How to Get Rid of Fleas
We’d been all over that farm when we were looking to buy it and not once did we see any evidence of a flea infestation. Yet, not a month after we moved in, they started feeding off us and our animals. We spoke to the real-estate company and they had the nerve to imply that we must’ve brought them with us.
It was clearly our problem and the first thing we did was call a pest control company. The guy told us that some areas were worse for fleas than others and from the looks of the infestation, it was a problem BEFORE we bought the place. Of course, he wouldn’t swear to it and we just wanted them gone.
He said that fleas infest areas in beds and lay thousands of eggs that can lie dormant until out of the blue, you’re infested again, even after you’ve treated a second time. They 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.
For a relatively small flea problem you can get some very effective treatments from these pest control places. But even after a second treatment, they could have eggs in places you never thought of- thousands of them. Before you know it, you’re overrun again and have to go through it all over again and let me tell you, it gets expensive.
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.
Living out in the country with more animals than we knew what to do with, we were desperate for a solution. The guy warned us that with a place as big as ours and with as many animals as we had and our place being in a “flea-friendly” environment, there were no guarantees that they would stay away. He was right. Nearly two months after he treated the second time, we started having flea problems again. It started in the barn. I couldn’t brush the horses for slapping at the fleas biting at my ankles. Walking across the backyard became impossible because the sand was full of fleas. Then they got into the house.
The animals were suffering and getting whelps from the fleas. I’d prayed every day for help and deep down inside, I knew the Lord would help us. Jesus loved the animals. He was born in a stable with the animals and was referred to as the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, and the Good Shepard.
“A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” (Prov. 12:10)
Finally, the couple that owned the feed store came to our rescue (thanks to the Lord no doubt). It seemed that all of the farms in that area were prone to fleas, but they knew how to keep them under control. They had told the previous owners, but they refused to do what it took to control the fleas, which is why we got the farm so cheap. Consequently, this is what we learned:
There’s one thing that fleas cannot tolerate and that’s mothballs. They repel fleas and other insects such as spiders and roaches and will virtually eradicate your insect problems. You treat your home only once a year and it doesn’t cost a fraction of what a pest control company charges and it’s a heck of a lot safer.
Throw mothballs under furniture, lower cabinets and in all lower nooks and crannies. Then scatter them around the inside and outside of the barn, shed and any other structure on your land. Spread them around plant beds and warm sandy areas then just sprinkle them about the land.
Your place is going to smell a bit “strong” for a while but the smell gets weaker each week until it finally goes away. After about a week, throw the mothballs out of the house into the yard with the others. 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 will burn the fleas up and that will get rid of the fleas in your carpet.
Plant two or three garlic bushes around the outside of the house. Garlic repels fleas. Make a small hole, put in a little water, toss in a clove of garlic, cover, water again and press the soil down. That should give you a garlic plant in a few weeks that will soon produce garlic for you and repel the fleas at the same time. And it doesn’t smell when it’s on the plants like it does when you use it.
Plant some Rosemary bushes too. Fleas hate them. Have all your animals treated for fleas regularly.
That was years ago and today, I have two cats and a dog. A week before I moved into this small apartment, I tossed a few mothballs in and around the place and pulled the carpet up in every room and sprinkled Borax all up under them. I had my pets dipped and 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 went away in no time and I never have to worry about fleas again.
