Went on holiday and while we were away our cats picked up fleas.
We came back and treated the cats with the usual Bob Martin and thought that would do but no. Cats still scratching like crazy and seeing flea dirt around so got Frontline and a household flea spray. Re did the cats, sprayed carpets and hoovering like an OCD cleaner on speed (I hate hoovering!).
How long will it take for these measures to do their stuff? I am getting bitten alive from the feet up and its making me very grouchy….
Or have I failed and need to call in the professional pest people?

If you’ve got carpets it will take a while. One food tip is to put a flea collar in the bag or chamber of your hoover. It stops the eggs you suck up hatching or getting blown out to repopulate.

council fumigation

http://www.bobmartin.co.uk/Cats/Product_Info.html?product_id=1046

Flea bomb

We used to flea bomb flats when I lived in NZ. Not sure if you can buy them here. You do need to vacate the premises for 24 hours, and take all your cats, plants and goldfish with you. Did the trick and I suspect Colonial fleas are quite tough.

Bob Martin stuff isn’t very effective.

Get to the vet and buy something that does the job. One of the spot-on things like Frontline will keep the cats flea-free, but you’ll need something like Indorex (though there’s one that’s better – just can’t remember the name) to spray around the floors, especially the edges of carpets and in crevices. and to kill the fleas the moggies have distributed.

Once you’ve done the house thoroughly, you should be itch-free within 24h, though some of the actual bites can take ages to go down.

I’ve got 3 cats & 2 dogs, so it’s a constant battle – you have my sympathies.

We bought some really strong stuff from the vets, sprayed every room, shut all the door and left the house for 24 hours, came back, opened all the windows and gave the house a good hoover top to bottom and that did the trick for us. I also found some still living in the little ‘dust buster’ hoover that my wife uses a lot so make sure you empty out the hoover as well.

We also front lined the cats.

The spray doesn’t work on the eggs – you need to whack the heating up high and get them to hatch then do the spray and ocd hoovering. Also a good nit comb for grooming the cats can give you an idea of how successful you are being, but it does take a while as they are persistent little f*#@ers

We nuked the house and threw out a few rugs, then nuked the house again about 3 weeks later. Used Frontline and had no problems after that. For some reason my old Staffy Badger was always picking up passengers so he saw a lot of Frontline action which he wasnt keen on 🙂

The French know a thing or two about this, if all else fails go Nuclear.

Get down to the Vets and ask for a Program injection for your Cats – it lasts for 6 months and stops fleas emerging from the pupal stage – that deals with the infestion you have already. If you’ve got more than one animal – they all will need treating, its no good just treating one.

Also ask for a few Capstar tabs these will deal with the immediate problem fast, they kill fleas in 20 minutes – one capstar tab lasts for 24 hours so you will get the odd flea hopping on, but at least when it feeds and lays an egg the sods wont hatch out because the program is neutering the eggs!

Bob martins is rubbish, and collars won’t do much either. Fleas are extremely robust creatures. And 1 flea can lay 20 eggs a day! so if you are seeing a dozen – thats a lot of eggs every day!

I meant to say you will also need to be vaccuming everywhere regularly to get rid of as many of the eggs and larvae as you can from the environment within the house – once isn’t gonna cut it, its gotta be a twice weekly, or weekly at least task!

Good luck!

but you’ll need something like Indorex

Having the same problem with our dog.

Advice from our vet was to first hoover thoroughly all over the house, then turn the heating up to full with all the windows closed. You can also boil kettles and run the hot taps as they like moisture too. This process should draw out the little buggers. Once the house is hot then spray around with Indorex, making sure you pray under skirting boeads etc and close the door to each room after. Leave for an hour then air the house.

Do not use Indorex if you have fish, it’s likely to kill them.

HTH.

When I had a cat, I had a bit of an infestation at one point. Tried every puffer, bomb, powder, spray, you name it. Didn’t make a blind bit of difference.

What sorted it in the end was simply Frontline. Started spotting him, and everything cleared up a few days later. Amazing stuff.

What’s the best thing to do with pet bedding? Is it ok to spray it with acclaim? Does sticking it in the washing machine do anything? Or is there anything I can wash it with that gets rid of fleas?

One of the spot-on things like Frontline will keep the cats flea-free, but you’ll need something like Indorex

+1, stuff from the vet works, not the supermarket/pet store rubbish.

I don’t understand why people bother with the flea treatments from supermarkets. Get yourself some Frontline or Advocate from the vets.

And yup the house sprays work too. Not sure which brand we use.

Oh and be prepared to switch treatments during the year as the fleas can become resistant. We rotate between the two above. And if you have a dog make sure you use the dog version for the dog and the cat version for the cat as they are harmful if used on the wrong animal.

BTW,

I think the patent on Frontline expired recently, so you can now get generic versions for less money.

you also have my sympathies.
i bought indorex house spray from vets.co.uk ( IIRC ), as they were cheapest. i bought 4 cans and used the lot on my ( not large ) 4 bed house. sprayed the inside of the vacuum ( henry ) used with bags, to kill any eggs that were hoovered up, and bined the bags after.
washed floor-length curtains and my bed coverings, sprayed matresses – basically any cloth that extends within a foot of floor level.
washed all the dog’s bedding that could be washed at 60degrees, binned anything that couldn’t be washed ( or that didn’t survive ), dried outside in sunlight ( as eggs can’t survive exposure to UV ).
hoovered one room at a time and sprayed, moved every piece of furniture and hoovered beneath and sprayed around/on, which wasn’t so easy at the time, by myself, with a broken collarbone!
also got ‘prac-tic’ treatment from the vet, which is what they recommended, and had left over frontline from when the ex-GF was in charge of this stuff ( she seemed to have accepted we had fleas and that nothing could be done 😕 ). i alternated the frontline and prac-tic on a shorter than recommended time-scale.
seem to have shifted the beggars though, as i haven’t seen anything on her for ~ 2months, even though the weather here in the sw has remained good and warm. i was brushing my mutt twice every day, and pulling between 1 and four fleas off her each time. now i brush her once a week, when i remember, and she’s clear every time.
keep at it. it’s a big relief when you realise it’s sorted.