It's official, I found a FLEA this morning, I want them out now, how do I make them die?

[bohemianbint]

Eurgh...I've been getting bites on my ankles but I thought maybe it was mosquitos or something as DH is unaffected. Anyway, yesterday I thought I saw something that could have been a flea - and this morning I caught one in my magazine and it is, officially, a flea.

We do have two furry pest carrying bastards cats but we stopped letting them roam the house freely when one of them shat on the floor in the front room where our toddler plays. (We are looking to re-home them as they now just cause us trouble, and expense that we can't cope with with two young children, and this just reaffirms my wish to get them gone.) But anyway, the fleas are still in the house, living merrily on me, and my babies and I need them out of the house right now.

Are floorboards worse for keeping them alive? Is there any sort of repellent (natural) we can put on us while we get rid of them? Is it going to be really harmful to have insectisides in a house with small children?

Eurgh, I feel so twitchy. Tell me what to do!

One more thing...has anyone else been bitten while no-one else in their home seemed to be bitten?

I think they were biting every one else, it's just I had a much worse reaction!

Grim. Our house had fleas when we moved in more than 10 years ago. The previous family had had a really old cat and they'd had Rentokil in while packing up their boxes but it hadn't worked properly. Awful. And they'd moved to Hong Kong so we didn't have any comeback.

Our cats had fleas once. Never bit me or dd. Bit dh a lot.

there's a flea spray for the house you can get from boots that kills fleas/ larvae the lot and keeps treating for 12 months - i used to be blighted with them until I used this. Use a cat flea treatment on the cats too but they're prone to going back to where they got the fleas so will keep reinfesting. This stuff keeps your house / carpets / floors etc clear. Is a chemical but tbh non of us have reacted ever to it - you need to spray then leave a window open and go in another room for a while. I usually treat the house then scarper for the day and air out when back

i grew up with cats and one was actually allergic to fleas (unbelieveable eh?)

we used this on the carpet and rest of the house nuvan staykill
and we never seemed to get anything

Hi, just a quick warning about the household flea spray from wilkos.
I used once around the house about a month ago as directed on the can and a day later my kitten got really ill and two days following had to be put down at the vets,having not made the connection with the death to the spray unfortunately I used it again on friday and a day later my pet ferret got ill exactly the same way the kitten had-starting with loss of motor functions and then hours later breathing difficulties,sadly she died in my arms yesturday.
It would seem the spray had effected them even though i had followed the instructions and had poisened them both, luckily my bigger animals had not been affected too badly, although they did seem to slow down for a day or two.
I would strongly advise going to the vets to get this sort of thing after my experience with this particular brand.

Rach, that's so sad. Did your vet agree the deaths were linked to the spray? If so, think you should call Trading Standards.