So we just moved into our new place two weeks ago, and the previous tenants had a few cats. Didn’t seem to be an issue, and they cleaned the place, but lo and behold, it was not enough. We have a flea infestation, and our poor little kitty is absolutely CRAWLING with dozens (hundreds?) of these disgusting things. They like to burrow into his fur and out of sight, but every now and then after he’s been really still they’ll come out in full force—especially on his head/face. At first I thought they were some kind of burrowing mites because I’d never seen anything like it, but pretty convinced now that they’re fleas.
So why am I bitching? Because we were fucking idiots and gave the damage deposit back to the previous tenants before the end of 30 days. Had we still had the deposit, we could use it to pay for the place to be taken care of professionally. It’s an old, carpeted house, and there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to get rid of these things on our own. So now we have to shell out at least $100 to get this shit taken care of. Meanwhile, the little guy is going through hell. FUCK. —First time dealing with fleas
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.
that’s a major problem op. you’ll need to take your cat out of the house before you spray or whatever. make sure the cat and your abode are flea-free, before letting the cat back in. carpets are a bitch. vacum vacum vacum. we lived through flea hell in toronto and it was a battle that we finally won. good luck
Oh, I’m so sorry, OP. We’re kitteh lovers here – I certainly feel your pain. Hopefully you’ll be able to win your war as well and your petit minou comes away unscathed.
Why would you give ANYTHING to the previous tenant. Damage deposit is between tenant and landlord, not tenant to tenant.
Call up the Woodbury Vet Clinic on North-455-7297. They’ll give you something for your kitty that will make sure that they (and you) won’t have any more fleas. It works almost instantaneously. =^^=
Plus it’s pretty cheap.
Bro Tim’s correct… it’s up to the landlord to give the deposit back to the previous tenants… NOT YOU! I don’t like to see any animal suffering so I will suggest to you to use a product we use for our little buddy called “revolution”. It’s not just for fleas. It’s applied topically and, so far, has worked like a charm for us. Here’s the web site – https://www.revolution4cats.com/default.as…
IF YOU PAID THE PREVIOUS TENANTS THEIR DAMAGE DEPOSIT (WITH, OR WITHOUT, INTEREST) DEMAND IT BACK FROM YOUR LANDLORD!!!! If your landlord refuses take them to tenancy court.
Good luck, OP!
Ok I’m confused…why are you responsible for giving the previous tenants their deposit back? Did you purchase the property and take over the apartment as your residence (so you were technically their new landlord)? Because that doesn’t make sense…
In any event, poooooooor kitty 🙁 Get him some of the pills from the vet and hire an exterminator. It’s expensive, but it’s the only thing that’s going to help. I had quite the scare over the weekend when I saw a bug on Molly after Oscar had been accidently locked outside (little bugger’s sneaky and ran out undetected onto the patio and spent the night out there)…thankfully it was just a random fly, but fleas are a BASTARD and so gross and creepy. I have half a mind just to get them the pills anyway just in case.
money is nothing when you are infested *shudder* the little calico we had was a magnet for them
Yeah! Fuck you fleas!
Poor kitty. Agreed with getting $ from landlord to pay for previous folks’ flea hotel.
Good luck!
I still have a recliner that is a virtual graveyard for the victims of the Great Flea Expulsion of ’95. It’s been in the furnace room ever since.
That sucks OP, I had that happen to me too. It took the landlord putting in new carpet, the pest people came and sprayed, and it cost me about 200 out of pocket for flea crap. It took about a month for them to be completely gone.
Poor kitty (and OP too)! 🙁 Is there any way to check for fleas BEFORE you move in? I didn’t check when I moved in but figured it would be ok because it wasn’t a ground level apartment. It took you one month of battling fleas…that must have really sucked, Stephen.
lilac is right. Find the right solution and BAM!
You can get those drops that you can put on the back of the cat’s neck. Just make sure it’s safe for kittens.
…you cannot become complacent senor, research the flea. amazing little feckers…scratch scratch
An infested dwelling is a bitch to deflea. I know someone who’s tenants left their fleas behind when they moved out. It took 3 sessions ($300 a pop) with the exterminator to finally rid the problem. With that much insecticide permeating every pore of the inside of house one has to wonder at the safety for humans, especially ankle-biters who live closer to the floor than us grownup folks. The flea drops applied to cat’s necks work great for cats, not so great for humans in an infested dwelling, who will be even more appealing to fleas now that kitty is off their menu.
Why did the OP have to return a damage deposit to the previous tenants? Isn’t that the property owner’s responsibily?
From the sounds of your bitch, it seems to me that you have suspected your cat of having flea’s for quite some time. If that’s the case:
What the fuck is wrong with you dude! Flea’s make cats sick! The moment you suspect them of having fleas you need to get some medication from the vet.
The medication cost’s 23 bucks, and it pretty much gets rid of the fleas in your house too. If they are biting the cat and dying, then the fleas numbers are going down, not to mention if they don’t have anything to feed on..then how are they going to survive?
They say you don’t even need to spray if you use the meds from the vet. Although I would vacuum. And you can get flea spray for under 20 bucks. I would use that just as a precaution.
get the drops for the cat. they work great. consider bathing the cat first. wet it around the neck with warm soapy water before you dunk it so thye all dont just run up on its head. also you’ll need to vacum and throw out the bag or spray in the vacum before you shut it off. vacum really good. under stuff and along the baseboards. it was a really bad flea season this year. you’ll want to treat the cat at least twice so the fleas all die before the cat becomes a viable food source.
Chile01: the drops work well, but I have a friend who’s cat ACTUALLY managed to get some in her mouth (she put them in the proper spot behind the neck) and got very sick. So try the pills just to be safe, OP.
Flea collars are useless.
Flea collars are useless on a cat, although if you cut them up and put them in your vacuum cleaner it will keep the fleas from jumping out (otherwise they can escape back out of the vacuum cleaner again). I have used both Revolution and Advantage. Both worked, but Revolution is cheaper and it dries faster (it’s alcohol based) so there is less chance of your cat accidentally licking it. Probably will take about a month and a half for every flea to go away (because of eggs etc) but it definitely works.
You know what else is useless? Flea baths. AND, you can see the little fuckers running for dear life when you bathe them when the cat has lighter fur…and the cat is seriously traumatized when you bathe it in that foul smelling shit.
What’s SUPER creepy about fleas is that they travel towards the cat’s mouth because it’s moist and when you have a cat with light fur around their mouthes *shudder* They lay their eggs around the mouth too. *shudderx2*
Aw thanks for the helpful hints.
I did take kitty to the vet to get treated and he’s feeling a lot better now but we need to repeat treat every month for 3 months to ensure all the stages of fleas are gone (damn bastards are tough to kill).
We gave the previous tenants the dd back because we are the new owners of this place and admittedly we were a tad naive about the flea issue (ie the possibility hadn’t even crossed our minds despite there being cats here before).
Oh and kitty went exploring in our place the night we moved in – and got into the chimney/fireplace. So he was all sooty for about 1 week and when we saw the flea dirt on his back near his head, we thought it was the dirt from the chimney as that’s a tough to reach spot for the cat to clean. So he probably had the fleas for about a week before we really noticed (I did see a couple but as we’d never had any at our last place – 1.5 yrs there – I didn’t realize it was a flea as it disappeared quickly. Thought it was just a bug).
So next step is fumigation – at our expense. Still a piss off and even though we’re moving downstairs next month and will be renting the current, flea-infested flat out to some new people we will exterminate for the next tenants as it’s the right thing to do.
Any renters out there, when you move into a new place ask about previous pets and make sure that you’re not stuck with the bill for killing fleas at the end of it! That’s either the previous tenant’s or landlord’s (if they didn’t didn’t get $ from the old tenant) responsibility to pony up the $.
Oh and I cringe at what I saw at the vet’s the other day – an info poster on fleas that said only 5% of fleas are on your pet….the rest are in the house….somewhere….*shudder*
I can’t help with the infestation but I have two words that will sure as hell improve your cat’s shitty quality of life: FLEA. COLLAR. What, are you too cheap?
Brenda_K: “…I have two words that will sure as hell improve your cat’s shitty quality of life: FLEA. COLLAR. What, are you too cheap?”
Nothing like fucking kicking someone when they’re fucking down, is there?
Flea collars are useless… What, are you ignorant? … YUP!