I’ve never had to deal with fleas before, so I didn’t recognize the flea dirt I’ve seen recently. Today, though, I spotted fleas for the first time. I immediately declared war on the little jumping blood-suckers. I already gave my cat a Dawn bath and also sprinkled the apartment with 20 Mule Team Borax. Hopefully progress is being made.
Here’s where I need thoughts and opinions: My cat never goes outdoors, is never around other animals, and I live on the third floor of an apartment building. How do you think the fleas got here? I obviously want to prevent this from happening again, but I don’t know how it happened in the first place. Give me your thoughts on how the infestation occured, because I have been racking my brain all day and coming up with nothing!
Yeah, I thought about that, but my roommates and I don’t spend a lot of time in grassy areas or anything. But like you said, it only takes one.
Oh, just had a new thought-- anyone ever have fleas come in on Christmas trees? This is the first year I’ve ever had a live tree, so I didn’t even think about it being a possibility until now.
The previous tenant probably had pets with fleas. Flea eggs can lay in carpet dormant for years. And it’s probably better NOT to use borax in a house with cats, since it’s highly deadly if ingested. It’s better to go to the petstore and get products for killing fleas and eggs in your household that are safe for cats. Also get your cats on Frontline for cats to make short work of any fleas that should hitch a ride.
Aunt Flow is right. Washing the cat and borax are not going to work. Get Advantage or Frontline and apply it once a month for three months. That will take care of it, and nothing else really will. Costs $30, and is well worth it, as it will clear fleas off the cat AND out of the house completely.
Your cat may have been in contact with rodents or other indoor “wildlife” who have given her fleas.
Get a quality, vet-recommended flea preventative and apply it immediately. Frontline and it’s ilk will kill current infestations and with monthly re-applications with prevent those fleas which are in egg stages now from growing up and reinfecting your animal. Keep up the monthlies for AT LEAST 3 months (recommended by the Vets I work with) to ensure full efficacy. Do a lot of hot water laundry with any bedding, pillows, clothing etc. that the cat was in contact with.
And for Og’s sake don’t skimp and buy Hartz or anything else in the grocery store like my roommate did. The real stuff (Frontline, Advantage) is expensive because it WORKS.
Also keep an eye on your cat to be sure it doesn’t have worms now too. Fleas can transmit worm eggs to cats. We’ve had to de-worm all our cats after getting rid of the fleas that hitched a ride on us this past summer.
Ditto what the others have said. I took our kitty to the vet. He gave her a flea bath and meds, and I bombed the house. Cleared everything up first try.
My husband is allergic to fleas. His legs looked like raw hamburger while me and Kid Kalhoun were fine. Weird…
Wow, I thought this thread died day one. Just to let everyone know, I got the prescription Frontline immediately, as I had already heard too many bad things about Hartz and the other cheap brands in the past. Things seem to be getting better, it’s just so damn annoying doing laundry constantly and always feeling like something’s crawling on me, even when I know nothing is. So I know how to take care of the infestation, I was just stumped as to how it happened and I hoped Dopers would be able to come up with some possibilities. Thanks for the replies, hopefully the Frontline will take care of everything sometime soon, and I’ll definitely get the vet to check for worms.
Fleas do move around, you know. They are sort of notorious for that whole jumping thing.
Seriously, once fleas get into the apartment building (say, one of your neighbours has taken their pet to visit family or whatever) I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a flea were to move up or down a couple of floors, or from one end of the building to the other, under their own steam. Getting under doors and so on would not be a problem at all.
