Homemade Flea Trap

Making a homemade flea trap to kill fleas inside your house is actually really easy and they work great.  

You can make several traps for just a few dollars and they only take a few minutes to make.

Since they're so quick and easy to set out, you'll be able to place them in several different rooms ensuring you're catching fleas throughout your entire house.

Sounds too good to be true right?

Well, they do work great but there's one key factor to consider.

These traps will kill a lot of adult fleas living inside your carpet and other similar areas, but they won't kill the fleas living on your pet, flea eggs or flea larvae.

In order to successfully treat a flea infestation you need to address all stages of a fleas lifecycle.  

A flea is not going to leave your pet to jump into a trap, so you'll need to treat your dog or cat with one of the many flea treatment options like K9 Advantix, Frontline Flea & Tick Control or even a flea shampoo.  

Plus you'll need to vacuum thoroughly for several days to remove any eggs or larvae that haven't developed yet.  

If not, you'll just be dealing with a constant supply of new fleas.

Okay, now let's catch some fleas!

Making A Homemade Flea Trap

There's 2 homemade flea traps that I use that work really well.  

They're really similar to each other and easy to make, the only difference is the light that you use.

Fleas inside a dark room are attracted to light.  

These traps work by using light suspended over water to attract the fleas and drown them.

There's a lot of different variations to these traps but I like to make these because they're safe.

Some methods use candles or even lights suspended over a water dish, but I'm just not a fan of open flames near a pet, or the possibility of a lamp falling into the water.  

I know a tea candle only burns for a few hours and the odds are really slim of starting a fire, but why take the chance if you can do it safely, and catch just as many fleas?

For both traps to work you'll need to add a squirt of dish soap to your water and stir it in.

I like to use Dawn because it's more concentrated and works great, but any kind will work.  

Without adding dish soap, the surface tension on the water allows the fleas to float on top.  

The soap changes the surface tension and the fleas sink like a rock.

Homemade Flea Trap #1

Take a shallow dish and fill it with about a half inch of soapy water.  

You can use a pie pan, baking sheet or a bowl, but the larger shallow pans work the best.

If you go to the dollar store you can get aluminum cookie sheets that work great.

I was able to buy two of these aluminum cookie sheets for $1.

Next, take an LED tea candle and place it on small stand in the middle of the pan.

You can use anything for the stand.  

In this picture I used a water bottle top.  

You just want to get the LED tea candle out of the water so the water doesn't ruin it.  

I bought 2 of these LED candles at the dollar store for $1. 

That's it!  

Just place the trap in a room where you're noticing fleas and leave the trap undisturbed overnight with the candle on.  

The fleas will be attracted to the light in the dark room, jump towards the light and drown in the soapy water. 

To reuse the trap, just dump the water and fleas out, and refill it.  

The LED candles last for 240 hours so you'll get plenty of nights out of them.  

Homemade Flea Trap #2

The second trap works just like the first, but the light source is different.

If you don't want to use the LED tea light you can use a nightlight plugged into the wall.

Don't try to suspend a light over the pan of water since it could fall in.

Just buy a nightlight at the dollar store and plug it in.  

The sensor automatically turns on when it's dark and they only cost pennies a year to operate.

Once you find a spot to plug in your nightlight, place the cookie sheet filled with soapy water under the light.

It's that easy!  

The fleas will jump towards the nightlight and land in the water.

Homemade Flea Trap - Overall

Both of these homemade traps work great, plus they're cheap and easy to make.  

Try making several traps and placing them around various parts of your house for best results.  

Remember, you'll also need to use other flea control methods along with the traps to get rid of all the various stages of the fleas lifecycle.  

With a little persistence and hard work, your house will be back to normal and the fleas will just be a bad memory.