Yes, we have fleas. Lord knows where they came from. I’m guessing that the drought and the construction next door stirred them up. In our twelve years in this apartment on the second floor, we have never had fleas or any other bugs. Ok, we had the occasional ant swarm, but those were easily dealt with. Poor kitties. As if the construction wasn’t bad enough… We’ll take care of it.
I managed to get a few pics. Between the fleas and the construction, it has been difficult.
Here’s the construction update. We had cement trucks parked and running right outside our window for a little more than 5 hrs. The kitties were NOT amused.
We still have a kitchen window and this is the view. The bottom right corner is my window sill. The wall you see close by isn’t the outside wall of the next building. It’s a hallway. The outside wall of the next building is also in the bottom right corner and barely visible. There’s no space between the buildings. My window will go away at some point. I thought it would be gone already.
After all that, a bit of humor is in order. Here’s a funny vid of a horse and a cameraman.
Now I’m off to wreak havoc on some fleas.
try Advantage II on your kittehs for the fleas. btw, you need to move now.
ps my kitteh is ‘helping’ me type this one pawed. all errors in this post are his fault
ROFL! I’ll get some Advantage when I can. I’m having to use safe, but natural remedies at the moment as crises NEVER hit when the budget can handle it. I’ve eased their misery and I’ll follow up with more next Friday. I wish I could do more sooner.
Edit: I misread your comment so I deleted this part of my reply. 🙂
Yep… fleas are terrible! I’ve only had to deal with them once over the years thank goodness. So… darn… annoying. 🙁
You are right. The did probably get stirred up by the nearby construction… You’ll need to be vigilant in dealing with them now or the lil’ buggers will go into “stealth mode” and stowaway to follow you to your new digs when you move.
I forgot. The neighbors had a dog for a while too. It lived out back but came upstairs a lot. Poor dog. It went off to a better home. That may have been the source of the fleas.
As for the fleas, we have no carpet and very little upholstered stuff. I’m going to dust all the cat beds with food grade diatomaceous earth as it’s nontoxic and works well. I’ll dust everything actually. I’ll even dust around the door outside. 🙂
What makes the Advantage II great is that it kills fleas and the flea eggs. It dries within a day and does not smell as bad as some of the others out there. I always noticed the flea population was knocked down within a day of using it.
Wash your bedding as often as possible. As a last resort, I use a flea comb on my cat next to the toilet…when I snag one of the fleas, he gets flung into the toilet and flushed.
WalMart has been carrying it (4 dose package) for about $49. If you are really strapped for cash, they have an off brand that has the same ingredients as Sentinel for about $27 (If I recall correctly on the price).
Thanks ARV. I’m going to Costco today to get some Advantage if they have it. The nearest Walmart is many miles and a bridge toll away, so it’s out for now.
Oh, no! I can totally sympathize with “crises hitting when we can least afford it” — I had to make an emergency appointment at the vet for Louise this morning. She started having some problems with one of her eyes yesterday and she couldn’t even open her eye this morning. They had me bring her in at 10 this morning and it turns out she has a big red ulcer inside her eyelid. Her vet is really good and always very thorough so she tried to encourage me to take her for a second opinion to the university vet hospital. Of course, they are extremely expensive and never seem to do much more than the regular vet even though it usually entails a whole day of testing and sitting around waiting. Right now, I could get the money together to take her there but unfortunately I just can’t afford the time. I have a couple of important work meetings this afternoon that I wouldn’t be able to get out of. So, I am going to see if the antibiotics and eye ointment work and if there is no progress, I’ll take her to the university vet hospital.
I sure hope you’re able to handle the flea problem soon. I have flea treatment for my cats that I could send you but you probably wouldn’t get it before Friday.
The kitties have been dosed! Now I’m working on getting rid of the rest of the fleas. It was a population explosion, though still not as bad as the problem I had in GA. 🙂
Fleas? In Georgia? Ooohh!! Oooohhh!! I just know what that means…
Chiggers!!! 🙂
(Hahaha… Sorry… couldn’t resist… I just love saying “chiggers”…) 😉
Yes Miyuki, I’ve met some chiggers the hard way. I also still have scars on my feet from the evil fire ants. I also met a European hornet the hard way too. UGH! I so miss the fireflies though.