It's hard to flee when fleas arrive
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- February 18, 2025
- 541
Great jumping Jehoshaphat! Our house has fleas! The tax deduction we love has come down with an illness that is not only serious but contagious too. If we’re lucky, a couple of strong doses of insecticide will free us of the hopping plague.
We have experience with flea invasions. It begins during the depths of summer when hot, humid weather causes an explosive increase in the flea population. Flea leaders send out advance guards who hide under pet flea collars and infiltrate unsuspecting houses. When a victim is found, the bloodthirsty hordes move in and set up camp.
The result is full-scale guerrilla warfare. The fleas occupy the carpet from which they launch or rugs from which they launch vicious attacks on exposed human and pet parts. Behind a bulwark of bug repellent, the defending humans counterattack with deadly cans of flea killer. This noxious spray makes the house smell awful, but it does kill fleas. It does not, however, kill flea eggs. Within a few days, they’re back.
During the last invasion, our house became a battlefield, littered with flea carcasses and reeking of chemicals. At one point our dog was taken hostage. Only a timely flea dip saved her from being eaten alive. We were winning some battles, but we were losing the war. Salt sprinkled on the carpet did not work. It was time to call in the “top guns” — the exterminators.
After weeks of professional spraying and fogging, a faint chemical odor clings to the walls, and the house actually shudders when anything hops. But our freedom was dearly bought, both in money and pain and suffering.
Should this happen again, we don’t plan to fight. We’re older and wiser, so if the fleas invade our house again, we are leaving!