flea d-day and my life with fleas :(

Tue Aug 20, 2019

this summer is the very first time in my life i've had to directly deal with fleas.

in past summers i let my cats out without any issue i know of.

in the past summers i got bug bites, which i always assumed were either chiggers or mosquitoes

this, summer of 2019 is the first summer i learned of fleas.

in the past i let my cat out partly to poo and pee which is less work for me to clean, partly because she frequently throws up hair balls which ruins my carpet, and partly to give her some fun playing outside.

well no more. i now know there are fleas

my cat has the standard light brown fleas.

i put the hartz brand flea collar and harts brand flea spray for cats, but it doesn't work. it doesn't kill fleas, and the fleas are still there.

so i visit youtube and i learn,

Graphic Flea infestation in kitten



i got a large plastic box, put in body wash soap and water and my cat which is all 4 declawed into the water.

originally i tried tying her legs with shoe lace but it kept falling off.


i found quite a large number of drowned fleas.

it sort of worked. there were a lot of dead fleas in the wash.

she was shivering and shaking after i took her out.

however about a couple of hours later after she dried up,

she was scratching and i looked, i use reading glasses and she had 1 flea.

I'm not sure if those were fleas that survived redpill's noah's flood of soap or if those fleas came from inside my home.

i plan to bath her like this every couple of days. i suspect somewhere in my house, in the basement, perhaps, there are additional fleas.

i realize now that my cat will be 100% indoor and that getting just 1 flea can result in huge problems.

the Hartz flea collar and flea spray don't seemingly work AFAIK. it was cheap at $7 walmart.

also as i was learning how to get rid of fleas, i came across flea circus.

as a young boy of the 1970s i remember watching cartoons like tom and jerry and underdog and they talked about flea circuses. i forgot about this and had no further thoughts until summer of 2019 when researching on fleas i came across flea circuses.

i have captured living fleas between my fingers and find them impossible to crush. and they jump so they are invisible. so i find it hard to believe you can capture fleas and attached them to objects like a harness to power a flea circus, but youtube has such video





i find fleas miserable. my body is covered with healing flea bites, they are extremely itchy

i've got blood oozing out of some of my flea bites and inflamed skin.

every speck of dust or dark colored critter i touch and sometimes they jump so i knew they were fleas.

fleas can jump out of the way of bug killer.

i don't think flea carpet powder is working.

and i never know where i am getting the flea bite. they are totally painless and i feel no sensation of fleas but i get these huge itchy bites with blood in the middle of the bite. i have cortisone cream and at night i take benadryl to fall asleep and reduce itching.

now every single tingle or sensation causes me to look at my legs and arms and torso to see if its a flea.

if i can't get rid of my fleas i may give my cat up for adoption. i spent close to $500 to get her all 4 declawed.

i am learning all this about fleas just past several weeks

in the past i have cut my lawn and i notice after i cut my lawn i have itchy bug bites.

now, in summer of 2019 for the very first time in my life i am thinking that some of these bug bites are fleas, whereas in the past i assumed they were chiggers or mosquito or biting flies

i now think i like winter better than summer.

i plan to bathe my cat to rid of fleas every couple of days until end of fall.