fleas, foggers, and date nights September 12th, 2012
Yeah, don’t worry, that title is what it’s supposed to say. I can’t believe I am admitting this in a public forum, but we have fleas. It’s pretty gross and majorly inconvenient, but we got ‘em. A week ago I woke up with little bites all over my ankles, and then sure enough we found a few crawling on Moesha’s back. I started scouring the internet for stories, treatments, causes, concerns and my paranoia suddenly knew no bounds. The more I read, the more I decided that we should just sell our house and move far, far away from this infestation. Option 2 was to burn the place to the ground and start over. Ughh.
Luckily, Matt (the sane half) got me to calm down and we’ve since taken a more realistic course of action. Moesha (poor girl) has been relegated to the backyard. Matt has been combing her consistently with a flea brush and drowning her fleas in soapy water, and we’ve given her the equivalent of kitty frontline to help kill them. She seems to be getting better everyday, even if she is majorly disgruntled to be stuck outside. We also went to Home Depot and bought out the flea fogger section. They are little gas bombs you set off all over the house. You have to vacate for 2-3 hours while they activate and spray all your wordly goods with pesticides, then come home and open all the windows. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of this, but it seems like they are the real deal. Meantime, I’ve been washing every piece of fabric in the house and vacuuming like a mad woman. Multiple times on all accounts. It’s a huge pain in the ass, this flea problem.
The upside of all of this is 1)when we’re through the house will probably be cleaner than it ever has and 2)we’ve rediscovered the meaning of date night! On our first flea fogger night, we went out to Gravelly Point with Bowser and a picnic (read: drive-up meal from Checkers) and watched the planes come in for 3 hours while we waited for the first dose to work. It’s actually pretty nice to be relegated out of the house on a weeknight when we’d both normally be glued to our computers doing schoolwork. This past Monday, we did another round of foggers, and took a picnic to Stanton Park to wait it out. Bowser met a friendly pup named Cash, and we had some cheese and crackers and veggies while they played in the grass. Then we walked over to the Capitol and enjoyed the view of the dome at night. I guess it could be worse. Like bedbugs or roaches or something.
We have one more set of foggers to do in another week if necessary, but I’m thinking that the flea problem is well on it’s way to being gone. We shall see… In the meantime, I’ll try to understand if you never want to come over to our house again.
