Getting rid of fleas can be difficult, especially in areas that have a warm, humid climate as this is where they thrive.
When getting them under control and away from your home, it’s best to treat in a three step system.
Step one: Treat your yard.
Without treating your yard, the issue will never get resolved as fleas live in the grassy areas outside your home.
You can either call a company to come spray with pesticides, or you can treat it yourself with any number of sprays that are sold in home improvement stores.
As a word of warning: With either of these options, you may need to keep pets away from the treated area for several hours.
Many lawn care specialists have pet safe options that you can aquire about when you make your appointment.
Step two: Treat your home.
When you treat your home, you’re treating the heart of the infestation. This is the key step in getting rid of fleas.
Just like with the yard, there are many home improvement stores, department stores, and pet stores that sell products to treat your home. They can range from bug bombs, to sprays, to powders to leave in your carpet. Most of these require pets to be out of the home for the first few hours after use.
Alternatively, there are some that are pet safe. I have personally found that a mixture of salt and baking soda left for 48 hours on the carpet works well, as fleas have a vulnerable exoskeleton and become dehydrated quickly.
Step three: Treat your pet.
This step is probably the easiest.
It’s never been easier to treat your pet for fleas than it has in today’s market where you have many options on how to get the job done.
You can go with a topical solution which is applied to the base of the pet’s neck. Most topicals begin working within an hour of application and only need to be applied once a month.
You also have the option of a monthly pill like either trifexis or comfortis. These options are only available through a vet.
Other oral options include pills that only work for twentyfour hours, killing all the fleas on your pet to start you off with a clean slate for a monthly preventative.
Flea baths and flea collars are less effective options if you live in those warm climates we were talking about in the beginning, but if you live in cooler regions, they may be viable options for you as well.
