Experiment with rosemary water as flea deterrent (dogs, fleas, spraying)

[mawipafl]

I have never had such a war with fleas before. I'm guessing that our very mild winter allowed them to absolutely flourish and multiply. I'm doing the usual routine to combat fleas: daily vacuuming of everything and everywhere and washing of bedding and area rugs, spraying with Adams, topical treatments on the dog and cats, Capstar on occasion, flea-combing. It's so hard to tell if there fewer and fewer fleas, but I think so, and I think I am slowly but surely winning this war.

However, the fleas are still in great numbers since it does take time to break the cycle, so I've started using rosemary water on my dog, spritzing around his neck and under his chin and then down his back to his tail. These are the areas where I was finding the most flea dirt, and now I'm not. It could, of course, be because my battle techniques are working and has nothing to do with the rosemary water. So, more experimentation needed -- I'm going to try the rosemary water on one of my cats (oh is she going to hate me!) to see if I can convince the fleas that she's not a great host.

I'll report back with results.

Has anyone ever used rosemary as a flea deterrent?

[NYC refugee]

No, but I've seen it recommended and thought of spraying all the cat beds with it. However, I saw rosemary and lemon water recommended for dogs and wasn't sure how my cat would take to the lemon. She seems to love to smell my lemon eucalyptus deet-free mosquito repellent, so who can tell. I keep seeing an Orkin video describing how to make it, so I guess Orkin should have a clue what they're talking about.