You don't say what treatments you are using. Treatment runs the gamut from calling in a pesticide applicator to putting lemon juice on the cats' fur (good luck with that.)


If you read the literatur (like that website), you'd get very discouraged. It seems like your whole house is loaded with fleas - fleas and their eggs in bedding, in the furniture, in carpeting, in the grass. The 'experts' are against any modern, professional products (pesticides), but they never back up their fears. They recommend 'natural' controls but they never provide evidence that they work.

Here's my latest experience. About three years ago, I took my cat (indoor cat) to the vet's to be boarded for a vacation, and the assistant reported quite stiffly that she had had "many fleas" and needed treatment. We had had no idea. We hadn't noticed fleas, and we hadn't been bitten. So we bought some Front Line, which you apply to the back of the cat's neck. (where she can't lick it off) If fleas hatch in the house and jump on her, they die from the Front LIne.

We have not vacuumed, have not washed blankets, have not sprayed. We do brush her, but haven't noticed any fleas. Every month she gets her treatment on the back of her neck. Now my vet sells a brand called Revolution instead of Front Line.

I believe the monthly treatment works better than a flea collar.

I have a friend who has several pets. She deals with fleas by combing with a flea comb and dipping the fleas (which can't stand heat) in a tin can of hot water. How she finds the time, I do not know.

If you are really bothered by the idea of fleas in your house, sure, you can vacuum, throw away the vacuum bag, (because they survive in it), and wash all the bedding. But to listen to the "experts" you'd have to be doing that constantly. And when they say vacuum, they mean vacuum every carpet, every crack, every joint in the furniture. Who can really keep doing that?

You say you are suffering many bites. I'd be willing to bet that the fleas that bite you are landing on you out-of-doors. They are not leaping off your cats and on to you. My friend's vet told her, "Fleas aren't stupid. They aren't going to leave a nice warm pet, whose fur they can hide in, to jump onto you." My experience is that that vet was right.

Back to fleas out of doors: I once visited a friend in a nice, tidy suburb with velvety, manicured lawns everywhere. I walked from my car into his house, and discovered many flea bites on my legs. Don't believe that propaganda about keeping your yard nice and neat to keep out fleas.)

How rich are you? I suggest you indulge your mental health and send the cats to the vet for treatment, hire a professional to fog your house, get some dope for the backs of their nets, put cortisone on your bites so they heal, and then just exercise ordinary cleanliness about the house. Then KEEP YOUR CATS INSIDE.

The cheap plan is get some neck-dope, brush the kitties for a while, dipping any fleas in hot water, vacuum (immediately destroy bag), wash bedding, then KEEP THE CATS INSIDE, for their sake and the birds'.