Need help getting rid of fleas

[mdmc]

Good morning DU!

I need your help - my house has fleas! I rent a bedroom in a house that has two pets, a dog and a cat.

We have fleas.

My roomies don't have the money or aren't too concerned about the fleas. They bother the shit out of me.

The dog and cat don't go into my bedroom, yet there are fleas in my bedroom.

Does anyone know of a way that I can get rid of the fleas in my bedroom? I know that we need to do the whole house, the yard, and the animals, but I can't afford that. I'm looking to "hole up" in my room until I can find a new place.

In the past DU has helped me with computer problems. Hopefully, DU will be just as helpful with my flea problem.

So what say you, DU?

[cornermouse]

1. Invite a republican over.

Maybe the fleas will leave with him/her. Other than that, if they don't want to put a tube of flea and tick killer on the critters, move.

[mdmc]

2. actually, my roomie had a whole bunch of pugs sleep over

On the carpeted floor where the dog sleeps! God, it made me sick. The pugs we know are very liberal, but still pugs. We seem to have more fleas now after our gop visitors left.

[blueknight]

3. you can buy

what they call a flea bomb. its not very expensive, maybe eight or ten dollars.( i really cant remember the price)but you have to leave the house after you set it off. you can go back in in a couple hours, i believe. i have not used one in years, but when i did, it worked great.

[radfringe]

4. not much you can do

if rest of house is infested

but this may help -- add flea dip to soap solution for rug steamer/cleaner and do your rugs

if you don't have steamer -- mix flea dip in a bucket, and lightly damp mop the floors/rugs

wash your sheets and blankets

mix flea-dip in a spray bottle and lightly spray down your mattress

put a "line" of flea powder in front of your door

you may have to do this on a regular basis as long as the fleas are still in the home as you may be bringing in the fleas as you move about the house

[mdmc]

6. thanks for the tips - I'm going to give it a try

(I saw your flood pic thread) I work for a Harrisberg based company - did they get hit with any floods?

[democrat in Tallahassee]

5. vote democratic!

[JanMichael]

7. Go to the vet and get capstar tablets

for the dogs and cats....they should be about 3 bucks apiece...the receptionist will be able to tell you what size you need--

Give them those, and they will kill every last flea that bites them for the next 8 hours.

Put them outside, and bomb the house.

[mdmc]

8. capstar? never heard of them. Thanks for the tip.

thanks

[JanMichael]

9. I hadn't either until recently

I think you have to buy them from the vets office.

They only work for 8 hours-

[fugue]

14. That's the pill I mention in my post

It's been three years since I needed it, so I couldn't remember the name.

Keep in mind that Capstar only works for twenty-four hours. After that the animal is completely unprotected. You must follow up with Advantage or Frontline or some other flea protection, which you can do immediately after giving the pet the Capstar pill. There's no need to wait twenty-four hours for the effect of the pill to lapse, and it's undesirable to do so because there is always a delay between applying the protection and its being effective.

Capstar is for immediately removing the fleas from the pet, not for keeping them off on a continuing basis. It is a good idea, though; Advantage and Frontline can take twelve hours to start having an effect. Dropping off all the nasties in an hour can make a big difference to a suffering animal. (My dog curled up and slept for several hours, clearly the first decent sleep he'd had in a long time.)

[Ready4Change]

10. Get flea powder for carpets from a pet store.

Since there is a cat in the house, seriously AVOID any anti-flea product with the active ingredient call Permethrin. It is very toxic to cats, and there are other effective products available. NO PERMETHRIN!

Sprinkle the stuff all over the carpet, especially along the edges of the room, under the bed, etc... Move the furniture around to do this. Walk around the floor to work the powder well into the carpet, then vacuum. Do this to any cloth covered chairs or other seating in the room as well.

Also was all your bedding in hot water. You may not THINK the pets are getting into your room, but I'd say odds are they do, and will, get in there.

It may take a week or two to for these measures to show a real effect, and they'll need to be repeated if you can't do anything about the infestation of the rest of the house.

Beyond that, hang in there for winter. Cooler temperatures tend to knock down flea populations.

[thecrow]

11. Get a flea bomb at the grocery or hardware store

it kills all the feas in about 2 hours (you have to vacate the premises)it's in a can, and it fogs your room (or house) with insecticide.
It's a flea killer in a can...
in fact you could use it for the whole house.
Then get the pets on a flea prevention program.
Sentinel will do the trick... my dog has NEVER had fleas.
If too poor to get Sentinel get some other once a month fleas killer at the pet store, or start using small portions of pennyroyal in the pet food. Check with a health store or herbalist for this before using.http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=pennyroyal+for+fleas
Also works: Brewer's yeast in the food.
Good luck!
Fleas are unhealthy for you AND your pets.

[fugue]

12. Whatever you do, you'll have to keep doing it

You can't cut your room off. You walk through the other rooms and into your room. On your feet are flea eggs, and there may well be fleas on you.

All the suggestions above are good, but unless the animals are protected against fleas, you'll still get them everywhere else on a continuing basis, no matter what else you do.

I'd point out that if nonresidents come into the home, you really should deflea it. Try pointing out to your housemates that the fleas will jump on visitors and that some people are allergic to fleabites (as are some pets--one of my neighbor's dogs lost his hair when he got fleas).

An example: my downstairs neighbor was in serious denial about her dog having fleas. When she moved next door, where she could not have the dog, I got him (still got 'im; he's my avatar) and promptly deflead him. (There's a pill you can get from the vet that drops all the fleas off in an hour, then you follow it with Advantage or Frontline. One flealess dog, very quickly.)

My neighbor, however, carried the fleas with her in her furniture and other possessions. She seeded flea eggs entirely through the hallway as she moved in. Very soon, everyone in the building (and even someone's pet rabbit, who never left the apartment) was fighting fleas. She was very unpopular in her new building for several weeks.

The effect would be less severe for your visitors, of course, but still by no means pleasant. Is that being a good host?

I hope you can convince your housemates that the fleas have got to go. You're fighting an uphill battle until you've got them on your side.

Added on edit: fleas are very unhealthy for pets. I took my dog to the vet the first week I had him, and he was underweight and exhausted from fighting the fleas. Within a month of living with me (and being flealess), the little guy was getting up to his ideal weight and was much more energetic and happy. Your housemates are not doing their pets any favors by leaving them flea-ridden.

[mdmc]

19. thank you

good info...

[KG]

13. try diatomateous earth

DE is totally inert, a non-toxic powder. put it in your carpet for a few days then vacuum it up.

[flvegan]

16. This one's your best bet.

[xchrom]

15. fleas are BAD for dogs and cats

they should be on advantage or some other precriptive that kills fleas any way.
otherwise it really is a case of bad pet ownership.
you can do the things the posters metioned for keeping the fleas out of your room -- but they really won't last long.
fleas reproduce prodigiously -- and you sound more like you have an ifestation -- a bad one.
you really need to treat the animals and get an exterminator to do the house -- it's reall the only effective way.
everybody should pitch in their pennies and get on this asap.
btw fleas pass on intestinal parasites -- and should you ingest them for whatever reason they can pass them on to you.

[Sydnie]

17. I just went through this myself

I tried the over the counter flea bombs - twice - and they took care of the immediate problem of the live, adult fleas for a day or two. The problem with the over the counter stuff is they don't contain a growth inhibitor. Once the fleas have been allowed to bred in your carpet or your furniture or even cracks in a hard wood floor, they can remain dormant for months.

Fleas are "activated" (motivated to move) by two things, heat and motion. Fleas can remain in the egg state, waiting to be "born" until conditions motivate them to move (heat or motion detected). Larva can remain for quite sometime as small fleas even without a blood host, as they will eat anything they can find (a cracker crumb dropped from a snack eaten in the room for example) and remain dormant for months.

After two attempts with the bombs from the store, I finally did my research to discover that the over the counter ones have less than 1% of the active ingredients that the pros use. The pros will also use a two part process not accomplished with the bombs alone. They will spray the carpet (not the furniture) with the solution that contains both an growth inhibitor and a residual "poison" that will keep killing for 30 days. The fog they use will disturb the adult fleas as well as the young fleas and motivate them to move. They will then usually seek the carpet in an attempt to escape the fog. Once they hit the carpet, they are then exposed to the second element which will finish the job on any that were resistant to the fog itself.

It was not cheap to have them come in and do the job professionally, but the other way was no cheaper in time spent as well as having to wash EVERYTHING that the fog touches before you can use it again. The laundry bill was astronomical as everything needed to be washed at once, so I couldn't do it at home. I did this twice at a cost that was not much less than what it cost to have it done with a guarantee from the pros.

I have always used preventative products on my cats, but I had an old cat that just couldn't tolerate the meds any longer. She came to spend more and more time outside and obviously brought them in when she did come in. My other cat was a house cat that only went outside when she "escaped". LOL My older cat was treated (finally when we could catch her) with the meds and promptly died about a week later. She was about 19 years old and just couldn't tolerate the meds again. I miss her, but her legacy was the infestation left behind in her wake.

Unless you have the entire house done now, I would suggest that once you locate a new place, have a pro treat your belonging while they are in the moving truck. That way, you won't just move the problem from one place to another.

Good luck!!! I know just how much it sucks!!!

Good resource -- http://www.fleasmart.com/life.htm

[mdmc]

20. sorry about your old kitty - thanks for the link

:kick:

[jukes]

18. cheapest solution

albeit temporary, is to sprinkle your carpets w/ borax. it's a desicant that dehydrates all levels of the flea cycle. leave for 1/2 hour the vacuum. repeat every 2 weeks.