Name that bug

[voice4cats]

i am sorry to hear of your pets suffering,i my self lost one of my two kittens after traeting them with bob martins cata nd kitten flea treatment,this product contains pestecides which usually have to be kept away from pets!!! i have made a facebook group and hoping to make people aware of the effects of this stuff,i am also trying hard to gather as much information as i can to go to the paper and also to bob martin themselves..so if you wish to contact me about your experiences or knowledge of the product i would be very greatful,
http://www.facebook.com/groups/bobmartinawareness?ap=1

[Fire Fox]

Stronghold should not be as expensive as you think - our vet charges £21 for three doses, this could be cheaper if you get a prescription and go online to purchase. My experience of moving into an infested house (and later having my own cats) is that it is cheaper and more effective to treat the pet with a good flea product than it is to wait and have to fumigate the house. Fleas don't just live in carpets and soft furnishings, they can live in the crevices on wooden floors too - I would not assume that only two rooms are infested as you can apparently bring flea eggs in on your shoes and clothes.

[Mark]

They can still mature in the dustbag. 

One good use for flea collars is to out one in the hoover 

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

Steve, you really don't need to bother with a fancy bomb even if there is such a thing.  Know thine enemy, learn the flea life cycle.  Flea eggs and larva live in the fibres of your carpets and in gaps of furniture and they thrive because they are the places you miss when hoovering - a popular place is the edge of the floor where the carpet joins the skirting board. But also remember... just because you hoover the ruddy things up, doesn't mean they are dead. They can still mature in the dustbag. 

I spray the corners and edges of my floors, under sofas and cracks of furniture with Indorex once every six months. Change your dustbag regularly, treat your cats with a GOOD quality treatment and you won't have fleas. 

[Steve1977]

What we'v now done is get all the covers of the sofa's, vacuumed and cleaned everywhere and then whilst the cats were in an isolated room, we sprayed with Flea Spray.

We'r going to get one of the more reputable brand of flea sprays in the event it occurs again.

Is it true though you can get a flea repellant which 'explodes' in the room and you have to leave the house for a few hours? I could have sworn there was something like this which hovers up a little (maybe you light it with a match i dont know) and then it explodes. Sounds like sci-fi to me!

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

Fleas can't walk very well so you won't see them shuffle. They can only walk sideways, which is why if you get flea bites on you they often appear in a near perfect line. They mostly use their back legs as springs and hop around. They can hop really well! 

The two in your picture are mature adult females. The brown bellies are egg sacks filled with eggs.

You've been given some excellent advice by others about products... never use anything you can buy off a supermarket shelf. This includes flea collars. 

[Angiew]

Most fleas live off the cat and in the house so you should do the house with indorex or acclaim else you will have to wait till they jump on the cat and bite. Vetuk is a good site fore theses and there are other sites that sell these sprays.

[Den]

That's a good question .. I have had ones that just sit there. Found one on the carpet once and managed to grab it. Also found one just crawling on Memphis. I've also found one sitting on me, which I managed to squish. I think when they want to they can certainly move (they can certainly jump a huge distance). When your pet is in the vet seems to make them move like they've got a rocket up their backsides 

There are certain best places to spot them - on the back of the neck, base of the spine and armpits.

[Steve1977]

Yeah, was doing a search on the Bob Martin products - particulary the one which you spray the cat with - and it seems to be responsible for a lot of cat deaths! Shocking it's being sold by places such as Tesco where people will see it as a respectable product.

We do just have the spray though that you use on bedding etc.
I'v never actually seen a flea before hence why I had to ask hehe but I managed to get these two off his fur and being a bit fiddly, it took a while. Basically they didnt jump out and one of them was definetly dead but whilst I took the picture, one of them was shaking his legs.
Perhaps this is the effect of the Frontline? Are fleas normally quick blighters who'l spring on just as quickly as they spring off?

Just looked at his cushion now - the one he came back from the vets in - and this had one dead flea on. Is it usual to find fleas dead? Could this be a sign that the Frontline has worked? I really hope so!

[Den]

1/ Unless infested they are soooooooooo easy to miss. When you start brushing it disturbs the fleas and they hop off.

2/ For frontline to work the flea has to bite the animal then they die. There are also reports that frontline has stopped working, although my vets haven't heard about that. Frontline combi I think makes them infertile so that they can't lay eggs (I think,  I've never used the combi one).

3/ I have used flea spray with my cat in the house (have a house cat). I only had to keep him out of the room for 30-40 minutes. I just shut him upstairs, sprayed, left the room. Then opened the windows and aired it all out, then let him back in and repeated the process upstairs.

4/ I personally wouldn't use Bob Martin products. I used Acclaim http://www.vet-medic.com/pd_Acclaim+Household+Flea+Spray+400ml_ACCL1.htm Indorex also comes highly recommended by the Purrs bunch http://www.vet-medic.com/pd_Indorex+500ml_INDO1.htm

Hope that helps .... It took me a while to get rid of fleas the other summer. You think you have got them all then one appears 

[Steve1977]

Thanks for the quick reply

Im a bit miffed the vets didnt see them to be honest! But even more suprised why the Frontline hasnt killed them! Is Frontline generally poor? I didnt get Stronghold because of the price but use it now when we do them again in a month.

As for prevention, would you recommend we use the flea spray while the cats are in the house? They have only ever been in 2 rooms but we'r a little stuck because we'r not allowed to let the cat out for 1 week until his tooth has the all clear (well I say tooth, I mean gum cause he had it removed)
Would it be easier to confine them to 1 room for a few hours...flea spray the other room with Bob Martin Flea Spray and leave for an hour then allow them in this room and flea spray the other room?

[Den]

Oh yeah, they be fleas!!

*shudders*

[Steve1977]

We took one of our cats to the vets earlier in the week and whilst there, my wife noticed a black flea on his skin. Got him back home and applied Frontline immediately. Then the day after we took him to the vets again as he had to have some work done on a tooth. Then now he's back home we noticed these two reddish bugs on him.

Im presuming these are still fleas? If someone could confirm it would be much appreciated.

Thankfully they have only been confined to the two rooms downstairs so we'r going to vacuum everywhere and use flea spray but i was always under the impression you could hardly see fleas!