Oh supreme irony...  

I've always had airborne allergies, fairly minor. They've gotten worse over the last 5 years or so. I've had cats all my life.

How you bathe them. You put about an inch of warm, not hot, water in the sink. You put the cat in the water so that only their feet are wet. You use a brush to get them wet starting from the bottom up. It doesn't freak them out the same way that dunking them does. I've tried it and it definitely works better.

If you can afford one of the flea treatments that you put on their neck (program or whatever it is, I forget the name), it gets rid of them really well and pretty much permanently as long as the house doesn't have them.

PS nope we never did see Sunny again...

Sorry about Sunny.. I've lost cats like that too, I still miss them.

I've used the neck treatment stuff, store brand and prescription grade. The store brand don't work at all, and the prescription grade stuff is really expensive for 3 cats, I can't afford that every month, and they do need it every month. Actually I found even sometimes the prescription stuff doesn't work all that well. Dawn dish soap does cut down on the fleas though, that's what a vet told me to use when the cats were too young for the medicine, and when the medicine I did use didn't work.

I don't get if they're indoors why you would need to apply it more than once. There must still be fleas in the carpet or something. can you flea bomb the house?

I will not flea bomb here, the space is way too small. I have flea bombed previous houses where we had the space, but I have no safe place to put the cats to keep them away from the fumes, and I have little kids who crawl on the floor, and their toys are everywhere.. I can't expose this house to those chemicals, you know.

The problem is not inside though, the problem is the neighborhood. There are some stray cats around here, and the fleas are everywhere. They come into the house on our clothes. I've seen fleas on my shoes, socks, and pants when I stand outside.

Granted it's not terrible right now because it's winter, but the cats do still carry some fleas on them. It's awful in the summer, because that's when we bring them into the house. In the summer they're in my carpets and furniture. One night I counted 26 fleas jumping on me while I sat on the sofa with no cats around!! It's gross!

I'll probably try a yard spray this spring. They aren't too expensive, and I have a small yard. That will kill the fleas in the yard so I don't bring them into the house.

I have three indoor outdoor cats. The black female has beautiful hair and skin, the blond boys have awful flea allergies, even when I cannot find a flea. If I do frontline plus once a month it fixes it, but it is very expensive. It is funny that Princess is flea resistant now. She is the one I nearly killed with flea treatment when she came to my house as a dumped off stray.

Frontline - that's the one. Yep it's expensive. There are places you can get it at a discount though. Try a cat rescue group or something.

We had them really bad in our first neighborhood also, it was a constant, ongoing battle. You'd walk out on the lawn and they'd be crawling up on your legs. Good luck...

Advantage and Frontline are the 2 prescription brands I've tried. Advantage used to work great, but over the past year it has not done a thing for my cats. That is when I switched to Frontline, wondering if maybe they built up an immunity to Advantage, and I thought the Frontline was worse! I'll go back to Advantage as soon as the fleas become a big problem again. At the moment it seems to be under control.

Uh... the cats don't want to be bathed, therefore they fight back... with their claws.

Exactly - cats hate water. Cats have claws.

And Dawn has bandaged fingers...

Thanks both of you - too simple for my mind to comprehend. I suppose I thought that superwoman Dawn would have them tamed and pleading for a bath.

NO, that's the pandas!
Cats aren't quite as easy!

Well it isn't something that's going to keep me from having cats, that's for sure...

Greece and Italy both. There are actually a lot of them in California too.

Yes, you can do that with a rag, and I probably will. But I may give them a full out bath occasionally too.

Um, too much work.
My allergies aren't THAT bad. Most likely I'll just bathe them once a month and wipe them down a couple of times a week.
Vacuuming, shampooing, and all that heave stuff is the husband's job (I have back problems).

*heavy

A very helpful answer here. I didn't know that bathing cats can be a scratchy moment too..ouchie.

Yep, if they're upset, they will scratch, no matter how much they may like you...

dawnald,,sorry..kindly disregard

No, it was helpful and I'm sure we'll do some of that!

You can wipe them with a wet rag...

I wouldn't like them if I'm a cat..

If you're MY cat, you don't get a choice!

Yes, ma'am..but I'll just purr a lot then. Rrrrrrrrrr....

holding head in hands and going oyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

You aren't talking about that nasty 3 year course of shots are you?

technically I work with animals...

My allergist did things differently - and I got the shots here at home, my allergist being about 60 miles away - Think I only did about 2 years worth - its been 20 years after all...

My mother-in-law did the shots. She is allergic to everything under the sun, cats, dogs, olive trees, white ash, walnut and idk what all. She did about a year's worth of shots and then her insurance changed and the new one wouldn't cover it. She couldn't afford to pay for it on her own, so she stopped. Probably the worst thing she could have done, but if you don't have and extra $300 a month, you just don't.

I agree - my mom paid for mine - the insurance only covered 80% after the deductable..

Even at 80%, I'm sure it's not cheap. The way my insurance works, assuming I could even get it approved, they contract with the providers to charge a "reasonable and customary" amount for each service and then they pay 80% of that after my deductible. So if the doc charges more than the contracted amount, they have to write it off, basically.

No way in hell am I giving up my cats! And yes, a year ago I had a food sensitivity test, and olives was on the list. But hey, the alcohol in the martini kills all the allergens right?

Interesting. I'll have a look...