Mamas, I have a friend with a newborn who needs a non-toxic way to treat her carpet for fleas. He dog brought some home from the veterinarian clinic.

Any ideas? I checked my Clean House Clean Planet book and it just talks about prevention strategies.

Thanks!

You could treat them like lice.. but I don't think the dog would like to be covered with Mayo. lol... I think the lowest form of flee treatment is Advantage or Program. Both are one dose a month and none of the doses are toxic to the animal and are less than a teaspoon in size. This is what I use after lots of careful consideration for other ways. It is about $40 for four months. And they work. The ONLY thing I have seen that works for that amount of time actually.

Love Val

Thanks, Mamas for your help! I will let her know that that seems to be the best.

The dog has been dipped and taken care of. She was looking for a way to treat the house without bombing it. Fleas are nasty little buggers!

In my experience once you put the advantage on you don't have to bomb the houde or anything, the flees just ge away b/c they don't have a host.

And you should only buy advantage at the VET. Other stuff can be faux.

Dipping is more toxic to the dog over Advantage. And it has a short residual, a few days to a week max. Advantage lasts a full month and will kill all fleas that hop on the dog for a blood meal, needed to reproduce, within 12 hours. Those fleas in her house will still need to eat and once the dip wears off the dog, the fleas will feed on the dog and reproduce, or munch on the people. I'd recommend Advantage ASAP before the flea pop gets too bad and they need to leave the house to bomb it and such. I'd also recommend vacuuming daily and placing the vacuum outside if cold to kill the eggs/fleas inside the bag unless it's a dump type one, then dump after a daily vacuuming. This will suck up eggs and fleas on the floor and carpets and will help a lot too.

Diatomaceous Earth! This stuff is awesome! I get it from the hfs and the food co-op, but they may sell it at hardware stores.

Google it to be sure it's good for fleas.

I put Borax in my carpets, Diatomaceous Earth in my garden (kills all sorts of creepy crawlies) and Advantage on my cats. I even have Diatomaceous Earth in my dried beans for long storage.

Great stuff. :)

All it takes is one or two months of Advantage this time of year here. It kills the fleas on the cat and in the house, and when it freezes outside, the fleas out there die, and there are no more for the cat to pick up. :D

Love Val

yeah I agree with Advantage. We have two cats who brought fleas into the house and we had a MAJOR infestation. My poor dd had bites all over her it was awful. I tried everything. Borax in the carpet, let it set over night and when I vaccumed the next day the fleas were still alive after I sucked them up. I vaccumed everyday for weeks. I shampooed with tea tree oil and Dr Bs nothing did anything significant. The advantage wiped them out though after about 3 wks. I'll still see one on the cat now and then, but none of the kids have had bites in a while.

We wash both of dogs with Murphy's Oil Soap and then apply eucalyptus oil to their fur with a cotton ball. I then put the cotton ball in my vacuum cleaner bag. I will usually add another eo soaked cotton ball to the bag every other vacuuming.

The scents repel the fleas. I have been doing this for 5+ years and never have fleas in the house or on the dogs. We first started doing this because our first dog was allergic to the chemicals in commercial flea repellents.

Stephanie

edited to add that my dogs nor house ever smell doggy with this combo. It keeps everything smelling fresh. Even after the dogs have ran and played outdoors.

Stephanie, would you recommend that for a cat, too?

We use agricultural grade Diatemacious Earth for coating, and food grade Diatemacious Earth to sprinkle on all our animals' food for parasite/flea/ticks.

It works very well. And, it is healthy for them!

Soul4five -

I don't see why you couldn't use this combo on a cat. I read about it in a book about dog allergies.

The eo smells so good.

I also put clove oil on a cotton ball and dab it on the bottom of their feet (the pads). It keeps them for chewing on their feet like animals with allergies like to do because their feet are itchy.

Stephanie

Thank you! :)