#flea extermination

What Are the Signs Your Home Might Have a Flea Infestation?

Three day weekends are amazing. We had done so much on Sunday (helped a friend move, went to a barbeque, went to a friend’s house, walked 3 miles for ice cream, and drove a total of 3 hours) that we decided to just veg on Monday. I was going to make us a large breakfast and we would watch TV all day. The way a Monday off should be.

Jeff woke up Monday to the smell of bacon and itchy ankles. He had numerous bug bites covering his ankles. There were more that slowly appeared over time. Initially I just thought Jeff was being a tad melodramatic when he was complaining of his bug bites. However, we were growing concerned because they seemed to be increasing in size and number. They were even beginning to look a tiny bit infected.

But I wasn’t going to worry about it on a Monday off! No sir! There we were. Enjoying pancakes, bacon, eggs, coffee… when Jeff decided to ruin Labor Day.

                Jeff: “I just saw a flea.”

                Me: “What are you talking about?”

                Jeff: “It was just on my leg. Little, and black, and it jumped!”

I found it very hard to believe that Jeff saw a flea. We don’t have pets. We are clean people. Housey Home is barren because we just moved in. There is no way we have fleas.

                Me: “OK. Let’s wash all of our cloths and clean up and see if we see any more.”

Jeff proceeded to take gather up some dirty laundry. He took that and what he was wearing, towel clad; he slipped on his shoes and headed down to the basement to start some laundry. I grabbed my computer and searched for “flea infestation.” I was reading about vacuuming every day, washing all laundry, walking around with white socks so you can see the fleas, bombing your house, sprays, water-proof eggs, washing your bed linens, when I realized… Jeff had been in the basement for about 20 minutes.

I went down to see what was keeping Jeff, thinking back to only a week before when the stupid washer wasn’t working.

                Me: “Is the washer not working?”

                Jeff: “uh… I think I see some on me.”

I crouched down and looked at Jeff’s legs, and there they were. About 10 little fleas crawling up Jeff’s hairy legs. No wonder they had been biting his ankles! They were living in his shoes! And Jeff has enough hair on his legs so the fleas felt right at home.

That day we proceeded to wash about 8 loads of laundry. All of our clothes, bed linens, towels, and area rugs. I took all of Jeff’s shoes and vacuumed sealed them in a trash bag with some flea powder for dogs. We sprayed our couch with a flea repellent and vacuumed the entire house. We vacuumed every crack in the hard wood floors and spayed the edges with a bug repellent. We did all of this while wearing white so that we could see the fleas when they jumped on us.

The exterminator is due to be here on Wednesday. He will spray all of our floors. Where flea eggs are waterproof there will be more fleas two to three weeks after the house is sprayed. However, once they walk on the floor they will die before they can lay more eggs. This means we have to vacuum the entire house every day for the next month.

And that is the story of our wasted Monday off, and why we wore white after Labor Day.