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Besides checking your pet’s fur, you can use two other tests to find fleas in your home: the white sock test and the water and lamp test.

To perform the white sock test, simply put on a pair of long white socks and drag your feet along the carpets in your home. Fleas will gravitate to the heat created by your socks. The water and lamp test involves placing a bowl of water on the floor and shining a light over it. Fleas will then be attracted to the light and land in the bowl of water.

When looking for natural roach repellent options, citrus, bay leaves, cucumber, garlic, and catnip may all help to keep cockroaches away. When an infestation requires a bigger intervention, boric acid, baking soda, diatomaceous earth (DE), and soap mixed with water are all considered natural and nontoxic roach treatments.

You should call pest control for cockroaches when you see two or more of these pests or clear warning signs of an infestation. Signs of an active roach infestation are roach droppings, dark smears on surfaces, roach eggs, foul odors, and shed skins. If you notice these unusual marks in your home, consider hiring a pest control specialist for an inspection.

If the cat is stray (you noticed a collar or other signs of domestication), the kind thing to do is to try and find the owner. Call around to other neighbors to see if they can lead you in the right direction. If you can get close enough to snap a picture, try posting an image of the cat to local community groups and pages on social media. 

If the cat is feral, you can try to humanely trap them and participate in a local shelter’s TNR program. Before attempting capture, call around to local rescues and shelters to make sure one near you does participate in a TNR program. They may even be able to catch the cat for you.