Putting poison on the cats.

Ugh. My scalp itches now, thanks ever so.

Good luck with the FLEA DEATH.

Ugh. I HATE fleas.

But not as much as my housemate does. The last time we had an infestation (my parents went on a trip, and had us catsitting at our place), she top-spotted all of the cats, flea-bombed the house, sprayed all cloth surfaces with flea spray, mopped the kitchen daily, had me vacuum daily with a bit of flea collar in the bag, and flea-combed her cats every day for 2 weeks looking for signs.

And she still wasn't convinced they were gone.

Woohoo! An opportunity to overshare.

The cat my wife had when I met her – Ariel, a Maine Coon/Siamese crossbreed – had a terrible case of fleas for a while. They got all over the house, and as I'm allergic to flea bites, things got, er, pretty gross. Anyway, we ended up getting some seriously potent stuff to treat her: just a few drops on the back of her neck turned little Ariel into Princess Death, scourge of fleakind. In just two days, every flea in the house had given up its teeny tiny ghost. I was so happy that, despite also being allergic to cats, I picked up our kitty and kissed her on the nose.

That’s when I found out I am much, much more allergic to flea medication than I am to either fleas or cats, and nearly choked to death on my own massively swollen uvula. On the plus side, though, my friends now know how to take me down if I ever become dangerous.

(Seriously, it was huge. Like having two tongues. So, hopefully that image works its way into someone’s nightmare.)

We have 6 cats (3 polydactyl, 3 Manx/Desert Lynx) and two dogs...plus the goats and horses. As much as I hate Advantage and the rest of the poison stuff, there is a time and place for it (wasn't that one of Kevin Bacon's lines in "Footloose"? "A time to poison fleas, a time to dance in celebration of their death...").

Most of the time, though, we use Orange Guard (a natural orange-oil based cleaner found with the 409 and Lysol at the store) and a product called I-G Regulator from GardensAlive.com inside the house...and then we spray nematodes (also Gardensalive.com) outside. We actually means "the husband" but you get the idea. The stuff from Gardens Alive works for 7 months, too, which is awesome! Their enzyme spray (for accidents of pet- and organic-matter varieties) is fabulous too.

Hooray for the availability of the heavy artillery, though--I bet your girls will thank you soon!

Hey guys, living in the San Diego area as I do, and being allergic to flea bites, I am suffering badly from fleas. and my guys don't get out. Just ordered Advantage from an Ebay seller I was emailing about this.

Any recommendations for a furnishings spray? In the UK before I moved here, with fleas breeding outside in my garden and the cats going out, I used Front Line puffer spray which meant no fleas lived on contact with their fur to come indoors, and a wonderful neuro toxin spray that killed any crawling insects on all furnishings for 7 or 9 months, depending on vet bought brand.

However, even up in Sacramento when I lived there, the Front Line Puffer spray didn't work, and I cannot find any furnishings spray that despite its claims, actually works on furnishings for more than a few weeks. :( I desperately need advice from you US seasoned flea killers my cats have to be confined to my bedroom lest they start peeing competitons with my son's cat, an Alpha one like my little Queen and huge Tom, so I get them sleeping on my bed and cannot avoid flea contact. :(

I have found, for those of you needing flea protection, that either deet based OFF Deep Woods formula, or Repel, plant based Lemon & Eucalyptus insect repellent on feet & ankles helps a lot. Watch out for nail varnished toes, though, as they both smudge nail varnish and make a dirty black film on top of them. :(

When we had them, we tried furniture sprays, washed everything incessantly, and imposed draconian limits on the cat's, and my, permitted living areas. Nothing helped until Advantage gave our kitty the touch of death. Within a couple days of her poisoned self roaming the house, no more fleas anywhere. I mean, it generated Paradox, sure, but it seemed worth it to me.

lol. Paradox? What's that? And thanks for the reassurances on Advantage. Mine should arrive tomorrow or the day after.

Short version: it's the price you pay for power.

Long version: In the old _Mage_ game from White Wolf (if you're not familiar with White Wolf, they make a bunch of supernatural-type role-playing games), if you used magic to change reality and you went too far, you'd often experience an effect that reflected either reality pushing back at you, or the consequences of the kind of reality you created. So, say you use magic to create this powerful poison that kills fleas, and you screw up or go too far. One the one hand, you might poison stuff you never intended to poison (like, in my case, myself). On the other, your poison might just make the fleas angry. And hate you. And follow you around, exhibiting their hatred in their flea-bitey way, for weeks. Hopefully, your magical poison didn't also make them huge.

Paradox is one of the more useful and widely applicable ideas in gaming I've encountered. For example, the environmental damage resulting from unwise energy policy could be viewed as a giant Paradox effect. Wanna move around in giant boxes of metal at sixty miles an hour and light up the night like it's daytime? Okay, but your boats now have to sail through gluey brown goop and your daytime air will be darkened with smog. There's a potential fallacy built into that point of view -- not every action will necessarily have some catastrophic result -- but giving some thought to the unexpected long-term repercussions of apparent shortcuts is generally a good thing.

I guess it's really just another way to look at karma, or the threefold law from some flavors of Paganism, though with a more direct cause-and-effect relationship.

That said, sometimes, the magic is worth it. (Like it was for me.) I hope all goes well with the cats.