Staging a Home With Pets - Getting Rid of Fleas

By Andy Asbury

Staging your home can sometimes be a lot of work but one of the worst issues encountered when you're planning to sell your house when you have pets, particularly cats and dogs is when they bring fleas to live in your house.

The first thing that you should do is to help prevent your pet from being appealing to fleas in the first place. Even if you already have fleas in your home, this will help them from finding your pet so tasty and as a result, miserable. If you're concerned about giving your pets chemicals, feed them a clove of garlic a day or a brewers yeast tablet once a day to make the fleas not attracted to them. These both will make your pets' skin smell bad to fleas and keep them away from them. If you're alright with drug-type remedies, then ask your vet about using Advantage or other such products.

To get rid of fleas in your home there are a number of things that you can do. Sprinkle borax on your carpets and then vacuum it up to help kill fleas. Mop up uncarpeted areas with hot soapy water. Put any textiles that you can into the washing machine on hot. Take care to take your vacuum cleaner bag outside right away when you're done as well. Do this regularly to keep the fleas out.

The more extreme method of flea extermination is using a professional. You can hire an exterminator to use a flea fogger in your house but that is a lot of chemical residue to leave in your living space. It is recommended that foggers only be used in extreme cases for that reason.

To get rid of fleas on your pet once they've already got them take the time to give them a bath, though they might not be happy about it. Use a pet-friendly soap which won't irritate their skin. You may be able to find a teatree oil soap to use on them which will keep the fleas away with its distinctive smell. A few cups of fresh rosemary steeped in hot water, like tea, for a half hour or so makes a good rinse as fleas apparently hate the smell of that too.

Remember that the last thing that anyone wants to have to deal with in a new home purchase is a pre-existing condition like a flea infestation so be sure to be thorough when you take care of it. Also, the quicker that you can solve the problem, the less of a job that it'll be.

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