How to Get Rid of Fleas the Natural Way

One of the down sides about being an avid outdoorsman is that sometimes you bring critters into the house. Sometimes it’s your pets that drag them in too.

A common battle among trail hounds are fleas. Fleas can fester in your home even after you remove them from your dog or cat. That’s why knowing how to get rid of fleas from your home and yard is a top priority whenever combating a flea infestation.

For many people, using a flea bomb is out of the question as it introduces harmful chemicals into the air. This can be especially hazardous around children and pregnant women. And besides, why use nasty chemicals if you don’t have to? Here is a step-by-step process on how to get rid of fleas the most natural ways possible.

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Start with your pet

First things first, take care of fluffy. The best flea treatment for animals on the market is Frontline. Apply it to a spot behind their head and it will penetrate the skin to kill existing fleas and ticks as well as prevent new ones. Now keep your pets indoors while take on the yard.

Clean the yard

Fleas are most attracted to areas where there is organic debris, so when clearing your yard you want to remove any piles of leaves or yard waste. Pick up any toys or gardening equipment that might be collecting debris on the ground and mow the grass.

Treat the yard

Now there are a couple of ways to go in order to inoculate your yard of fleas. You can hose it down with insecticides, but who wants to do that? You could flood the yard with water, but that’s not the most environmentally conscious thing to do. Another approach is to spread cedar wood chips throughout the yard. Apparently fleas hate the smell of cedar. Or you can also use nematodes, which are microscopic worms that feed on the larvae of flees. You should typically be able to find these at your local organic gardening center.

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Clean the house

Next we’re going to move inside and make sure the house is clear of these nasty critters. First, just clean the house like you would normally, being sure to vacuum carpet and mop any hardwood or laminate flooring. Once the house is fully cleaned you’re going to want to maintain a good cleaning regiment to prevent fleas from reconstituting.

Killing flees in-doors

How to get rid of fleas within the house can be the topic of a whole other article, but here are just a few natural ways that you can get rid of fleas in your house. First off place a bowl of water on the floor with a desk lamp illuminating the bowl. In the morning, you should find a bowl of drowned fleas. That might get a lot of fleas but it won’t get all of them. Next try a mixture of salt, fresh garlic and borax, a natural compound that dissolves in water. You can also add a small amount of a cheap insecticide. Now sprinkle a handful of this along passages between rooms and along the bottom of walls.

Preventing fleas

We already talked about applying Frontline to your dogs and cats. You might also want to use a flea shampoo on your pets and increase their bathing schedule. You can also help repel fleas by spraying vinegar and water to counter tops and boiling water with rosemary. You can also try placing banana peels on the ground.

Photo credit: Flickr