Laker and Melissa moved into an apartment near their Santa Cruz campus. Immediately, Melissa started to get itchy bites on her legs and arms. Soon they started to see the occasional flea.

It turns out that there were cats living in the apartment before they moved in and there is a cat that belongs to the neighbor across the carpeted hallway that basically lives in the hallway and on the balcony that is shared by both apartments.

Adult fleas live on the animal, so it isn’t these fleas that are biting Melissa. The adult fleas each lay 2000 eggs in their short lifetime. These eggs eventually hatch a larvae which feeds on the adult flea’s feces on the pet or where the pet spends time. These pupate into a hard shelled pupae that is basically indestructible. It is these hard little balls that fall off the pet and are everywhere the animal travels, especially where they sleep. Pupae can hibernate for years. But, after about two weeks, when a mammal wonders by, they sense the CO2 and a baby flea hops out. They prefer pets, but if there is no pet to hop on, as in this case, they are quite happy with blood.

Laker and Melissa started to “dust” their apartment with a powder saturated with essential oils. They sprinkled it on and diligently vacuumed it up. As recommended on the label, they vacuumed daily for a while. I explained they needed to throw away the vacuum bag after each vacuuming (or wash a bag less canister) or the pupae would just hatch out from the vacuum cleaner. This actually helped for some time, but they had to live with the smell of this stuff.

The fleas started coming back again about two weeks later. This does coincide with the maturation time of the fleas in the pupae, so now they believed me they needed to do something more aggressive.

In addition to treating the “old” infestation in their apartment proper, they needed to treat newly hatched fleas and their source. They went to their neighbor to ask if she had a flea problem.

It turns out that his neighbor admitted that she does in-fact have a huge flea problem and that she is Buddhist, so she cannot kill anything, not even a flea. So, she simply flea combs the cat and throws the fleas out the window.

Laker secured permission to treat the cat for fleas with a veterinary approved product as long as the neighbor didn’t know when he was doing it. And, the landlord agreed to treat the common areas.  

Armed with his Frontline, Laker treated the cat as it lounged on the common balcony. And the landlord had treated the stairwell as promised. The next morning I got an e-mail from Laker. Apparently, at 11:30 that night there had been a knock on his door. The neighbor’s caretaker asked if Laker had applied anything to the cat. “Yes”, he replied. “The reason I ask is that she had a seizure” said the caretaker. “Oh no” piped in Melissa, did you take her to the vet?” They got a funny look from the caretaker and that was that. Apparently she was “okay now”. So, poor Laker and Melissa went to bed fearing that they had caused a seizure in the cat and he wanted to know if this could happen.

This is not a reaction that we typically see from Frontline, even at overdoses. But, an area treatment insecticide would be more likely, in a sensitive cat, to cause a seizure. So, I was sure it was the area treatment that the landlord used and not Laker’s Frontline application. The story gets worse.

First, it was not the cat who had the seizure but the neighbor.

She is very epileptic and can seizure from a “warm breeze”. The caretaker had washed off the Frontline in case it was the offending product so the cat again was getting fleas.

Second it turns out that the cat was having some kind of “bucking bronco” reaction to the Frontline. Some cats don’t like the feel of the carrier on their skin and will act irritated from it.

The cat might rightly be sensitive to any application since we found out that she is 19 years old.

Thirdly, the landlord had simply treated the hallway with Borax which will dry up the larvae that are hatching from eggs in the carpet, but most of the larvae are on the pet.  So, even if it does successfully dry up the larvae, Melissa will still get bitten until an insecticide is put down to kill the emerging baby fleas.

The neighbor suggested that Laker and Melissa simply rip up their carpets and start eating wheat germ. I want to convey the fact that having hard wood or linoleum floors is not the solution to fleas. Those pupae are in every crack and crevice that you can see. While replacing the carpet in Laker and Melissa’s apartment could remove a lot of the old pupae, it would not provide a long-term solution to flea control if the pets in the environment are not controlled.

We all agreed that the landlord needs to take this problem on and get rid of all fleas. He has agreed to seal off their apartment and “bomb” it. If Melissa continues to get bitten, they will move, not really something they want to be doing. So, what can the landlord do?

•Treat the animals. Any pets living in the building need to be on monthly flea prevention. Capstar pills can be used as a “rescue” if live fleas are seen on the pet at any point.

•Treat the indoor environment with an insecticide and a growth regulator. Here in the Lowcountry we find that Knockout Spray works better than bombs. It has a growth regulator to stop eggs from hatching as well as an insecticide to kill juvenile fleas.

•Treat the outdoor environment. The big box stores and hardware stores carry outdoor products that will do the trick.

•Tips – Focus on areas where pets sleep as well as shady areas. Vacuum like crazy. Repeat everything in two weeks.

Dr. Katherine A. Saenger, DVM, owns Bees Ferry Veterinary Hospital and Boarding Kennel and is a former board member of the Charleston Animal Society (formerly John Ancrum SPCA.) If you have questions about pet behavior or health, or suggestions for column topics, e-mail her at vetsaenger@bellsouth.net, and watch the column in coming weeks for her responses.