So, I think I have my flea infestation under control. Although, the way my luck has been going, I’ve probably just jinxed myself.
After researching how to get rid of fleas, I’ve taken action that seems to have helped. I washed all my bedding, including the dust ruffle and mattress pad. I vacuumed the mattress as best I could. I bagged up all my cloth decorations and took them into the spare bathroom, even though I hadn’t seen any fleas on them. I created a spray of peppermint oil mixed with water and sprayed that on my baseboards and the wheels of my bed and other low areas. This was supposed to be a deterrent to any larvae. I used my lint roller to catch and smush fleas, since the sticky surface kept them from jumping away before I could kill them.
And I vacuumed.
Oh boy, did I vacuum. I don’t vacuum very often because of my bad back and because it takes so dang long to vacuum my entire place. But I vacuumed the entire place every night for three days. Then I hit the highlights for the rest of the week.
But not in my bedroom. My Roomba always gets the honor of vacuuming my bedroom. It’s the only room that’s safe for the Roomba, plus the Roomba can reach the center of the rug under my bed where I can’t reach with the regular vacuum.
I swear, my place has never been so well-vacuumed. And it seems to have worked. That, plus having over 100F temperatures that might have killed some of the remaining fleas.
Finally, I stopped seeing fleas every night and every morning on my sheets. I stopped seeing a lot of new bites.
I stopped vacuuming every night, particularly after my Roomba’s battery gave out on the other side of my bedroom door. Fortunately, there was enough clearance between the door and the dead Roomba to open the door.
I still occasionally see a flea here or there. Yesterday evening, I saw three. But I think those came in on my clothing from either picking up a package on my porch or from the garage, which still seems to have a flea population.
All I can do at this point is hope that tomorrow I’m not going to find a bunch of baby fleas jumping around and starting the whole thing all over again.
And that at some point, I’ll stop feeling phantom fleas crawling all over me.
