I know this article is several years old but I am so glad I found it while searching for non-toxic flea control! I can't thank you enough!
While I was on vacation out of the country last month, I received a panicked email from my cat sitter. He swore he had, in only three days at my apartment, suffered 69 flea bites and that there was a major infestation of fleas in my home and on my cat! Since I have an indoor cat, and especially since I hadn't seen a single flea in over a year living in this apartment, I was shocked. I couldn't believe that in only three days of being away, fleas would suddenly take over my entire home!
My downstairs neighbor, who has two cats, hadn't noticed any fleas in her apartment. Her daughter in law emailed me the next day telling me they were going to flea bomb my apartment!! And remove my cat from my house, take him downstairs to her place with her two cats, and give him a flea bath!! I luckily caught them before they did any of that toxic, disgusting stuff! I was completely appalled that she would take it upon herself to spread poisons all over my home, but that's beside the point. I was coming home in less than a week, and because the cat sitter was "so traumatized", I told him to just go ahead and leave and my neighbor would come every day and feed my cat and look after him. UGH.
In the weeks since we have returned, I have seen maybe a total of 15 fleas. Most of them we have been able to catch and smush between our fingers, but in our guest room, which has a carpet (and oddly, the room we don't allow the cat in), there were many more which would jump on us as soon as we entered. On Sunday we went in and each had 5 jump on immediately. This might have led me to panic in previous years, but I have had flea problems before in Florida, and knew how to handle the rising feeling of panic. I considered buying boric acid until I found your article.
My husband and I got diatomaceous earth and spread it all over our apartment. We let it sit on the carpets for two days (we only have two rugs in the apartment, hardwood floors everywhere else), and then vacuumed it up last night. We then walked around barefoot and made a lot of vibrations on the floor to see how many would jump on us. We did get a few very small adults, but we quickly drowned those in soapy water per your suggestion. It takes about 15 seconds for the fleas to die under the water.
We also put our a plate of soapy water with a desk lamp over it overnight. This morning there were only 5 fleas in it. I am ecstatic. Thank you so much for this article!!!
