Thursday, August 22, 2002

flea control redux

Salt seems worthwhile for destroying fleas indoors; I am guessing what it does is drain the water from the eggs via osmosis and kill them. And the garlic solution matches what somebody else told me too.

I sprayed nematodes over the back yard as I had said, and have found them to be very effective. Not only do the fleas seem to have disappeared, but the lawn-eating grubs that were in my compost also all died in a couple days.

The infestation in the basement took a few days longer, but the diatomaceous earth I used -- ground up sea diatoms -- appears to have done the trick. And the vacuuming also has removed them upstairs. Don't know why that should be the case, but it appears to be. No one's had any flea bites for a while now.

My younger brother, who has worked at a vet's office for several years, recommended something I can't recall the name of. Top SPot, maybe. Applied to the dog's skin by the neck and along the spine, it is carried down her body by skin oils and kills all the fleas. It also makes her hair lethal to fleas so it kills them in the carpet as well.

In any event, they're gone.

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