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 had this problem over the summer. Ordered a load of flea traps and spray online and while we were waiting for them to arrive, I stumbled on a home-made flea trap idea.

If you mix 1 cup of water to 3 cups of soap (something really sweet smelling- I used Palmolive honey handwash) then pour it into really shallow dishes (our local Chinese takeaway puts some of their dishes in plastic boxes- the lids were perfect depth and I think they worked best as the fleas possibly couldn’t see they were jumping into a dish)

We left a few in the offending room with no real hope they’d work, but lo and behold, the day before the flea traps arrived, 3 of the little buggers we’re dead in the soapy residue and we’ve never been bitten since!

I didn’t top up the homemade traps even when the water had mostly evaporated. I think it made it sticker for the fleas to try to escape. So I’d leave them for maybe 4-5 days before topping up.

Sorry... 1 cup of water to 4 TABLESPOONS of soap!!

Going to try the soap one tomorrow - we are going round in circles but seem to be winning, but know the little buggers will be getting ready to hatch !

When we first moved in the house was infested (joy) we got these flea 'bomb' from poundland that you leave in one room at a time for 24 hours. Killed all the feckers.

I feel your pain, worse 2 weeks ever and ive said to my husband i'll be staying at my mums if it ever happened again. I got bitten everywhere but the little bastards didnt touch him.

Oh god, we had this last October with our dog and we tried everything - I was absolutely sick of hoovering, spraying, bombing and it came to a point where I get like firebombing-the entire house.
The vet suggested that the spot on we had been issuing was no longer repelling the fleas and that this sometimes happens and treatments need to be changed ever few years. Our dog now has a tablet ‘comfortis’ which was just amazing. 30 minutes after we gave it to him the bastards were dripping off him dead onto the floor. It lasts for a month before the next tablet and so any flea that does jump onboard and have a nibble dies immediately. This gave us the chance to re-do the entire house with invorex, take the dog for a last flea dip and we haven’t seen another one since. I’m pretty sure the comfortis is available for cats too.

You have my sympathy OP it really isn’t nice.

Definitely serving the vet only flea treatment. We battled on with frontline for over a year then went to vet. The one she gave us got rid of the fleas in a month.

It was horrific I still bear the scars

Our dog caught fleas much like deux reports. He was treated with Frontline every month but it just stopped working. We were fortunate in so far as the dog is such a wuss and yelped and cried at the fleas biting and so we saw the vet who prescribed Advocate and have seen nothing since. You need to see the vet and get prescribed the treatment that is effective in your area. Our vet sees the dog yearly to review flea meds now so hopefully we will swap prescriptions before the fleas become immune again.

Frontline is no longer effective. I see lots of threads on here and on pet forums regrading fleas still being evident when it has been used, and a man in the vet least week had gone back because it hadn't worked on is new rescue cat.

This is so awful. I feel your pain. We had a house infestation due to frontline not working. We literally could not put our feet on the floor.Id catch 15 on my way from bed to bathroom on a morning by grabbing them off my feet and legs and drowning them.It was hell. Bravecto is the 3 monthly injection from the vet and it was brilliant. I know you said you can't afford exterminator but this was the only way to end it quickly for us over 2 weeks of 2 visits without the relentless hoovering. Plus you may end up paying same amount out on sprays, powder and bombs. Hope you get sorted.

I'm sick to bloody death of fleas. My vet recommended effipro.

Next doors old cat (they moved and left him but he's a MASSIVE wanderer so could be commuting) is crawling with them.
Soon as he shows up all the cats round here get them

Advocate, all the way.
Had to get my friend pn it as she'd been using frontline and was infested.
She's now flea free.

Majority of products use the same stuff as frontline which is no longer working for a lot of people.
Before going onto advocate we hunted to find a johnsons product that didn't contain the same stuff ( it didn't work anyway).

Advocate definitely.

I was using effipro on 2cats and a dog and it was doing nothing, I bought a new puppy just at the time I realised I had a flee problem.

Got some Advocate for the bigger animalsmbut pup was too small so had to have Effipro. Room bombed everywhere, washed all linen, moved furniture, hoovered and sprayed, washed pet beds everyday, did whole house twice including curtains in main animal room but was still finding fleas in pup and in house. Not on other animals.

One month on, pup now big enough to have advocate with the others. and within 24 hours I have not seen a single flee.

I think once the animals have the right treatment, it breaks the cycle and all the hoovering and washing takes effect. I let the animals all round the house now they are covered as the fleas are attracted to them and then killed by the Advocate.

Horrible things, will be being religious about the monthly treatments from now on, apparently this summer has been terrible for fleas though.

Also Effipro is same drug as Frontline apparently.

Get the professionals in. My Council pest control did it for £30 and rentokill was about £100. Instant flea death and they never came back. Matched with Advocate from the vets and all was well.
And it killed all the house spiders, which was an added bonus!

I agree with the advice to use vet treatment. I had the same problem a couple years ago. I stupidly stopped treating my cats over the winter and paid the price. They need a constant and consistent program of treatment because (as you are obviously finding out) once fleas get established they are hard to get rid of. Vet treatments are a lot more effective than shop bought stuff and the aclaim is good too used in conjunction. I do feel for you. I got through cans of aclaim as I live in a large carpetted untidy house. It took a while but I did win and now I treat the animals regularly.

If you get a prescription you can buy the flea treatment online much cheaper too.

Try the dish of water too with a light at night. We did this in one of the bedrooms. They were all doing backstroke in the morning

Don't forget to chuck out the hoover bag each time so you don't reinfect next time you hoover. You can get an injection for the cat which makes any biting female flea infertile and breaks the life cycle. Program I think its called.

Oh it's horrid isn't it!

I tried spraying acclaim- washing everything including cat! Once you've got the right stuff from vet you're starting to break the cycle- the ones that live in your house will eventually find the cat so once they bite her they're on their way to heaven!
In the end, I called rentokil- best £70 ever spent. Wasn't allowed to hoover for 10 days though which felt horrid but it really helped. The next best thing was to use an electric head lice comb on the cat- zapped the fleas- I did this twice a day for 2 weeks- gross but satisfying.
Good luck!

Oh and rentokil man said the worst part of the infestation is usually a scratching post so bin any of those and buy new once infestation gone.
Also- only 10% of a flea infestation is on the animal - the other 90% is in the home.

We ended up getting the council to come and the pest control man was great. But in contrast to what everyone on here says, he said that the important thing to do is NOT hoover for at least two weeks, preferably longer. We managed to hold out for three weeks and then had to. He explained that when you hoover, you are hoovering up the insecticide which needs to stay on the carpet so when fresh eggs hatch they are instantly killed as the insecticide only kills the flea not the egg. So it needs to stay down for the whole incubation period of the egg. I hope I've explained that properly so it makes sense. The man said commercial sprays do work but none of them talk about not hoovering on the bottle. We never had them again after this one treatment. Hope this helps!

We had this from our two cats
we get them injected with Program twice a year its amazing
we also spray the carpets every night with Wikinsons fleas spray
yes you read right..... every night
we hoover every day
and we put flea collars on them both every 3 months without fail and use the Wilkinsons flea pippets on them as well, in between their shoulder blades
We have nothing now but we are vigilant as you can see they made all our lives a misery

Advocate and indirect here too, both from the vet. And flea collar in your vac to kill the ones in there.

It's miserable.

Indorex not indirect!