of fleas). All seems fine now, but did see a couple of fleas last week. I think our cats get them from the stray cats who hang out next to our house.
OP, I feel your irritation and need to rant. I was very close to trying to get rid of cats to a new home!

We used Front Line for years and then it stopped working. Rang the sales people and they sent us a new batch but that didn't work either. We changed to Bob Martin and that worked wonderfully thankfully. We get ours from Morrisons.

Yabu. I love fleas. Fleas are great!!!

But why bibbity?

We have this problem ATM, went to the vet today and she recommended stronghold. If the fleas arent dead within 2 months you get your money back from the manufacturer so I'm hoping it works

frontline stopped working and we had an infestation a month back. Swapped to advocate and used indorex (from amazon) to spray the bedrooms. and not a sign since I sprayed.

I will be buying advocate tomorrow! [scratches ankles]

YANBU. About this time last year, elderly DScat started scratching. He rarely goes out, never encounters other animals, so we couldn't believe it was fleas. Cue frontline and expensive house fumigation. Lady who lived here before us had a cat and was hardly tidy, so the guess was they were laying dormant until the heating came on. Confirmed a few months later when I found a half used tin of flea spray way down the back of the cupboard under the sink. Grrrrrrr.

DScat's been fine so far with regular frontlining, but really want to know if there's something better, particularly if it's less risky for an eldercat.

Yeah, I'm really starting to itch now. Thanks guys. :(

I second what was said by the pro pest controller upthread - fleas are a job for professionals. Neighbour's cat used to sleep on our doormat and unknown to us, we were carrying his fleas into the house - cue infestation. Pest control came out, sprayed, got rid of doormat, chased away cat and Presto! no more fleas. Plus there is the added bonus of no more of any sort of multi-legged wildlife for months and months. Best £90 we spent.

Your cat is immune to Frontline so it's pointless, the more you use it the less effective it becomes. You need something stronger from the VETS.

www.chemistdirect.co.uk/advocate_7_2112.html

Its what VETS Use

My persian is allergic to fleas, cue moggie bringing in fleas we have a bald persian that needs additional medication on top of the flea treatment.

Haven't yet found a reliable way of stopping this (frontline and flea collars atm) but will now try some of the things suggested here.

Wouldn't mind so much but moggie isn't ours, looking after it for family member until they got a new place (2 years and counting, i'm a guillable sucker)

DH calls our persian "mr bigglesworth"