This post may contain affiliate links, or we may earn money from the companies mentioned in this post. For more information on this, please visit our legal page.
With four cats if we don’t keep it under control it’s really hard to stay flea free! Here’s how we do it!
Everyone with pets is afraid of the flea! And with good reason; they carry diseases, can cause serious allergies and they bite (amongst other things – check out my Facts on Fleas to find out more about them). Once they are around they are really hard to get rid of! So prevention is everything. Combining the following methods is the best and effective way to stay flea free or remove an infestation.
Bathing
Using cat shampoo and bathing helps to remove fleas off of your cat. This combined with flea treatments should remove them quickly. Unfortunately, mine are not the bathing kind so this doesn’t work for everyone.
Brushing and Combing
Buy specific flea combs which help to remove the eggs and fleas from the fur. This has to be done regularly to avoid re-infestation.
Baking soda
This natural remedy is good for soft furnishing or delicate carpets (always check in a sneaky corner first). Rub the baking soda (liberally) into the carpet and leave for an hour or so and then hoover up.
Turn up the heat
To kill fleas on linen or clothes put them on a hot wash in the washing machine which should kill off all fleas and residue. (Check your clothes first to make sure they don’t shrink etc due to the heat). Make sure cat bedding to include cat bedding (heavily infested items should be thrown away)
Hoovering
The vibrations of the hoover activates the eggs and then allows you to remove them using other methods. Regular hoovering can stop an infestation in its tracks. Don’t forget to do the around the edges!
Ban the Tablecloths
If you have an infestation avoid using tablecloths because not only does this contaminate the food surfaces but the draping allows fleas to reach a higher surface and level (which are harder to remove).
Remember the Curtains
Wash your curtains (preferably on high) to ensure there are no fleas or eggs that remain on there (it only takes one for the process to start all over again) Plus, when was the last time you washed your curtains anyway!
Discourage Foxes
Trying to discourage foxes (and other wild animals) from coming near your home and garden reduces the risk of fleas (and other diseases/parasites) and other infestations.
Products that we have used
Flea lamps – These are plug in lamps that attract fleas to the light (and warmth) and then trap them on sticky paper. We find these particularly useful in the summer too for catching unwanted bugs/spiders/ants etc that find their way into the house. The Lamp we buy is this one from Amazon (affiliate link):
Indorex – This is a household spray that our vets recommended. You spray around your house and it protects against fleas for up to a year. It worked great for us and works on newly hatched fleas too (not on the eggs unfortunately so they recommend hoovering a lot for the first week to disturb the eggs and cause them to hatch). *You can buy this quite cheap from Amazon – see my affiliate link below*
Spot-on drops – These go directly onto yourcat. The type we use (and are recommended by our vets) are prescription only from the vets.
Make your own flea lamps
For those of you crafty kinds, here are some great flea lamp projects:
Homemade Flea Trap by Instructables
Homemade Flea Trap (video) by Thrifty Fun
What do you do to stay flea free? Have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments. Check out the rest of #CatWeek2015
10 comments on “Ways To Stay Flea Free”
Comments are closed.
Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon. Big thanks for the useful info.
Thanks for your feedback Nora, I hope to see you again soon 🙂
we have this problem in Dubai due to all the stray cats in the neighbourhood, i regularly use anti flea products and bathe the dog weekly as well as regular grooming, but there is no way I’m bathing the cat…lol
haha I gave up on attempting to bathe our cats – there’s no forcing them to do anything (without getting shredded) have a great Christmas xx
Ah, the dreaded fleas! Luckily this year we didn’t have one but in previous yeas we have had real problems as fleas are building up immunity to products, notably Frontline in this area so that is as good as useless. We treated Saari with a combined 3 month tick and flea pill for the first time and Henry with a drop treatment (can’t remember either of the names though!). So either these products are fabulous or it was not a big flea year. What we did have a problem with was red mite in the chicken shed but I eventually killed these with diatomaceous earth (a course powder made from the fossilised remains of plankton) and apparently this can also be used to successfully treat fleas.
Thank you for adding this very informative post to #AnimalTales. Here’s wishing you a very Happy Christmas and a flea free 2016 🙂
ooo I will look into it as an alternative! living in the city means our cats are more prone as their are a lot of foxes! so it can be a real nightmare xx
This is such a handy list of tips! Thankfully with my two cats I’ve never had to treat the whole house or anything like that but it’s useful to know different things that work! #animaltales