We have already had our first unexpected surprise with our home. Thankfully this is a cheap and relatively easy fix. We drove out to the house today to do some cleaning. We had brought a few blankets for Asher to play on while we cleaned. We spread them out on the carpet in the master bedroom and let him roam. A few minutes later Quinn and I joined Asher on the floor to eat the Taco Bell we had picked up on the way. Pretty soon Quinn kept seeing little bugs everywhere. He wasn't sure what they were. We watched them for a while and Quinn said he thought they might be fleas. Yuck. It wasn't long before I saw two jump on and off of Asher. That was it. I picked him up off of the floor lightening fast and we were out of there. We packed up everything in the car and left. As soon as we got home I started calling and emailing exterminators. I even got a hold of one at 5 pm on a Saturday. He is coming out to the house Monday night to take care of the fleas. He asked if the previous owners had a pet and I told them they had a cat. "Great, cat fleas, those are the worst," was his response. Yay, what joy is mine. Also, he told me because of the life-cycle of fleas that it will take 6-8 months to get rid of them completely. Great, again, what joy is mine.
I was a little disheartened by this experience. Not exactly the way you want your first 15 minutes to go in your new home, but deep down I know we are actually really lucky we caught this before we moved in all of our stuff.
7 comments:
You were not only really lucky, but also very observant and quite smart. Kill 'em where they hop.
When all is said and done, and all painted, moved in, and spruced up, you will have a wonderful home.
Niiiiiice! Fleas are better than termites, or carpenter ants, though. At least they don't destroy the house. Good thing you caught it before they were jumping in your beds.
Wow, who would have expected that one? SUCH a relief you caught it first off!
Ahhhh,....the memories of living in the south and dealing with the fleas, tics, roaches, etc., etc. But it will be ok for sure. After some exterminations, you should be rid of the fleas. Over Columbus Day weekend while we were living in NC and Dave was up in Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA,on TDY, I left our dog at the kennel on post while I drove my two little boys up to spend the weekend with their daddy. Coming back home we stopped at the kennel and picked Sugar up. Got her home that night and was holding her like she liked to be held rubbing her tummy. Started feeling all these little bumps on her. She had tics ALL over her. Started knocking some of them off of her and burning them with a match. Pretty soon I discovered so many more of them that I took her in to the bathtub (with a blanket of course) and shut the shower doors so she couldn't get out. The next morning when I went in to get her I was literally shocked! I counted over 1,000 tics crawling up the wall and on to the ceiling and in to the tracks of the doors. It was awful. I called my next door neighbors over, and by the way, they were just as shocked. He said, "get the vacuum" and suck them up, I'll go call the vet. Once we got them cleaned out of the bathroom, we took the vacuum bag out to the barbecue pit and burnt the bag. We ended up taking Sugar to the vet where they had to dip her several times. Thank heavens she never got sick from all of that. Just thought I would share that story with you. We were in NC down at Ft. Bragg at the time. What an experience that was, but it got better really fast. Hang in there!
The best way to tell if there are fleas is to put a white napkin down on the floor. For some reason the fleas like white and will jump right on it.
We had a similar story like Nettie but instead of a dog the one covered in fleas was Jameson!!! I FREAKED OUT!! Thank goodness he was in his white head-to-toe sleepers. We called in the exterminators and learned to deal with them..... The beauties of the South:)!
Ew! Definitly puts a major damper on the excting home owning experience:) Bummer! But seriously I'm so glad you found out about them before you moved all you stuff in. Total blessing. On the positive note: it still is SUCH a cute house and I can't wait to see all you do with it!
Okay so I just read Nettie's story. Can I just say AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!?? I'd take fleas over ticks any day! Yikes!
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