Morning all,

We are having trouble dealing with a flea outbreak indoors. We’ve used a can of Staykill as recommended by Pets at Home and followed all the instructions but are still finding fleas in the house several days after.

There is a local cat that has been coming to the house which have stopped letting in and don’t have any pets ourselves.

Any advice is much appreciated as it’s driving me bonkers.

Not used Staykil before, but have used this in the past and it’s done the job both times we’ve needed it.

http://www.petmeds.co.uk/Indorex-Household-Flea-Spray/p/I0001208

….it’s the only way to be sure.

Also… No pudding for the Cat.

I used smoke bombs to great effect. One on each floor of the house. Not had trouble since. If you can get hold of the cat, might be worth de-fleeing it yourself.

Just noticed this line on the Indorex page;

Indorex Household Spray will interupt the life cycle of the flea but you may see residual adult fleas appearing due to the chemicals being unable to kill off the pupa stage.

So the adults you’re now seeing may have been eggs when you sprayed and it’ll take a day or so for them to be killed off by the residual spray (if Staykil is the same as Indorex)

Treat the cat and let it back in..

Get proper company in to spray. We moved into a house that was infested – battled with them for a month, then brought in a company who did a ProperJob.

Treat the cat and let it back in..

This.

When I had a cat I had a problem for ages, tried just about every ‘fogger’ and treatment on the market and nothing made a fig of difference. The only thing that worked was a Frontline treatment on my cat, quickly cleared it up.

We had a flea infestation as the treatment we were using, Frontline, doesn’t work for the local flea population who are now immune. We had to spray and vacuum a lot for months to get up all the larvae and the vet moved our cats over to Advantage. Since we swapped treatments it’s all been fine, but eventually the fleas will adapt….

Do they do advocate for cats? Frontline isn’t very good.
The oral tablets work very well on dogs too.

I can recommend the indorex spray, as long as you’re thorough, and follow the instructions. Follow-up treatment a week or so later, from memory, to get the ones that hatch in the meantime…

Find cat owner to make sure its not being treated then treat cat and use this in the house:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acclaim-200-Household-flea-spray/dp/B003ZJA6KC

It kills flea’s and insects. In a house with 3 cats, 2 dogs, various other animals and one person working as a Veterinary Nurse, we have never had fleas.

Advantage and 4fleas was the combo I used to suggest.

The drops transfer to other surfaces, and the spray stops the eggs hatching allowing you to get ahead of the problem.

And vacuum. The lava eat dust. Spray and vacuum on top and underneath things too.

Then vacuum some more.

Empty the bin a long way from the house.

[You’ll need to have a chat with the staff to buy the drops, call and book an appointment]

You need a flea magnet. Make one of the kids sit on the carpet for an hour then throw them out, strip them and burn their clothes.

I worked as a summer pest control guy when I was 17 . Was given a Renault kangoo and had to go round killing wasps nests and treating houses for fleas. I seem to remember the treatment was ficam d with 5% bendiocarb. Something like that.

But basically it was to fumigate the house as you have to kill the flea eggs, which are often in carpets , skirting boards etc.

It does say on the back of the can about vacuuming daily to encourage pupae to hatch so hopefully it’s just that. We go away on Saturday and worrying about coming back to some kind of biblical infestation.

I did think about getting some advocate for the cat.

matt_outandabout – Member

Get proper company in to spray. We moved into a house that was infested – battled with them for a month, then brought in a company who did a ProperJob.

Same here, moved in to a house and the previous owner had a cat, the carpets were infested. It was our first house and we could not afford to change all of the carpets. After trying various spray cans I got onto the council and they sent someone around (can’t remember if we had to pay or not). Never saw a flea again.

I would get the experts in!

Now you mention it, ours was Sheffield council and charge was minimal.

Just go to the shop and buy two bumper cans of insecticide, shut all doors and windows, spray the entire house and go out for the day.

Obviously kick the cats out. As a stupid teenager I once spotted a flea on our cat so I very considerately covered its nose with a towel and sprayed the poor animal with household insecticide. The result was that it laid down on its side, shuddered a bit and produced quite a lot of foam from its mouth. Ten minutes later it seemed to recover and went on to lead a normal life. Worrying at the time though.

could’ve been worse globalti – could’ve been sudocream

Get a good hoover and hoover lots and often. It’s pretty much the only foolproof way not involve vast amounts of toxic chemicals.

Bowls or pans of boiling water work, for some reason they like to jump into them.

imac everything.

raining down toxic death will do it. one thing no-one else has mentioned is to treat your vacuum cleaner with the toxic death too, otherwise you hoover up eggs and spray them out the exhaust.
I’m a dog owner whose dog had loads of pets when the ex was ‘managing’ the situation.
3 cans of idiran later, + frontline on the mutt, + wash of all bedding and spray of same, and hoovering, we’ve had no problems in 4 or so years. she sometimes gets a few passengers, and i treat her then and wash her bedding, and ( when i can be bothered ), spray that before i put it back down for her.
she’s on a frontline copy. vetsuk.co.uk ( i think ) do several versions that all contain the same active ingredient fiprinol at various price points.

I read about people with a flea infested dog buying one of those UV fly zappers and watching the fleas jump from the dog to zapper, Logan’s run style.

Diatomaceous earth will do the job. It’s a bit messy and you don’t really want to breath it in but it will kill the fleas larvae and eggs quite quickly.

Get proper company in to spray

If it is a really bad and well established infestation this is the only way to go. Some of the aerosol sprays you can buy from a vets are very powerful and will kill a lot of fleas but they have no residual action whereas a proper spray treatment carried out by a pest controller will remain active for at least a couple of weeks and will kill any newly hatched flea larvae which will help to break the life cycle. Even then you occasionally need two treatments with severe infestations. I get very few treatment failures but they do happen from time to time.

I seem to remember the treatment was ficam d with 5% bendiocarb

Well remembered. Its actually Ficam W you would use for a spray treatment and its about 80% bendiocarb. As a bonus for all you cat haters out there cats are eight times more sensitive to bendiocarb than other mammals and can on occasion be killed by it.

several versions that all contain the same active ingredient fiprinol at various price points.

I’ve heard lots of things to suggest that fiprinol is loosing favour as a flea control active ingredient. If you are going to buy any flea spray aerosols look for ones that contain a mixture of Permethrin and Tetramethrin, its the nuclear option. D-phenothrin is also pretty good.

If you do get a pro in to carry out a treatment expect to pay between £80 and £150 at todays prices. They should be prepared to provide a free follow up if the treatment isn’t 100% successful first time around.