Banish Fleas From Your Yard With An Unexpected Cleaning Product You Already Own

If your pet continues to get fleas after you treat them, the infestation could be coming from your yard. Fleas are able to jump 7 inches into the air, and pets that spend a lot of time outdoors are likely to pick them up. Having fleas in your yard will not only affect your dog or cat but could end up infesting your home over time.

While fleas will not live on humans as they do with animals, they will bite people and sometimes carry diseases, such as cat scratch fever, a bacterial infection. Pets may also have allergic reactions to flea saliva, causing constant itching and scratching, which can lead to open wounds and infections. Fleas sometimes carry tapeworms and can pass them onto your pet if swallowed. 

Though fleas can be dangerous for pets, applying dish soap, especially Dawn, can kill fleas and prevent them from ending up on your pets or inside your home.

To start getting rid of the fleas in your yard, fill a garden sprayer with water and add 1 ounce of dish soap. Spray the areas of your lawn where fleas are present in either the morning or the evening. It's important to apply your homemade pesticide when the sun isn't harsh to prevent it from evaporating quickly or scorching your grass. It's also best to spray on a day when rain isn't forecasted since this could rinse the solution off your lawn before it's had time to work. Let the soapy water sit on your lawn for an hour before rinsing it away with a hose.

This process will need to be repeated because it will only kill active fleas and not all of the eggs. Once the eggs hatch, more fleas will make their home in your yard, so this trick is only effective if the soap is reapplied. The day after spraying, check to see if you find any fleas in your grass. This can be done by walking around your lawn in tall, white socks and looking to see if you pick up any black specks. If fleas are still present, spray again, and then wait for up to 10 days before repeating.

Dawn dish soap works well for killing pests because it contains sodium lauryl sulfate, a surfactant that dehydrates insects. The soap will also get into the holes in the flea's exoskeleton that allow them to breathe and smother them. 

Unfortunately, dish soap can dry out your grass as well. Rinsing the area an hour after spraying should keep your grass healthy, but if you're concerned try testing the treatment on a small spot before applying it thoroughly. Using only 1 ounce of soap will help protect your lawn since higher concentrations are more likely to kill your grass. 

If you know which spots in your yard harbor the fleas, try spraying only these areas. Adding a teaspoon of vegetable oil to your soap mixture will make the spray healthier for your grass as well. 

Besides killing fleas, dish soap is known to kill grasshoppers, grubs, aphids, whiteflies, ants, thrips, cutworms, spider mites, and Japanese beetles. It may also get rid of the fungus that's harming your grass. If you're sick of treating your pet for fleas, spraying your yard with dish soap will put an end to this problem, too.