Thanks Nak4cats. I'm still going to give this a little while longer before I head to the vet. Let some time pass with no paint fumes in the house, no weird food and no well water and see if things get better. They are not getting worse at this point (bald spots)which is encouraging but they are still scratching though not as much. I won't treat anybody with any chemicals until we go to a vet and maybe not even then if there are holistic approaches available.
What kind of ointment did you use on your cat's ringworm?
p.s. I thought of one more thing that might have added to or caused this. I bought some of those 'cat tuna' cans at the pet store a few weeks ago. Usually I only give them a can of this once a month or something but they were on sale and I bought 4 cans and fed them over a weeks period. They get wet food as a treat each night, just a tablespoon each of friskies or fancy feast. When the tainted food thing happened I was so scared and took them off it and only fed them expensive holistic canned food once a week but I just can't afford right now and slowly switched back to the cheaper stuff. Their crunchies, their main diet is of good quality though. Anyway, maybe it was a connection to 'fish overload' from the cat tuna?!?