How to rid your house of fleas is something every pet owner needs to know. Getting rid of fleas isn’t really that difficult once you understand the things that kill and repel them. And when you’ve gotten your flea infestation under control, you have to learn how to KEEP it under control. As a home owner, living out in the country with more animals than you can shake a stick at, I’ve had my share of flea problems.
They’re disgusting little blood-sucking varmints that spread disease and they can infest an area quickly. Within the very first year that we bought the place, we got infested with fleas. They were everywhere! It started in the barn. I couldn’t brush the horses for slapping at the fleas biting at my ankles. Walking through my backyard became impossible because the sand was full of fleas. Then they got into the house. We had to do something.
Being new to flea problems, we called a pest control company and let me tell you, we paid dearly to have the place treated for fleas. But it worked and the fleas were gone. The pest control company came back for a follow-up and that ended our flea infestation- at least we thought it did. Less than a year later, they started coming back. There had to be a way to keep fleas under control. The man and woman who owned the local feed store told me there was.
Fleas infest areas in beds and they lay thousands of eggs that can lie inactive then out of the blue, you’re infested again, even after you’ve treated a second time. Fleas jump onto your animals and onto you and jump off, infesting other areas which you may not even realize have been infested. If they’re anywhere, they’re everywhere. So you have to treat the whole area.
If you have a light infestation, there are a number of do-it-yourself treatments you can buy to get rid of the infestation and a second treatment to get the ones you missed and the eggs that hatched. But remember, there are thousands of eggs that are still there. Now, you have to practice prevention and ongoing flea control.
One sure-fire method is the mothball. I know they smell bad but they repel fleas and other insects such as spiders and roaches. It will be an unpleasant thing to have to do but the smell will go away after a few weeks and it will just about eliminate your insect problems. It’s a once a year treatment where you toss mothballs under furniture and around in lower cabinets and in all lower nooks and crannies. Then toss them around the inside and outside of the barn, shed, and any other structure on your land.
Sprinkle them around plant beds and warm sandy areas then just sprinkle them about the land. Your place is going to stink to high heaven for a few weeks but the smell gets lighter each week until it finally goes away, along with the fleas. After a week, take the mothballs out of the house, but leave the ones outside. If you have carpet, pull it back and sprinkle a bleach-based cleanser like Ajax, Comment, or Borax, up under the carpet and tack it back down. The cleanser actually burns the fleas up. That will eliminate the fleas in your carpet.
Outside, plant two or three garlic bushes on each side of the house and around the other structures. It effectively repels fleas. Simply make a small hole, put in a little water, toss in a clove of garlic, cover and water again. That should grow into a small garlic plant that will soon produce garlic for you and repel the fleas. Don’t worry, it doesn’t smell when it’s on the plants like it does when you’re using it. Rosemary plants also repel fleas and other insects. Of course your animals all have to be treated for fleas regularly.
In conclusion, it may sound a little far-fetched but it does work. We battled fleas for the longest time until after talking to a few of our neighbors, we learned how to get rid of them and keep them away. That was years ago and today, I have two cats and a dog. The week before I moved in, I threw mothballs around the house and in the closets. I tossed them around the outside of the house and around the garage then sprinkled them around the edge of the yard. I pulled the carpet up in every room and sprinkled Borax beneath them and tacked them back down.
Within a week of moving in, I had my pets dipped then I planted two garlic cloves on each side of the house and four Rosemary plants, two in the front and two in the back. The smell of the mothballs went away in just a few weeks and I have lived here for years, repeating the mothballs and cleanser treatment each year and I have yet to see the first flea.
