I bid you welcome, my minions. Welcome back to my lair.

I would like to speak with you about monsters. What if monsters invaded your home? Sneaking in and attacking you when you least expect it? Biting and drinking your blood; draining your veins dry?

Unless you’re some kind of weird-ass freak, you probably wouldn’t care too much for this scenario. Just remember: weird is good.

But I digress; I would like to speak with you about fleas. Being a person who works with animals and rescues/shelters, I am often asked what I use to keep fleas out of my house. In this arid & humid weather, it is pretty much impossible to keep fleas out of your house, especially if you go in & out of your house or have animals living with you. Fleas will hitch a ride on you (step outside in most areas, and you will find one or more fleas have jumped on you) and invade your home; they will crawl under doors that have a teeny opening between the door and the floor; they will also come through open windows, because when they are still growing, fleas are smaller than the openings in most screens.

All it takes is one pregnant female. She will lay thousands upon thousands of eggs and soon you will have an infestation. It’s a cycle that you will fight to break; most people have to clear out of the house with their pets for 3-5 hours while a professional exterminator wages war with the insects.

Most professional products can only be applied to your house or to your pet on a cycle of once every thirty days or so. I would like to impart a home solution I have discovered that has worked for me. I in no way guarantee it will work for you because I am not a professional exterminator; I can only tell you what works for me.

If you eat any citrus fruits like lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, etc, keep the seeds and peels. Boil them in water on a rolling boil for 20-30 minutes to help release the oils—making sure the water doesn’t evaporate completely, although you can add water to dilute the mixture after the boiling if it is too thick to spray. Be sure you use the peels; the essential oils are not in the juice so buying citrus fruit juice and spraying will not necessarily kill fleas but it may entice ants into your home.

Fleas hate the oils in citrus fruits because it will kill them. Spray as often as you like; I spray usually twice a day in this extreme heat: once in the morning and once in the evening. There are two pluses to using citrus oil spray to kill fleas: (1) it makes your house smell nice and fresh at all times and (2) if you have hardwood floors, the citrus oil is good for the wood and can make it nice and shiny.

Be sure to spray under sofas, under shelves, in corners, carpets & rugs, and if you are sure your furniture won’t stain from the citrus oils, spray your furniture including you sofa. I spray under the cushions on all my sofas every other day. Don’t forget, you can also spray around doors and windows to help keep out any invading creatures who may find there way in around windows and doors.

You can also put this mixture

on most pets and use it more often than chemical professional flea drops. But please be advised: as with people and allergies, your pet could have an allergy to citrus fruits.

Since fleas don’t always stay on your pets—in fact, they normally jump on and off your pet—I vacuum every evening without fail. Make sure you take the bag or container outside immediately to dump. DO NOT dump it in your inside trash can; this does not remove the fleas from your home; it only deposits them in another place in your home. I vacuum every evening, and I vacuum my furniture every two or three days. Vacuuming all your furniture will only take a few minutes to a half hour when you get the hang of it after a few times. It takes me less than 10 minutes to vacuum my entire downstairs each night and I have a big house. But the key is remembering to dump the vacuum outside after you vacuum each room to get any fleas out of your house.

I have to tell you vigilance pays off and this really works for me; I have quite a few animals living with me and I don’t have fleas. But don’t expect to get rid of fleas if you only spray once a week or only vacuum once in a while. I will say it again: Vigilance pays off.

This process takes minutes a day. Do you want to take a few minutes to spray and vacuum every day or do you want a never ending cycle of flea infestation?

Vampires are sexy but those little bastards we call fleas don’t qualify,

Nighty-nightmares…