By wickywitch69 from Canada
Take the time to hand comb them. Buy a flea comb, they range from very cheap to rather expensive, but they all do the trick. Take a small bowl and pour some rubbing alcohol in it, dip the comb in occasionally. Shaking excess liquid free. The first touch of rubbing alchohol makes the fleas faint, dip the comb back in the rubbing alchohol to rinse it free of fleas and they drown quickly. It's so much better than dry combing, and only takes a few minutes. The cats will soon be flea free. Take the cats out into the garage and have someone supervise them, or take your family to a motel for the night, along with the cats. Take a bottle of diatomaceous earth. Sprinkle it on the rugs/carpet and go out for several hours-24 is best, though. The diatomaceous earth is razor sharp, and as the fleas hop onto it, it slices them to pieces. When you come back, vacuum the carpet really well before letting children or pets or anyone bare footed walk on it. Also, don't breath it, it can literally shred your lungs. Buy some face masks for when you're shaking it out onto the rug/carpet. Both rubbing alcohol and diatomaceous earth are so effective that no poisons are ever needed, even in a house that's become heavily infested.
This is from my own personal experience. We came home late one summer and were absolutely covered with fleas when we walked in the door-we'd taken the cats with us and the fleas had bred like mad but had nothing to eat. We went to the pet store and bought the diatomaceous earth, sprinkled the carpet and stayed the night in a motel. Came back to a flea less house and vacuumed and had no fleas for 5 years, though all of our cats were indoor/outdoor cats and a field was right over our wall.
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