News From The Trenches

July has been consumed by the war I've waged on fleas. Yes, fleas. AGAIN! Grrr! We don't even have the dog anymore. Fancy has been living her new and wonderful flea-free life for nearly a year back in Utah with John's sister. No, this time, the fleas appeared on our cat. Our ancient, indoor-only cat. The same cat that did NOT get fleas when the dog had fleas, yet somehow has managed to not only get fleas while living an exclusively indoor lifestyle, she's also managed to drop flea eggs and larve ALL OVER OUR APARTMENT! BLEH! I'll tell you, the only thing worse than a flea infested dog is a flea infested cat. WAY worse.

With the dog, we gave her a flea treatment, cleaned the apartment real well and never saw a flea again until now. This time, it's been an all out battle for over a month. The cat's been getting baths twice a week, we've bought flea powder, flea spray, the cat got a medicated flea treatment, we rented a steam cleaner and cleaned the carpets and the sofa, I've washed every blanket, sheet and pillow we own...but still the fleas, THEY SURVIVE!

We think the fleas infiltrated our home by way of a friendly stray cat the boys and I met at the park. Normally stray cats are frightened and don't approach strangers, but clearly the fleas here in Portland have developed kitty mind control, making the cat not only approachable, but aggressive in it's desire to be played with by small children. Purring and playing and looking soft, fluffy and irresistable. I can only imagine that the fleas immediately began launching egg-grenades at us, which we then brought home like flea-egg loaded mules. They then hatched and began their invasion.

We didn't really notice it at first. The cat cleans herself all the time, so her extra licking and a bit of scratching went undetected long enough for those little fuckers to establish a strong presence in our apartment. Soon Max began getting weird little bumps here and there. But ONLY Max. Then we went to Seattle for the weekend, and when we got back there were tufts of cat fur EVERYWHERE! Clearly Kitty had suffered through a major battle with the fleas while we were out of town and fought them the only way she knew how, scratching big chunks of hair off of her body! Poor kitty. I began cleaning the fur up, and as I wiped down surfaces, along with big tufts of hair, I was noticing little flea bodies, little flea larve, some alive, some dead.

I then proceeded to freak the hell out. Which, I think is really the ONLY acceptable reaction to finding your home infested by little blood sucking insects. John's reaction was to tell me I was overreacting. That jumping up and down itching my skin and hair raw and screeching "FLEAS! OHMYGODWEHAVEFLEAS OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!" was uneccessary. That they're, "just little bugs, the world is full of little bugs we live with all the time."

This was the only time I've questioned our marraige. As I stood there, pulling my hair out and refusing to sit on our sofa (flea infested) and hopping from foot to foot (because the CARPET HAD FLEAS!!!), I was looking at a man relaxing on our couch in nothing but his boxers who had apparently decided to sign a peace treaty with these evil creatures and wanted to attempt to live in peace with them. "WHO ARE YOU? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I screamed at him, "THEY ARE EATING US!!!" Then I ran out of the apartment and spent an hour at Target buying every single flea control product they had.

When I got back, John and I agreed to disagree about the approrpiate reaction to the problem (he's clearly wrong though) and our marraige was saved by joining forces and fighting back. John agreed to launch a massive attack on our carpets and sofa with a steam cleaner while I scrubbed a screaming, yowling, biting, scratching Kitty in our bathtub.

We thought we'd won, but really the war had only just begun. More flea troops hatched and over the last few weeks we've been fighting battle after battle. I think we're weakening them though. I see fewer and fewer larve and fleas when I clean, and they're always dead. But the war is not over until I wipe a surface and see none.