Damnable fleas in the carpet

Passerbye

Anyone have experience with getting fleas out of carpet? We've got the Frontline coming to get fleas out of the cat, but so far every attempt on the carpet has failed. We've used spray, and powder+vacuum cleaner, and vacuum cleaner with powder inside the bag (since they kept leaping out when we went to clean it)... And nada. We need something to kill the nits, but the only things that seem to do that are the medicines (like Frontline) which go on the infested beast.

Denada

It sucks, but your best bet is to wait. Killing the fleas on the cat will (eventually) kill the rest of the fleas in the house. Until then vacuuming is the best thing you can do.

amateurhour

Fogger..

one of those industrial tear gas grenade flea killers. In my old house we had what later turned out to be a pregnant cat under the house in a crawlspace, and the fleas got so bad in the room that just walking in with white socks would net you about fifty fleas in under a minute. It took three of those things, and finding the cat, but that solved the problem.

Arch Guru XX

With fleas I'm a big proponent of the nuke-it-from-obit school of thought. We don't have fleas in our current place, but a friend of mine has cats that I'll watch when she's away and there have been times I've apparently brought fleas back with me from there. Every time I see a flea bite, even if I don't see the flea, I spray a shit-ton of anti-flea Raid anywhere I think the flea might be. This has been a pretty successful technique so for. If we had a larger infestation I would definitely go for the fogger approach described above.

Also, if you find a flea on you don't just swat it away. Put your fingers on either side of the flea and pinch them shut, trapping it between them. Typically they are too thin to kill by squeezing (or I have weak, girlish fingers), but by holding them captive you have time to fill a cup with water, submerge your pinched fingers well below the water lever, and then release the flea in order to drown it. Don't just run water over you hand and then let go, the little fucker can jump so far that he'll probably get away.

Fleas do not deserve mercy or understanding, and I wholly endorse making them extinct.

Denada

It's the construction of their bodies (and their small size) that make them nigh-impervious to squeezing. You can do the same finger trap but slice them in half with your fingernail for a quicker death.

Feral

Denada wrote: »

It sucks, but your best bet is to wait. Killing the fleas on the cat will (eventually) kill the rest of the fleas in the house. Until then vacuuming is the best thing you can do.

Yeah basically.

Bombs, foggers, sprays, powders, carpet shampoos, etc. can help but you'll never get rid of them completely as they are crafty little buggers and can find places to hide.

But if you keep your cats Frontlined every month, eventually all the fleas will get a bite of sweet, poisoned cat blood and die off. In the meantime, vacuum and launder your bedding frequently.

Improvolone

It's a lengthy process to ensure they are all gone, so which ever method you choose you need to stick with it.

Passerbye

Hmn, I'll stick with powder-vacuum and wait for the Frontline to kill 'em off in the long term. I'm not sure how the Raid would affect my cat. As well, using a fogger would have to be cleared by the management, since I live in an apartment.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

tardcore

I just recently bombed my house with that fogger stuff. So far, my cats are all in the clear after applying some ointment on them. So now it's just a waiting game to see if they are still around.

clsCorwin

What my vet told me when we got our cat on Frontline was to pour Borax powder (its a detergent, easily found at Wal-Mart) and then vaccuum it out. I think you do it one time, and then repeat in 2 weeks, and all the eggs in the carpet will be dead.

Worked for me quite well.

Also, the Borax is not going to have any side effects, just make sure you vacuum it all up.

ben0207

I don't have advice but I do have a horror story. We had fleas in the carpet but didnt know. We went on holiday in the middle of summer for a week, and when we came back the house was literally crawling with them.

bowen

Borax in the carpet is a good one. But foggers will ultimately work the best. You absolutely have to make sure the cat or pet that hast he fleas does not have them anymore. Because, you see, the thing is with fleas, they can feed on anyone, so just because all your cats are frontlined and you borax-ed the carpet doesn't mean the few in your mattress or sheets can't feed on you and restart the population. Also, if you have outdoor animals you're probably never going to get rid of this problem, but they can also follow you in too.

Tofystedeth

I wish they made Frontline for people. Temporary solution we used at my house in the thick of flea season was to put bowls of water out by the beds. In their hopping around, the fleas would land in the water and drown. It only got a percentage of them though

bowen

Tofystedeth wrote: »

I wish they made Frontline for people. Temporary solution we used at my house in the thick of flea season was to put bowls of water out by the beds. In their hopping around, the fleas would land in the water and drown. It only got a percentage of them though

There's this product that uses some sort of UV lamp or colored lamp to attract them and has a stick pad that you can replace that catches them when they land near the light. It helps, but won't eliminate your problem. The best bet is to use all this in combination of each other. Bombing/front-line/water or lamp tricks/boraxing carpet. Eventually the whole population is going to dwindle to a lower, more sane number or be completely eradicated.

http://www.lamp-post.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CH20139
Not what we had but it's similar.