We moved into our new house a couple of weeks ago, and the previous owners have left us a present. It appears that their cat had fleas -- we're getting bitten.

Now, only the master bedroom in the house has carpet, and we've put flea powder down on that twice now (once a week), but we're still getting bitten.

Most of the sources on the Internet talk about flea collars and stuff for your pet. We don't have a dog or cat!

The problem is this: obviously, when we moved in, our clothes were on the floor in suitcases and boxes, so the fleas might have set up home in them. Is this likely? Will they have laid eggs there? Should we simply put everything through a wash cycle, or should we fumigate the clothes? How much cross-contamination would there be by putting clean clothes in the same wardrobe/chest of drawers as "infested" clothes?

How likely are the fleas to have set up shop in the matress? Do we need to spray it?

What else can we do? It's not bothering me that much, but Jenni seems to be a bite magnet -- not just fleas, either -- she almost got carried away by mosquitos in Key Largo!

I had a similar problem some time ago when I moved into my present house. All of a sudden about two months in the fleas were everywhere. I tried a lot of different things, but in the end the only thing that worked was fumigation. Fleas generally lay eggs at low level, ie carpets and so on, as it increases the chance of finding a host. Your clothes are unlikely to have eggs, but washing everything on a fairly hot cycle should take care of that. Strip the bedclothes and wash them as well.

Go to a pet store and buy some 'bug-bombs' or fumigation sprays, one for each room and one for the loft if you have one. These are small aerosol cans with a locking nozzle. Seal off the kitchen (and bathroom, assuming it doesn't have a carpet) and tape up the door seams, or tape a sheet of plastic completely over the door. Open all the other doors in the house, close all the windows, and open the loft hatch.

Set off a bug bomb in each room, and toss one up in the loft. Start at the top of the house and work your way to the door, and when all the rooms are fuming away happily, shut the door and go somewhere else for 24 hours. After that it's not toxic to most things with less than six legs, except fish. If you have fish, take them with you!

This will kill EVERYTHING that could in any way be called an arthropod or insect, regardless of where it is. The insecticide will stay active for several months, so any unaffected eggs will snuff it as soon as they hatch. Any insects that make the mistake of entering your house will croak almost immediately as well, as in "it got halfway across the living room and dropped out of the air like a brick".

The only real issue is to wash all your bedclothes, etc, AFTER you've fumed the house. Also it would be a good idea to wipe down all the cooking surfaces in the kitchen and wash the cutlery and plates as well, just in case. It's fairly drastic treatment, but in the end about the only one that really works.

Pca

Yep, back in college I rented an apartment that was infested with fleas. Landlord "bombed" the place. It worked like a charm. Now I live in Florida and am dealing with the fear of termites....

We had a problem a while back when a relative's cat came in daily for a few weeks and had fleas. I think we got somebody out to spray the main areas and it solved the problem. Might be worth trying the bug bombs first since it it sounds like they will do the same thing.

For the bites, we have a product called "Anthisan" in the UK, it's an excellent antihistamine that works very quickly on any sort of bite or sting, we are never without a tube. (active ingredients: mepyramine maleate and benzocaine)

I'll chip in and say that fumigation also is the only thing that worked for us also. You only have to be out of the house for a few hours, and the problem will be solved. Definitely try getting some bug bombs!

Also, as an addition to what Patrick said, we just put all our kitchenware (pots, plates, flatware, food, etc...) into plastic trash bags and sealed them off with tape. That worked well for us since our kitchen was open to the rest of the house and couldn't be sealed off.

When we bought our present house we knew the previous owner's cats had fleas. While the house was empty and stripped of carpets, we had a pest control company fumigate it for around £80. He went around every room spraying the floors and the cracks around the skirting. At the end of each room he inverted his sprayer and filled the room with insecticide before closing the door and moving on.

3 years on and we've not had any problems at all - he definitely killed them all!

I think you have to treat at least twice due to egg hatchings. Fumigate with a bomb and then refumigate (sorry I can't remember the egg hatching time.

This is why the insecticide for fleas is so persistent. Flea eggs can remain viable for years, and have the remarkable ability to hatch almost instantly when a target host moves close enough. A persistent toxin allows most if not all of the fleas to hatch out, then die out, thereby cleaning out the stock of unhatched eggs. In my case, having treated the cat with a suitable parasite killer (frontline I seem to remember), I never saw another flea, and that's in about 11 years.

A few months later the wolf spiders came back, and they have done a very good job of getting rid of everything else that's smaller than them (which is almost everything other than myself)

pca

My aunt uses Frontline on their cats (the stuff you squeeze on the back of the neck) and it is very effective for cats who are outside all the time, although it is relatively expensive. She resisted it for years but only because she was told it was injected, despite seeing my dad put in on a neighbour's cat every few months!

Like most things, Frontline is much cheaper if you don't buy it from a UK vet. We bought two years supply from Australia for about half the cost that our vet wanted and that included postage costs.

Unless you have one of those old houses where you peel up the carpet and there's oak underneath. I was lucky enough to purchase a house like that .

From a perusal of the Lowes or Home Depot sites, it looks like most of it is still hardwood.

They generally refer to the cheaper stuff as laminate flooring.

In the meantime, putting a night-light on with a pan of liquid soap in front will help. Not a cure, to be sure, but at least it helps reduce their numbers.

I had the very same problem in Cambridge when I moved in (despite the house having been empty for a month, the fleas were obviously surviving on something else before my blood) - pretty much all wooden floors, with carpet on the stairs and landing only.

The solution in my case was to call the council, who sent someone round who de-flea'ed the place. I'm fairly sure the stuff they were using wasn't particularly nice to breathe (I went out) but it did the job and they would come round again for free if the first treatment didn't work (it did). ISTR it was 50 quid or so.

I didn't have any problems with my clothes (though I did wash everything after the treatment). My futon was pretty close to the floor - as is their wont - and I didn't have any problems there either.

Hugo

Diatomaceous Earth

I had a long post about our past troubles but FireFox ate it. (First time for everything)

Basically, dust your floors, all the nooks and crannies. Leave it for a week or so. Vacuum and redust. Repeat for weeks. Clean your vac every time. Get a yardsale vac if you are worried about ruining a good vac, preferably bagless.

Good luck, our son was 3 weeks old when we were hit. He never got to be on the floor for months. He's now 11 months old, hates to be on his belly and is not crawling. He has learned how to scoot around on his butt though.

Rene

DE is supposed to be safe for humans (you can actually source food-grade DE from a few places), and pets. I've looked into this stuff before, when trying to control an ant problem, but never actually tried it.

I'm not sure I'd really try it with a flea problem, though, just because, as I think was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, flea eggs have a nasty capability of lying dormant for long periods of time.

Well, the man from the council came round early this afternoon and shoo-ed me out of the house so that he could spray the place. With a bit of luck, that'll be the last of it.