Excellent run down on fighting fleas! Please do update in a few weeks/month and let us know if you see any fleas.

I also hate fleas with a passion. I grew up in south FL and that certainly is flea heaven. We used to wash the dog well, spray the yard, vacuum the house very well (only had one house dog), then repeat in 2 weeks. That usually solved the problem for months. The fleas tend to live off the dog most of the time, in the grass or carpets inside.

In time I started also using DE (diatomaceous earth) along with the sprays, which does work well for fleas but it is a slower kill. I like it because it is non toxic to people and animals. I used it mostly on the dog's sleeping areas and on the carpets, it is a white powder and does not work well when wet. It basically cuts the outer shell (eco-skeleton) of the fleas and they dry out and die. It does kill all insects so it gets the beneficial ones as well as the bad ones.

I also added some apple cider vinegar and some fresh minced garlic to my dog's food. And I would wipe her with a mix of ACV and water which helped repel both fleas and mosquitoes. Made the dog smell like a salad until it dried, it all helped a little but fleas are a huge pain. I actually saw a bad outbreak of fleas about kill a little tiny tea cup poodle belonging to a neighbor, they sucked so much blood from that tiny dog that it got very anemic and almost died.

Now being farther north, I have far more problems with ticks. Those are rampant here, and most are the tiny deer ticks and the star ticks which carry the bacteria which makes you allergic to eating red meat. Deer in cities are now a huge problem yet no one does much about them. Also the rodents (mice, squirrels, chipmunks, etc) carry the deer ticks and so do birds.

We try to spray the yard with the Bayer insect killer and then spray again in 2 weeks and that seems to knock down the ticks for a few months. Used to be winter killed them but I was finding ticks in Jan and Feb.

I have not heard of Chlorapyrifis and will do some reading about it when I have time. If you need a license, I wonder if it can be bought on line? Not always easy to find someone who will buy it for you…