Bloody fleas are winning

[UserEleventyBillion]

I'm sat in the kitchen in tears, so exhausted but I can't sleep because when I went to bed the little bastards started appearing again. We've hoovered over and over, doused every inch of the flat with acclaim repeatedly and I've washed everything possible so many times. Put advantage on the cats Friday night after the last stuff had not worked but this just feels like a losing battle. Sick of feeling itchy and miserable and so grubby, its embarrassing having to stop people coming around in case they get bitten or take some home. Even the poor cats are pissed off with all the combing etc. Can't afford an exterminator right now so how the fuck do you get rid of these evil little fuckers?! It feels like they will never go.

I feel for you. We had this last Summer. Firstly we gave up on normal flea treatment for the cats, it didn't seem to work any more and got treatment for the vets

Then we sprayed and hoovered all the soft furnishings for weeks

We also got these great flea catcher things that you plug in and fleas are attracted to, we had one in each room affected. The great thing is they let you know when the flea epidemic is you stop catching them

But basically it was the right flea treatment for the cats. Once the fleas lost their host and it also renders the eggs infertile then the cycle finally ends

Good luck!

I really recommend vacuuming and the. spraying your whole house with Indorex - buy two cans from amazon. Spray it also inside your vacuum cleaner. At the same time, go to vets and get a prescription strength spot on. We’ve just cracked a really bad infestation this way. Good luck.

I tried everything suggested in summer and nothing worked, bought indorex 3 times despite it claiming one tin can do a whole house twice I believe it said. In the end I gave up and called the coucil who done it for free. I had a newborn so simply wasn't putting up with fleas biting her. They were instantly gone.

Spray with indorex and get the cats the flea tablet from the vet. It’s super sonic and will kill everything

Are you actually finding fleas? Could it be bed bugs?

Sorry op, maybe that worse. But they'd be a different treatment to get rid of.

Get capstar from the vets for the cats and on the same day treat the house with indorex. Follow the instructions religiously. Repeat in a month if necessary. It takes a while to see results as you need to break the cycle but eventually the fleas will stop reproducing as they are unable to feed off the cats. Good luck - it truly is awful but can be fixed!

I feel for you, we have just finally got rid of an infestation. We used advocate on the cat and indorex for the house but we still kept finding them so we gave the cat some of those 4fleas tablets for a few days and resprayed the house with indorex and deep cleaned and vacuumed every day and touch wood the little fuckers are gone! I think you just have to be really persistent, each treatment kills them at one point of their lifecycle so it can sometimes take a while before they are completely gone. They seem to be more resilient at the moment, when we've had them previously we got rid of them easily but this year's infestation was really difficult to get rid of.

I had to get council come do mine. Best £30 ever and not had a problem since. Frustrating part is it was the bloody neighbours cat

Definitely fleas, little bastards are on the cats and jumping about. If it was bed bugs I'd be building bonfires right now. Neighbourhood has a lot of untreated cats and people that live in woo land think they never get fleas bollocks. We keep ours treated regularly but it didn't work this time.

Will look into the vet flea tabs, the older cat reacted badly to a Johnsons product in the past so I'm not risking anything else from them. Poor little guy was so ill with it.

Pretty sure these came from a visitor from woo land, I'm pissed off but so tired and frustrated there isn't room for that right now. We have indoor cats as it is so had managed to avoid this before.

Oh goodness OP, I feel for you. I've been through this and it was awful. Admittedly I was a bit hysterical about the whole thing.

Our cat was regularly flea' d with a vet product - Frontline Combi and turns out in our area fleas were becoming immune to it. So the vet gave me a new to the market spot on the name of which escapes me right now.

I bought 2 sprays, Indorex and RIP Fleas and alternated them. I bought them online as much cheaper than the vets. I used a lot.

I just systematically went through the house. I stopped the cat roaming free in the house until his spot on worked - 48 hours.

I hoovered everyday for the first week or so, alternating rooms. I sprayed all round the edges of rooms, moved all furniture I could then sprayed a big x shape on open areas of carpet. I continued the hoovering onslaught for about another 2 weeks but not as frequently.

I washed as much as I could and that meant loads of cuddly toys that DD had in her room. It was really grim. I threw out a couple of inexpensive rugs.

I found eggs in dark places and in the grooves of the wooden floor - under the sofa, under the door mat. They're sticky so I used a wet wipe to remove them quickly and put wipe and eggs/hatchlings into a lidded jam jar. Ugh.

I'm allergic to the bites which is partly why I was so neurotic about it. I took antihistamines everyday and had jeans tucked in to socks with mossie repellent sprayed on top.

As per PPs, ask the vet for the newest to the market spot on treatment as your cat is your best weapon.

That's my Hysterical Guide. One of the reasons my infestation got so bad was because our cat was flea treated with a vet product every month that became ineffective. When I started to see bites I thought they were mossie bites and fleas didn't occur to me immediately so I was late tackling it.

Get all flea treatment from vets.
Advocate here. Never seen a flea!
Indorex your house.

Oh poor you, we had fleas recently (all four cats😓).

I hoover everyday anyway so it didn’t go that mad. But we bought flea collars for all cats in the house and one for the hoover dust bag!

All cats were flead with spot treatment, we used broadline from the vets.

I hoovered everywhere, then I steamed everything (may have steamed a curious cat by accident), opened all doors and windows for house to dry and then indorex sprayed everywhere.
Including all cat scratchposts/play houses.

Boil washed everything I possibly could. Including cat toys.

Combed the cats daily killing fleas and preventing them from leaving piles of hair everywhere.

Had a mini nervous breakdown and was convinced I was itching and kept checking baby to ensure she didn’t have bite marks!

I was advised to put a flea collar in the hoover bag as well...
The Summer just gone was awful flea-wise..took weeks to get on top of them. We used the spot on treatment plus tablets with meals..sprayed the carpets to an inch of their lives and kept hoovering. I'm it itchy just thinking about it!

We had this problem this summer and it was out of control, I was findin g at least ten fleas a day. We tried everything, and nothing was working! No idea how we got them as our cat is an indoor cat and everyone I know who has pets claims they haven’t had fleas. In the end we had to use some of our savings to get our flat professionally treated. They came twice 13 days apart it cost around £150 I believe and I haven’t seen a flea in weeks. I’ve had a bite or two but I don’t think they’re from our flat. We are taking the cat next week to the vet to get a vet treatment and then hopefully that’ll be us sorted!! Could you speak to your local council and see if they can help?

Advocate here as well. I bring fleas home from work so have to use the decent stuff so they don’t take hold.

Over the counter stuff doesn’t work, they wouldn’t be able to sell it if it did. Take them to the vets to be weighed and get the advocate. Keep up every 4 weeks and it’ll help.

And please don’t put flea collars on your cats, they’re dangerous to them. Hoover bag is good though.

We've had no problems since the vet switched us to Stronghold Spot On, the treatment our cats were on before was useless. The tablets worked for us too, but seem even more expensive. Hoover every other day! It's so horrible, isn't it, I really feel for you. My daughter and I both suffer badly if we don't keep on top of the treatments.

The best thing to do if you have a flea infestation is to put the cats in cat baskets away from the rooms you’ll treat and set off flea bombs in each room.

You’ll need to treat each room separately.

It’s effective bur you’ll need to stay out of the rooms being treated and keep the cats out of the rooms being treated.

That’s DP’s recommendation from when his cats got fleas and his flat was overrun.

@Fuzzy, I felt the same way. I wish I could be blasé and relaxed about fleas as some people are. My SIL thought I was a loon. 🙂

OP. It was Stronghold I used from the vet. Also it'll take a few days maybe as the Advantage should work immediately but you need to break the breed cycle. So if there are eggs around (definitely), they need to hatch and bite the cat before they'll die. I do think you need something stronger than Acclaim as a spray - Indorex or RIP Fleas. Make sure you spray into your hoover.

One last thing OP, you can get a flea injection at the vets and I think it's especially recommended for indoor cats. Can't remember what it's called though. Our vet told me about it but it would be in addition to spot on and she didn't advise it for our outdoor cat in the end.

FLEA LAMPS! Absolutely brilliant things! And hoovering twice a day (make sure you empty it outside every time or the eggs will hatch and they will get out and continue the cycle) We had an outbreak when I was pregnant so I didn't want to use any chemicals besides the cats' treatment ( which we switched because it wasn't working). If I see any of the pets scratching I put them out to make sure the nasty little bloodsuckers haven't come back.

Deux one of our cats had the injection as he was very sick from the flea bites, he suffers allergic reactions to them.
And my SIL thinks I’m nuts too. She’s very calm about flea ridden cats!

If it’s helpful OP, we are now flea free and I don’t feel quite so disgusting. Altho I am still compulsively hoovering every day, and my hoover dustbag is a fresh flea collar in it!

Google Diatomaceous Earth food grade for fleas. You can treat the cats with it, brush it through the fur. As you have already applied treatment it is best not to apply more until the next one is due but you can use DE any time.

I would suggest using it in the house but it is very dusty, however it goes a long way and will kill any insect.

Stronghold is fantastic stuff. It worked within an hour to kill the fleas on my cat.

A line of table salt around the edges of the room will help to kill off any eggs.