Fighting Fleas

Our kitten has fleas! Ugh! I have to admit that having her (and a few fleas) in the house is stressing me out a bit. I also know that if I’m going to have critters, fleas (and other pests) are just what happens.

If she was just a few weeks older, we would just buy Advantage and viola, no more fleas. But there aren’t any options for such a tiny girl… So I went to my good friends, the internet and my herbal cleaning book and got some great advice. Of course!

The first step in our flea fighting mission was a bath in blue Dawn dishwashing soap (thanks Renae and Celina!). While she didn’t LOVE her bath, she was very good! Zack and I spent a long time chasing and drowning fleas that attempted to escape the soapy water. I felt so bad watching her shiver and cry! :o(  But in the end there were lots of dead fleas floating in the water and boy did Tabbi look and smell clean…

   our poor pathetic kitty looks more like a drowned rat

she was much happier after drying off and sitting with Zack

Step two is to keep any new ones (or ones we missed) off her. The best advice I found was brewer’s yeast (or nutritional yeast).  Apparently fleas hate the smell of the stuff! So I sprinkled a bit on her food and then dusted her with a bit, too. Many said it’s hard to get your cat to eat it, but Tabbi LOVES it!

The final step was the get rid of any fleas that may be living in our carpets. My sister-in-law gave me an herbal cleaning book for my birthday and they had a recipe for flea treatment.  I had everything I needed! I tweaked the recipe a bit because I read that salt helps dry out flea eggs and i figured it couldn’t hurt???

So here’s my recipe:

2 1/2 cups baking soda

1 cup salt

10 drops sweet orange essential oil

10 drops citronella essential oil

8 drops peppermint essential oil

6 drops lemon essential oil

Mix together well until there aren’t any more chunks. Sprinkle on carpets and let sit at least one hour. Vacuum carpets well. Repeat as necessary.

TAKE THAT FLEAS!!!