I have been absent from the blogging world for a few days, but I have a good excuse.  bugFor more than a month, my house has become the central location for a battle that mankind has never seen.  We’re fighting a scourge of the mighty flea.  (I’m referring to the small insect and not the bassist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

When we bought our house in 2002, I noticed that I kept getting bitten on the legs.  It took a couple of weeks, but we finally realized that the previous owners left more than just some drapes behind.  We had a professional company come and spray the place and the little buggers we no more.

Since we have owned our dogs, we have used Frontline to protect them from scourge of these atrocious pests.  It worked great.  Until this summer.  Our poor dogs have been covered in fleas worse than anything I’ve seen before.  Merry, our female, has had an awful bout of it.  We called the vet and he came over.  He said that Merry’s case was the worst he’d ever seen.

So, we started the battle.  Meds for the dogs and treatment for the yard.  No change.  More meds for the dogs, more treatment for the yard.  No change.  We (Kelley) have vacuumed the house about 437 times (slight exaggeration).  I’ve used flea bombs in the garage 3 times (no garage), we’ve medicated the dogs, and treated the yard.  We even spent an evening vacuuming the garage and the cars and yet these foul pests persist. Poor Ladybug and I seem to be a favorite treat, so we’re covered in bites.  The house seems to have only a few floating around, but they multiply fast.  The back yard and garage are so infested that we haven’t been into either one for a while.

On Wednesday, I finally gave in and called the professionals.  Today marks the beginning of our final stand.  Kelley is working on the house today.  When I get home tonight, I’ll join in the vacuuming and cleaning.  Tomorrow morning, she’ll take the girls out of the house and I’ll take the dogs to the vet.  While at the vet, the dogs will be treated and hopefully have all of the fleas removed from them.  In the meantime, a company will come spray harmful chemical all over our house and yard.  I don’t like the idea of this stuff being all over our house where our family resides, but it’s the only solution that we can find that seems to work.  The over-the-counter sprays have done nothing but cost money and spot treatment is not an effective option.

If we don’t succeed in this battle, our options become even more limited.  I’m thinking napalm…