Unreasonably obsessed by flea problem?

[Fleabee]

Am I losing the plot?

I have 3 kids, 5yrs, 2yrs and 10 months. As you can imagine they need a lot of attention.

I have 2 cats who are regularly front lined but every single year they infest the house with fleas. This year is worse than ever. The 2 year old's legs are in a really dreadful state. The 5 year old is marginally better, and the baby has bites on her back and a big one on her face this morning. Sob. The fleas are in every room.

I am hoovering the entire house daily if I can, and not just a quick hoover. Pulling out all the bloody furniture and going in every nook and cranny. This is killing me, and of course the kids are very bored in the time I am doing it. I am also spraying flea spray when I can but limit this to when house will be empty etc as hate the thought of the chemicals and the kids playing on the floor where the spray is.

I also have mastitis and yesterday spent the day feeling shit and hoovering in tropical temperatures.

And then at bedtime I saw about 5 fleas.

WWYD?

Am I blowing this out of proportion? Should I just calm it down as it doesn't seem to be working anyway. Is it as big a deal as I feel it is?

Or any tips on getting rid of them?

Any advice appreciated.

[Fairenuff]

Can I ask, what is 'salting'?

[maddiemostmerry]

Fleabee, I got my electric flea killer from Amazon.

I find it good for checking if the room is clear after spraying.

Must be a bad year for them, heard it is a bad year for ticks as well.

[frogalou]

I have fleas I think... and moths... I wonder if the fleas can attack the moths?!

Time to rentokil!

[PeshwariNaan]

I lived in a house infested with fleas one summer and almost nothing worked. I'd get in the shower and see about 40 of them on me. I finally did one flea 'bomb' after another on consecutive weekends before spending the weekends away, and that helped.

However if you've got kids being bitten, you have a responsibility to get your house professionally exterminated. Do not wait! Even if you have to stay in a hotel overnight, it will get rid of the problem.

[mooseloose]

My friend had environmental health in. She has some light box thing they are attracted to...?

[OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere]

Just got back from a week away. All animals were treated a couple of weeks ago.
Got back
Went upstairs to the only carpeted room in the house
Within seconds my socks were covered with tiny starving fleas
Ewwwwwwweeeee

Have used the last of the floor powder and hope it works
Should ave put it down before I went.
Ewwweeeeeeeeeeeeee

[teedeeuk]

Second the people who suggested Indorex - absolutely fantastic, from infestation to almost to almost total knockdown in a few hours.

[Jinx001]

Hi, I really hope you have solved your problem by now but if you have not I recommend you get advocat from your vet. You previously wrote that there might be eggs in the cracks of your floorboards and you are probobly right. cat fleas prefers to get there blood meal from the cat. Therfore it is a lot easyer and better to treat the cats. Advocat stays in the blood system of the cat for at least one month. Any parasite that bite the cat will effectively die. That means that it does not matter if u have the odd egg in the floor board as when the egg hatches the flea will primary bite the cat and die. By treating the cat you break the flea cycle. The adult fleas will die and can not lay new egges. Fleas are incredibly quick and can jump very high. They are very hard to catch. if u can catch the flea that means its dying. Humans are not quick enought to catch a healthy flea. This is good to know if u find an dying flea you are in the end of your problem. Another way to see if your cats are the problem is to comb the cats fur with a flea comb. Then smear the comb on a wet paper/ cotton. If u see streaks of brown/ red lines then your cats have fleas and are spreading them. It's Not fun to have uninvited guest but this is very treatable. 3 treatments of advocat cost 21.50 at your vet. There are also sprays avalible at your vet but they may not be nesesary if you just treat the sorce of the problem. It is important that you treat your cats with advocat once a month during the summer month to avoid inferstation. In the winter you
Might get away with treating your cats every second month. I really hope you solve your problem. But trust me you really don't have to waist so much time and money on expensive products. Once a month of advocat will do the trick and you can put the Hoover on the shelf for now. Regular treatment with advocat prevents futhure infestation. As someone said earlyer frontline and other over the counter products does not work. I appoligies for the many gramma and spelling mistakes. I hope this post helps. Lots of love / jinx

[OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere]

Sorry but,
I advocated the dogs and cat two weeks ago.
I was all pleased they were clear.
Fat dog was covered in fleas yesterday. Loads of mature bloody bastards.
I have clipped his coat so can see, god knows what is going on with the other do and the cat.
I am Pullong my hair out.
Have a couple of aerosols to let off in the house today.
Argggghhhhhhhh

[FiveMonths]

I would second that Frontline is now ineffective, Advocate works very very quickly for us with no need to treat the house.

Shops selling Fipronil and Frontline ought to be ashamed of themselves, neither is any use - and they know it. That's why it's so 'cheap' compared to other products but it's still ££. Makes me very angry.

[OhYoubadbadkitten]

Nightmare for all of you :(
We are finding advocate is still effective, but it sounds like in some areas fleas are becoming immune to that too. We had to give up on frontline a couple of years ago.

[ClaireRacing]

We used <a class="break-all" href="//www.amazon.co.uk/Gotcha-STV020-Flea-Killer-Electric/dp/B001A2XCLQ/ref=tag_stp_s2_edpp_url?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">this product when we moved into a house with fleas.

We were flea-free within days, although did start out with the problem in two rooms.

[VivaLeBeaver]

We've used advocate on the cAts. Sprayed the Ouse with indorax and hoovered, washed bedding. Still saw two fleas yesterday.

[ModernToss]

We have floorboards in our bedroom, which is the only room the cat comes into. I use Fortefog P Fumers, which are dead easy and kill every insect in the room, not just the fleas. (Loads of spider bodies.) Just light them (I use two for a big room) and leave the room for several hours. It's very effective and lasts a year. The smoke seems to get into the cracks in the floorboards very efficiently. You could do it in every room if necessary. Of course, you need to treat the cat too.

[CeliaFate]

I'm late to this and haven't read the whole thread, but your council will cover the cost of pest control to treat fleas as part of your council tax.

I've got 3 bites on my ankle, pest control man came yesterday and invoiced the council. I just had to ring the Environmental health team to confirm my address as a tax payer.

Frontline for the cat too.

[CeliaFate]

Also the pest control officer said this year the flea problem has been almost an epidemic - loads more calls than usual.

[VivaLeBeaver]

If we fumigated the house with a smoke bomb thingy would we need to take the chinchillas out the house?

I put advocate stuff on the dog 2 days ago and have just gone over her back and found 2 live fleas and loads of poo. She thought it was a game and ran off so probably more than that. We'd sprayed the house with indorax as well so pissed off they're still alive.

Have just ordered an electric flea trap off amazon

[Tiredprobably]

Arg fleas are awful, I discovered though that when my 18 month old had a cold they stopped biting him, think it was the Olbas oil and snuffle babe. I put some on him everyday now and Hoover Hoover Hoover!

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

we have had this. Its soul destroying! My poor dog had had every flea treatment known to man, but still had them. Our house was infested. It was so bad, they were living under the floorboards in the bedroom. If you trod on the floor, hundreds would jump onto your feet! We had to evacuate the room and move in with DD! I tried every home treatment going, nothing worked.
DP arranged a pest control man through work. he charged £40 or so. Although he wasnt the nicest bloke, went out of his way to make me feel uncomfortable, he treated everywhere, and then came back a fortnight later for another go when the little bastards were still around!
Apparently, fleas that infest are usually cat fleas. say no more!
I was there as he sprayed the house. It was horiffic! As he went along the skirting in the kitchen, they were abandoning ship! By the thousand! There were literally millions of them in my house!

[melonandpapayaandmango]

god you poor thing saggy

the man who came to do our house was rude as well!

[zanywany]

Flea infestation is awful. A couple of years ago I looked after a friends cat and got infested. Tried loads of sprays, bombs, hoovered constantly. I remember having a bath and then breaking down and sobbibg when I realised there were fleas jumping around inside my clean pj's I had just put on. I rang my local council and literally cried down the phone in frustration. They were brillant, cam out and fumigated the house a couple of days later. We had to leave the house for the day with our puppy but not seen one since. I think it only cost £30 via council.

Hope you manage to get it sorted.

[FiveMonths]

I think when it is really, really bad (like as Saggy describes ) then yes you might need help/smokebombs/ whatever. But it is rare I think.

If it is just the odd few fleas here and there, if you can see dirt and eggs where your pet has been sleeping, then something effective like advocate will do the job - but Viva you need to give it a few days at least - the live fleas will have been jumping onto your pet from the hatching eggs in the house.

They will be dead soon - stop combing them out, let them stay on the pet and be killed.
We had loads of eggs and dirt being left everywhere our cat slept, she was lickedto bits, scratching badly etc - it was awful (thanks, frontline).

As soon as I put advocate on her there was a marked improvement, but she continued to leave a few eggs (little white dots) and so on for about a week. I had had fleas jumping onto me when I laid on the floor reading, but that stopped very quickly too - after a fortnight max, I didn't see another flea anywhere and she was back to normal and happy again.

It works very quickly but not immediately.

Also Viva I'd definitely take out the chinchillas. I don't know if it is toxic to them but not worth the risk imo.

[FiveMonths]

Also just to point out that it is not possible for fleas to survive on human blood.

If the house is suddenly petless, they will have no host and will try you out - but they are desperate and your blood is not the right stuff for them, so after a few days or weeks they will die off.

I have put this to the test in a house we moved to where there had been untreated kittens...I was leapt on every morning, when I came downstairs, and I had a crawling baby at the time so didn't want to spray. I picked off the fleas that jumped onto me and drowned them in a glass of water, did this for about 2-3 weeks and then they all disappeared.

They just died.

If we had had a cat at that point, a treated cat, we wouldn't have noticed them - they'd have jumped onto her and been zapped by the chemical.

It was the pest control people at the council who told me about them not being able to live on us - and they were right.

[elinorbellowed]

I have this problem too. Had a big tantrum about it last night. We have a cat but she has pretty much moved into the garden for the summer - definitely isn't sleeping inside. The vet was adamant that Frontline would still be working on her, after a good 8 years of using it. I'm not so sure, so it's interesting what you lot are saying. We think the problem stems from the previous owners who let their dog sleep in the bedrooms. (boak) I have used RIP in every room, and it has been markedly worse ever since. DD has been bitten to shreds and I'm terrified that she will get an infection. Keep smearing tea tree oil on everyone, but we are beside ourselves. Hoovering every day as well. Think I will call the council.

[CeliaFate]

A word of caution - once the council has sprayed the house, you can't hoover or mop for 10-14 days so do it before they come! Also I was told to empty the hoover and put a flea collar inside to kill any fleas you hoover up.