Call an exterminator.
How can you afford to have 10 cats if you can’t afford an exterminator and you don’t have a safe place to put your cats out of the house when it’s being treated?
I don’t know where you live, but usually, unless you’re a breeder, having 10 cats is called “animal hoarding” a mental disease (animal hoarders do not even think they’re hurting the animals) and mostly illegal everywhere because of animal neglect…but your neighbors would have to call Animal Control when starting to smell them.
If I’d be your neighbor; I’d be more worry about you having bed bugs that will get to my house eventually, than smelling your cats if the wind blows my way.
You can set up a monthly payment plan with an exterminator’s company or get a loan from a bank if you have a job, which apparently you do since you make $12/hour.
Don’t waste your money buying stuff online or in cheap stores, probably getting some useless, or worse, dangerous Chinese knock off, for which the ingredients list has nothing to do with what crap is in there as they just knock off the label as well.
Once you waste enough money having to repeat the process several times over weeks, you give up and use common sense…calling a professional exterminator who should not cost more than you having to pay for several useless kits from China.
Plus professional exterminators have access to products that are not knocked off by the Chinese (or they’d lose their job if they cannot fix your bug issues).
Professional exterminators have access to products that YOU cannot have access to as you’re not a professional exterminator.
“For public health reasons, individuals are encouraged to call a professional pest control service to eradicate bed bugs in a home, rather than attempting to do it themselves”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug
Once, I had a house flea infestation (carpet fleas, hardwood floor fleas).
Those stay below 2-3 feet level (you wear boots, you’re fine) but my cat was a victim as she was walking at that level.
My cat was already flea-free and on a prevention monthly flea meds from the vet but still I had to give her flea drops as soon after the exterminator came as she was being attacked and bitten by hardwood floor fleas.
Flea drops are poison so you apply them to the back of the neck, the only place the cat cannot lick or paw and it will kill all the adult fleas within 30 minutes.
You’d have to repeat that every 3 weeks as poisonous fleas’ drops cannot kill fleas’ eggs or in their larva or pupa stages.
I had to vacuum the whole house and get EVERYTHING off the floor (the shoes in my closet were on my bed and the chairs on tables!).
I got compliments from the exterminator telling me he’s never seen a house so clean…usually my house looks like a mess but give me a flea infestation and that’s motivation for me to vacuum everywhere and clear all the floors as to protect my cat.
The exterminator used dry yellow lemon dust, which is safe for kids and pets, and fleas die when breathing it in and it clogs their airways.
Your whole house smells like lemon and all your floors are covered in yellow lemon powder, but it’s safe for kids, pets and people like me being allergic to pesticides.
A couple of days later, you have to vacuum the whole place again to get rid of the lemon dust and the dead adult fleas along with their eggs and the ones in the larva and pupa stages.
For bed bugs, I never had to deal with that one…my ex-husband was travelling a lot on business and his suitcase would never get into my house until I checked them out, armed with a vacuum cleaner and every clothes would go directly in the washing machine.
Do a lot of vacuuming with a True HEPA filter or a water filter vacuum (the noise might scare your cats but will not harm them) and use your steamer.
Some people just get rid of any piece of furniture infected with bed bugs…put it on the curve with a “bed bugs” sign so you get free furniture if you want to deal with that and vacuuming a lot, using a steamer, not bringing it into your house until it’s cleaned up, which is hard to do with some piece of furniture with no easy accessible inside coils/springs.
If you have a coil spring mattress, throw that away.
Beside bed bugs, you don’t want to know what’s between the springs.
Once, I read somewhere that a 10yo spring mattress is twice as heavy as a new one because of all the accumulated dead bugs and droppings in the coils/springs.
Right…I want to sleep on that!
Get a memory foam mattress as no bugs can get into foam.
Get a Tempur-Pedic one (not “Made in China”), something expensive, a good quality product as you don’t want to spend the next 10-20 years sleeping on a cheaper foam mattress, probably “Made in China”.
Hopefully you have a pressure steam cleaner and bed bugs die being exposed to 113°F temperature (45°C) and you only use water for steaming so it’s safe around kids and pets if you keep them away from the heat.
I used to fumigate my house twice a year when I had my previous cat, with reliable bomb products from Lowes or Home Depot to eradicate all bugs as I’m allergic to spray/liquid insecticides and their nasty smell and can only handle fumigation (it’s like fumigator fogger) because it’s just in the air, and then you ventilate the house for 30 minutes before reinterring it, after 3 hours treatment.
I have access to an exterminator who would spray my house monthly but the smell just made me sick so no thank you.
If the smell makes me sick, I’m thinking about my cat having a sense of smell 15 times more developed than mine!
After fumigating, I would hold my breath when reinterring the house to open all the windows and put on the fan (choose a windy day) and sometimes I would accidentally breathe in and felt like my lungs were getting paralyzed!! That’s how bugs die during 3 hours exposed to toxic fog.
I had ONE cat, so I stayed with her on my deck, outside, during the 3 hours process and the 30 minutes ventilation.
I would even get my car out of my garage (I had a fogger there too) and put my (previous) cat in my car while I was proceeding to activate all the foggers (I had 12 foggers) so she would not go hiding in the house. Then, I’d get my cat with me on the deck where I could enjoy a book; use my laptop…while she would watch wildlife. I stayed close to my house when fogging as the smoke/fog can trigger a fire alarm.
Now I don’t fumigate my house anymore as it kills spiders too…I have arachnophobia but still, spiders are a natural insecticide.
They stay in their corners, they don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them.
Plus my current cat was born into a feral cat colony and is a fierce hunter.
She scratched me 200 times a day for months during her training and taming!
I pity any bug getting into my house, she gets them all.
I find them in the morning, either dead or still alive and legless so they cannot crawl anywhere, surely no on me.
I don’t need to fumigate my house anymore, between having spiders, staying in their corners, and my cat catching anything that’s crawling.
I guess if I had 10 cats, they could all fit in my van or on my deck.
I would never use any chemical sprays, especially crappy online stuff with misleading ingredients labels, and poisonous to my pet or I.
Only use chemicals fog that works in 3 hours and you can ventilate before re-interring the house.
For bed bugs, I’d use a good vacuum cleaner, a reliable steamer (only using steam hot water), and an exterminator with natural products like yellow lemon dust made from lemon zest.
And most of all, get rid of any furniture you have, including your mattress, if it’s not a foam one.