fleas AGAIN.......

Question
hi!
thanks so much for ur advice, but there is a problem. our sofa is long and huge and heavy, and our lounge is small. i couldn't possibly prop it up on my own, so i bought a can of insect killer thingy that said killed fleas, but not eggs,so should i spray it in under the couch?!?!?!also, when we bombed the house, we were outside and looked at a fly behind the sofa, and it died.maybe the gas did get thru. but then y are there still fleas???
we did get one with IGR, but we just yesterday and recently, we found more and more fleas. i drowned them and burned them with boiling water.after 45 mins they were still alive. once i even found 9 in a day!!!!
they seem to stay on me and my family because our cat is outside, even though i read they don't like human blood. should i bring my cat in and make all thefleas jump on it then kill the fleas on the cat with the dotty thing?!?!
is there some kind of powder thing that can heal the itch more quickly? also, in some places, say near our wardrobe where there is a glass table and a single sofa,and some folders and fabric boxes around there, that's there the fleas ae cominf from the second most.
the most is my parents room, and everytime i walk in i practically see a few fleas jump onto my foot, and i take them to their doom,with the TREATMENT.
also, will the fleas also go and lay in plastic ect., or just in fabrics?
when u said that after the dotty thing, the fleas would come to the surface, but once when i was scratching my cat, i felt a bump against its skin, and i pulled out a flea, whose nervous system was just fine. and we found fleas even when the cat was living outside???
just asking,do cat fleas live on humans, or can cats get human fleas who then goes onto humans?
also, do they live in your beds, or just u and ur clothes?
do the bites look like a flat reddish oval with a red dot in the middle?,or can they look different?
my bites look like that and there are some that a like a little pink mountain  that itches and hurts when u scratch.then i scratch it and i think there is no dot where the flea sucked the blod. then i scratch and the skin breaks( i think) and then it starts hurting and itching.sometimes there is this little clot of stuff under the scratched out skin. then after awhile, there is this watery thing that comes out and hardens.it then hardens into a little lite amber ball on the top of the pink
mountain. do u know what it might be?
also, do i have to wash 4 times a day or do some hyigene thing so that the fleas will be kept down a little bit?
thanks!!!! (i hope u have a nice day!:) )


Answer
Hello again!  You may as well try to use any treatment you can to reach underneath the sofa.  And definitely in the corner with the glass table and fabric boxes that seems to need extra help, as well.

I'm not certain why there are still fleas.  Did you use enough flea foggers to cover the areas appropriately?  Each bomb covers only a certain amount of room.  Some rooms may need to be treated with more than one fogger.  Also, did the fogger specifically say it kills adult fleas, eggs, larvae and pupae?  Some of the products contain only IGR's but do not kill adult fleas.  Some kill adult fleas and contain IGR's that do not kill eggs or do not kill pupae.  So you may have eggs hatching or pupae developing into adults.  

Fleas prefer to hide in soft and porous surfaces like upholstery but will hide anywhere they can.  They'll stay in cracks between hardwood flooring, along baseboards, pretty much anyplace they can.  And yes, bedding is an ideal place for them to nestle in and lay their eggs.  You should vacuum bedding as often as possible to try to remove flea eggs, larvae, pupae and adults.  It would probably be a good idea to sprinkle the bed with the Borax cleaner I mentioned previously, allow it to sit, them vacuum it up.

Fleas can survive under water, hot or cold, but if you can keep a small jar of rubbing alcohol somewhere and drop them in, this kills fleas in a couple of minutes.  

You're right.  The fleas are feeding on you because their preferred host (your cat) is absent and they are desperate to be fed.  They don't live on humans but will jump on them and feed if the opportunity arises and no other suitable host is available.  I don't know if it would be a good idea to bring your cat inside for them to feed on him, though, so that the flea killer he's wearing can kill them.  The fleas do have to bite in order for them to be killed, and fleas can still feed for a few minutes before the treatment begins to take effect.  Hundreds of fleas feeding on a 10-lb. cat can drain him of enough blood to be deadly.  The situation is much more dangerous to him than it is to you because of his size.  It would be best to get the problem inside under control first.  On the other hand, I'm not sure how dangerous it is for him to be outside all the time with predators, etc., so you have to make a judgment call and decide where it's least dangerous for him to be.

There isn't really a human flea.  The equivalent would be body lice, but those really look quite different and couldn't be confused for fleas, so I believe it is cat fleas you are seeing.  Cat fleas are the ones that humans are bitten by most often.  It's possible they are dog fleas, but there is not much of a difference between the two.  I think you probably are seeing flea bites on your skin.  Mostly they would be around your ankles, right?  If there is any doubt, however, it would be good to have a doc look at it.  Certainly could be something else.  I would try to keep scratching to a minimum, even though it itches, since scratching could infect the bites.  Itching is partly caused by an allergic reaction to the bites, so you can try applying a hydrocortisone cream to help relieve itchiness.  There isn't too much you can do to make yourself less attractive to fleas since they are just attracted to heat and movement.