We weren't too worried. We keep our dog treated with flea stuff and routinely vacuum and clean, so no worries, right? Wrong! Thursday evening, Jeremy decided that he would comb through Molly's fur and just make sure. Well, that was our downfall, sure enough, there were a few fleas. A quick call to the vet and we knew that Molly would be okay, since she receives monthly flea treatments. The fleas might hop a ride on her, but would die due to the flea treatment.
We called our landlord and him know that we too seemed to have a flea problem. Our theory was that Molly had picked them up outside when she went out that evening to do her business. No way were they in our house. We decided that it would be a good idea to have the bug spraying people come to our house, as a preventative measure. We scheduled a time for them to come on Tuesday, since they couldn't come any earlier.
Friday morning comes and I receive a phone call from our landlord's wife. She thinks (and I agreed) that waiting until Tuesday wasn't a good idea. That we needed to have the bug spraying people come out right away. She scheduled for them to come Friday afternoon and urged me to call my doctor to see what precautions a 7-months along pregnant woman should take. I quickly called my doctor and was told that while things would probably be okay, I shouldn't take any chances and should vacate the area for 24 hours. 24 hours? That's a long time. But I would feel terrible if something went wrong, so I agreed.
We thought about staying with my in-laws, but they live about an hour away and Jeremy needed to be near our house the next morning for a 5K race. We decided to just bite the bullet and checked into a hotel that would allow pets.
Saturday afternoon we returned to our house. Not a flea in sight, so we breathed a sigh of relief. We were in the clear....
What were we thinking? One day and all of our problems would be solved? Of course not! Sunday rolled around which meant Jeremy would be at work for most of the day. Throughout the day, I killed a few fleas that I spotted on Molly. She of course did not appreciate me coming at her with the tweezers, but it had to be done. By the time Jeremy was home and we were getting ready for bed, we had probably killed a dozen more. They weren't gone, they were simply coming out of hiding!
So, last night at 9pm, we were throwing all of the rugs and linens into the wash, vacuuming the carpets and the stairs, and making the decision that until further notice, Molly would have to stay in her crate, in the basement. We made another call to our landlord to let him know that sadly, our optimism had been in vain. He vowed to call the bug spraying people as soon as they opened to see what the deal was. Would we just have to spend a few days killing fleas? Would they eventually die? Would we ever be able to sleep in peace again?
Needless to say, much annoyance fills my soul. Fleas are gross and getting rid of them is consuming my time. What a pain!
2 comments:
gross! I hope you get rid of them soon. I think my worst bug story is the time our church ladies went on a retreat and one of our members had unknowingly gotten head lice from her grade-school age little sister, who had picked it up at school. Every single lady in our church ended up going home to treat herself for lice.
The funny thing is, that actually ended up being the way I inadvertently informed all my friends I was pregnant with Lucy (I was only a few weeks along and we hadn't told anyone yet). Back home from the retreat, at Bible study in front of everyone, a friend recommended a highly-powerful chemical brand of treatment and I said something like, "Oh, my doctor said I shouldn't use that but should just try tea tree oil instead."
"But why? Only pregnant women are supposed to stay away from that....oooh! Are you....?"
And that's how the beans got spilled.
Hey Cassie- They have a carpet powder that will kill them too. You can pick it up at any pet store. You just sprinkle it on the carpet, let it sit for 10-20 minutes and then vacuum it up. We have found it to work well the times that our dogs had fleas while living in our apartment... (you might want to check with the landlord first). :)
Happy Flea Killing!
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