Nontoxic solution to flea problem?

[cristeen]

We've been dealing with an infestation for a while now. The cat that caused it died a few months back and we're still dealing w it. Most of the house is fine, since its all hardwood, but the couch and the matress are both problems. My 10 mo wakes up from every nap w fresh bites. Its bad enough that for a period there we suspected chicken pox. My poor little guy is coveredin bites in various stages of healing.

I remember reading in some random thread a while back about a powder that prevented the fleas from breeding or some such, breaking the lifecycle, but i cant find the reference. Can someone help me out?

Or does anybody have any great ideas for how to deal w a flea infestationin upholstered furniture?

[zoebird]

you might be seeking diatomaceous earth. i don't know how it will work on soft furnishings per se, but from my google search about it, you can "puff it into soft furnishings." not sure that it means.

but i do know that it works.

[womenswisdom]

Hmmm, are you sure you're dealing with fleas and not bedbugs? Sorry, don't mean to freak you out! Just thinking out loud here. Fleas can't live/reproduce without an animal host, so I would think that any fleas left in the house would eventually hatch, mature then die without a blood meal. This might take up to a few months, but after that, your flea problem should be gone. Granted, fleas can lie dormant in a vacant house for quite a long time, but since it's not vacant, that likely won't happen, as they are stimulated to hatch by vibration, body heat, etc. They can bite people but they can't live off us. I might check into the issue more closely...

[deditus]

I heard of this enzyme cleaner here, actually (I have not used it, just bookmarked it):

http://naturalginesis.com/products_kleengreen.html

[litanyagainstfear]

I've had, imo, decent success managing fleas considering we have 2 indoor cats. I find one or two every couple of days, and I think most of those are coming from the flea-friendly humid-as-heck outdoors -- plus, our neighborhood is FULL of outdoor cats. I use diatomaceous earth, an essential oil based organic spray (I just bought what they had at Home Depot), and I vacuum with a flea collar in my vacuum bag. Plus, every time I find a flea on one cat, both get a bath. I don't use FrontLine, flea collars on the cats, or flea shampoo. None of us humans have ever been bitten.

I just apply the spray straight to my furniture before bed, but you may want to do a spot-test if you use any kind of spray with EOs in it. The DE doesn't harm anything -- you just want to be able to leave it on as long as you can. It's not that it's dangerous to people/mammals, but it can be irritating if breathed in. It also needs to stay dry to be effective. So if you can use it on furniture when you're gone for a night or two, I think that would be ideal. I use a big metal salt shaker to apply all over, but I'm a little heavy handed. You can just vacuum it right up/wipe it off when you need to. I leave it along some baseboards/under storage areas the cats hide beneath/by the litterbox and food dishes at all times.

Also, wikipedia has a couple of good examples of what flea bites look like if you want to double check.

[zoebird]

DE works for bed bugs too, btw.

[momofmine]

I think I might possibly have bed bugs. I found four tiny larvae and googled and they look like it. I am going to try to have them identified. The odd thing though is that I have seen little remnants of what looks like this off and on for years in this bedroom. But I have only ever seen one or two at a time, and very infrequently, and our house is really old (100 years) so I just chalked it up to general bugs. But today I found four tiny, live, crawling larvae. Ugh! But we have never had any bites, any itchiness, nothing, not on any of the four of us and we have ALL slept in that bed. Is that odd? Are could they be feeding on us and we don't know it and just don't have any signs of it?? Could this be affecting iron status, etc, if we are actually getting bitten by bedbugs and don't know it??

Aack. So, how would I use the DE? Just sprinkle it on the mattress? We are going away for four days, leaving early tomorrow morning, and if I could figure out something to do today, that would be great, and I could leave it on until next week.

The other thing, is how do I monitor if they are going away? If I see them so infrequently, and no one is getting bitten? Or has signs of bites?
Sorry to detract from your thread! I just was looking for help and found this!