Banish Fleas From Your Home With Two Items You Likely Already Own

Let's say your house has fleas. Calm down, and please don't stand on the coffee table like that. This is merely a hypothetical situation. Probably. A flea infestation is one of those things you should have an emergency plan for, like economic collapse and kids' violin lessons. Owners would do well to proactively eliminate this potential problem at its source (like talking to their vet about flea collars) because once fleas are established, they can be difficult to manage without toxic chemicals. Or so we thought until we ran across this hack from TikTok user @rooted_essentials_ohio.

The trick involves a common household item — a night light — and either double-sided tape or a glue board mouse trap. This idea for dealing with fleas is a simple one: Fleas are attracted to the heat produced by the nightlight and become trapped on the tape or glue board lying on the floor underneath the light. What you're doing here is fundamentally the same as using flypaper: once the critters get stuck to the sticky stuff, they aren't hopping away. There are commercial versions of this trap, like the Terro Flea Trap from Home Depot, but if you already have the DIY materials handy, why not give this essentially identical hack a try?

It's well-established that fleas are attracted to light and heat. You might have already discovered that some non-toxic solutions can have varying effects, which might be why so many pest control companies are willing to give you lists of non-toxic home remedies. But this solution is different in that it's a mechanical fix, and so a bit more foolproof than relying on a flea's distaste for certain fragrant herbs or other natural tricks. 

Unless you're in a comparatively small space, like a tiny apartment or a dorm room, you might need a handful of these light/trap combos. It's not clear how far away a flea can detect the heat from a nightlight, but it might not be far. And it's always possible that they'll come across something even warmer along the way, like your leg or a cat. Obviously, pet owners are most likely to need flea eradication, so it might be a good idea to keep pets out of the treated area while the traps are lying around. Imagine the chaos when your cat steps on the tape or glue board, comes quite non-literally unglued, and dashes about the house turning over furniture and upending pots of chrysanthemums. But for the right space, this hack is virtually foolproof.