Fleas in House

If one has a pet cat or dog which often spends plenty of time outdoors, they are under constant threat of getting infested by fleas. There are measures one can take to protect their pet and their home from flea infestation, but it is just as important to practice outdoor flea control to ensure that pets do not have to contract fleas while they are outside the house in the first place.

When outdoors, pets tend to roll around or take a nap on the bare ground. These spots may be harboring fleas, or else the fleas that may already be on the pet (or from others) might get left behind there to multiply. These areas need to be “sterilized,” so to speak, by covering them with a black sheet of plastic, particularly during hot weather. This causes a build-up of heat beneath the sheet that would kill all fleas that happen to be in that spot.

Among the places outside the house where pets like to run around in and fleas are bound to be hidden is out in the yard. Fortunately, the steps one can follow to keep their yard flea-free are very simple. For one of these methods, it’s just a matter of taking good care of the lawn. The grass should be mown frequently to keep it nice and short, allowing the sunlight to come down and warm up the ground, killing off fleas and their larvae due to the heat. Aside from burning the fleas off, one can also drown them by regularly watering their yard.

Interestingly, one more method of outdoor flea control involves using another type of insect. These insects are the ants, which are useful in eliminating fleas from one’s yard by eating their eggs and larvae. Ants may be pesky in their own right, but compared to fleas, they’re the lesser of two nuisances in this case.

Another easy way of controlling fleas outdoors is to apply agricultural lime on the grassy patches and damp areas of the yard. This method serves to kill fleas by dehydrating them. However, make sure to rake any traces of debris such as dead leaves before using the agricultural lime on the yard.

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is another substance that can be used to rid the yard of fleas. It is a fine powder that is proven lethal not only to fleas, but to ticks as well. Just be sure to get amorphous DE, which is toxic to fleas, but absolutely safe around people and their pets (on the other hand, swimming pool grade DE has silica, which may cause respiratory problems). DE is applied by spreading it all around the yard, but one should especially make sure that they get into every crevice and crack where the fleas may be hidden in, as they need to be in direct contact with the DE in order to be affected by it.

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