Best way to get rid of fleas from your house?

I can tell you that it took an exterminator to get them out of my house.

Over the counter powders, sprays, flea dip (for the cats), flea bomb (which meant a night in a hotel), none of it worked and added up, it all cost a lot of money.

If you vacuum, you have to get rid of the bag every time.

Trust me, call an exterminator.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, fleas are what brought me to Fluther. I had fleas in the house ten years ago, with a newborn baby here, and I was stressed out from the fleas. I was googling and learning about fleas, the flea life cycle, flea gestation, flea eradication, etc, and I found Fluther in the search.

To answer your question about fleas living on a human, they’ll jump on, bite and jump off. They’re not interested in human blood. Fleas want cat or dog blood.

Why the opposition to bombing?

That said, have your cat treated with a prescription flea medicine. Some of those are strong enough they’ll kill the fleas in your house, your yard, and on the neighbor’s cat.

Fleas live in the carpet and furniture, and just come out to dine on you and your critters. Having had animals in a number of states for 40 years, I have had to deal with this from time to time. I’ve had the best luck with Fleabusters. It’s very effective and better than bombs.

What always seemed to work for me was some of the flea treatments for the cats…the 30 day ones. The fleas on the cat will get killed as will the eggs. But also, as the cat goes to its favorite locations in the house, it takes the poison with them and the fleas/eggs it encounters are also killed.

Look ar my recent questions. Had the same problem. An exterminatore treated the carpets and furniture. Have to cauum the eggs up for many days. It was awful to get the bites. Solarcaine and benadryl helped the most. Hoping they’re gone by the time i get home.

@seawulf575: Even if you get the stuff for the animals’ necks, you still have to treat the environment.

Buy a small, traditional flea collar, the type that needs to be unrolled and stretched to activate. Put the collar into your vacuum cleaner’s bag. The fleas will die immediately, thus eliminating the need to change the bag every time you clean.

At this point you need the exterminator. I’ve had success for minor flea problems by vacuuming the suspected area and using a warm flea trap: http://www.thebugsquad.com/fleas/flea-traps/ I’ve successfully used bug bombs for the next higher level of flea infestation.

Bomb it.

Yeah exterminator might do the trick, the cat is still scratching and i have so many bites and my daughter has none.
I’m sick of being itchy – and trying to NOT itch, I wake up and I’m itching in my sleep!
Iwill try flea bombs first but I need to find something for the cat that actually works.

@tan253: Flea bites are sooo itchy! I used to wake up in the middle of the night just to scratch the bites on my legs.

I can assure you a bomb didn’t work, even though I stayed out overnight to give it the maximum time to permeate everything. Fleas don’t jump up on high stuff anyway, they mainly lurk where they can jump onto a host, so they’re going to be near paths in the house, near the couch, the bed, etc. When the exterminator comes, he does a concentrated spraying on the floors, mainly the paths where everyone walks. No corners, no high spots – fleas need blood and they’re not going to be able to jump onto a host if they’re hiding in the corner or up on top of something high.

hmm ok so if i can’t afford an exterminator is my best bet the cat – and let her go into all the room so when they jump on her they die? The weird thing is – is that I’ll get bitten when I’m out… so they must be in my clothes drawer!

@tan253: All the fleas aren’t going to jump onto the cat.

Do you know anybody who is an exterminator? Maybe they’ll help you out.

oh yes, I’ll phone one and ask as well as the vet!

@tan253 You’ve gotta stop. I’m beginning to scratch, convinced fleas are conniving to concentrate in places on me that I can’t conveiently reach. A long time ago a girfriend of mine proved to me that she could eliminate the fleas in her house by cramming the place with boxes of eucalyptus leaves which she obtained from the park 2 blocks from her place. I was more obsessed with the thoughts about what might be imported among those leaves that My obsession was switched from the fleas.

haha I’ll try anything I want to take some photos of all my bites to show you – I look like a polk-a- dot flea bitten 40 year old – not attractive.
I like your friends humour = gotta admit!

I can so empathize!mine were driving me crazy! Benadryl at night and Solarcaine and Claritin during the day. I also went on a short course of prednisone. Then the exterminator but I may still have fleas when I get home.

@janbb: If I remember correctly, the eggs can hatch in a few weeks after they’re dropped by the adult flea. Can you get in touch with the exterminator and have him do another round of flea treatment prior to you returning home? The stuff they use kills the eggs but you never know if one or two were in a spot where he didn’t do his treatment, then they’ll hatch and start breeding.

I’m now thinking its bed bugs. I got my daughter some teddys from an op shop and didn’t wash them first ang I have about 30 bites!! Plus I Havnt seen any fleas?!

Fleas are little black specks that look not much different than dirt. If you put your finger on a flea, and then lift your finger off and the “dirt” is no longer there, it’s a flea (because it will now jump up to three feet to get away from you).

@tan253 Bed bug bites look very different. Look them up online.

@tan253: For the teddy bears, put them in the dryer for at least a half hour and that should kill any bugs that are in them. If it were me, I’d probably put them in the washing machine and then the dryer to make absolutely sure anything in them is drowned and then baked and dead.

I didn’t see any fleas either except for one. You really need an exterminator. You should be able to find one who will come and evaluate for free. Or go to a dermatologist.

@jca When you put the drops on the cat, he/she carries it around the house. It isn’t necessarily perfect, but in my experience it actually does a really good job of ridding the house of the fleas.

I did see what looked like a bed bug crawling on me and I squashed it and then after thought ’ oh I should have looked first,’ it was small with a lentil type body.
The cat is still cratching – I’m so over it everyone!
I didn’t get bitten last night but all up I have about 40 bites.

If you crush a bed bug, it will smell like rotten raspberries.

If it looked like a lentil, it was most likely not a flea. Google pictures of fleas and bedbugs. I’ve never had bedbugs, but I know fleas all too well. I have had up to 4 animals at a time in my household, so I am no stranger to this.

Fleas are easy to see when they aren’t under a dog’s fur. If for no other reason they jump around like maniacs.
Could it be lice?
Have you bombed the house?

@seawulf575: I have and had multiple cats. I was told that in addition to treating the environment, I needed to treat the animals and vice versa. In my house, just treating the cats wasn’t enough to eradicate the fleas.

Well, right. The cats are the ones who brought them in in the first place. You have to deflea the cat, then stick it in a carrier outside, set your bombs then take you and your cat else where for a couple of hours.