Fleas be gone

We discovered, soon after moving in, that we had a problem with some kind of biting insects. Without furniture for two nights in our new house, we slept on an air-mattress on our floor and I soon noticed that my feet and ankles were covered in horrendously-itchy raised bumps (Kelvin was luckily affected less).

It wasn't until we started spending considerable amounts of time crouched on our floors, assembling furniture, that we noticed the culprits-- tiny jumping bugs which I immediately recognized as fleas (did you know that they can jump up to 7 inches vertically and 13 inches horizontally!). I remember having a few flea problems when we lived overseas and had a dog (may Toccata rest in peace), but we don't even have pets (yet), so this was obviously a preexisting problem of the house. The family that lived here before us did have a dog.

Flea bites are maddening. I've probably gotten thousands of mosquito and other insect bites in my lifetime, but none even come close to approximating the discomfort that flea bites cause. They are, by far, the itchiest bites you could ever imagine. The itch is hydrocortisone-resistant. It is hydrocortisone- & antihistamine-resistant. The itching wakes you up from sleep. The most effective treatment I have found is the "After Bite Itch Eraser" (ammonia) in conjunction with copious calamine lotion, which I had to go out and purchase when the other treatments were not working. I was putting "Off" on my ankles routinely when I was inside.

Those topical remedies just treat the symptoms, however. In order to truly get rid of a flea problem, you have to do a number of things to target all four (!) stages of a flea's life cycle (21 days). Fleas can live up to like 7 months without a meal, and the larvae can lie dormant for even longer than that, pupae just waiting for the human step and vibration to awaken them from their slumber into the active, biting stage... which is why many people find that they are preyed upon upon entering an empty house (as we were). So, "flea control" requires a number of different steps/approaches:

- treat your pets (hosts), which we don't have-- this includes flea collars, and treatments like "Frontline," which you can obtain at your local pet store
- vacuum regularly (i.e. daily), which can kill more than 90% of adult fleas and also suck up larvae to break the cycle
- use chemical sprays which have both an adulticide, and an insect growth regulator (inhibitor) to kills the larval stages or, alternatively, carpet powder with borax
- fog your place

We used the spray around our whole living room (the main problem area that we could identify) and bedrooms upstairs with Siphotrol, which includes both an insect growth regulator and permethrin, an adulticide, but still caught a few buggers. So we decided to proceed with the fogger.

Flea fogging (bombing your place with a high-density insecticide) requires pre-vacuuming, clearing all food-preparation spaces, and setting off a spray canister to mist your open space (treating up to 700 sq feet). You (and any potential pets, children, etc.) have to leave your home for at least 2 hours; you then have to return to open all doors and windows and not return "for good" until at least another hour after that. Kelvin's office is close enough that he was able to set off the fogger before his afternoon clinic so that when we returned from work, we only had to open windows (which took about 10 minutes, I must say! This house has a LOT of windows!), and wait one more hour before we were safely allowed to return to house.

We really hope this worked. We have seen one flea that seemed to have survived "the bombing," but I personally feel much more comfortable exposing my feet and ankles at home (I have been walking around in tall socks, slippers, and sometimes boots both because hardwood floors are cold, and to prevent bites) and sitting on our downstairs couch. We still feel itchy from time to time; however, I think it is largely paranoia from feeling like we are going to get bitten. We hope we solved the problem for good... but I am thinking it will be longer than previously planned before we get a dog of our own...