Yes Inch, fleas are are such pests! I use frontline on my boys and it helps, but never eliminates them completely. It's very frustrating! That's one con for having an outdoor cat.
well thankfully in the UK there aren't things like raccoons around.
Our area is pretty much flea free as for a few years we used this Cyclio treatment and it made the fleas eggs infertile which made our local area flea free, and with 3 days our flea invested cat was flea free aswell. so thats not a problem and we have never had a tick.