Eaten alive

WARNING. If reading about infestations gives you the heebie jeebies then stop here.

Ok, you were warned.

We've been away for the weekend to visit friends, and I'll do a post about that soon. For those of you not in the UK the weather has been roasting (for here) all weekend and today.

We got home this evening around 9:45pm and I immediately took Ewok off upstairs for a bath. I'd taken his clothes off in the living room, and while the bath was running we both wandered into the main bedroom so I could open windows as the room was baking (it's in the roof). When we got back into the bathroom I was about to take his nappy off and pop him in the bath when, to my horror, I saw that his legs were covered in fleas!

Looking down I saw that I was similarly infested (I'd taken my trousers off to bath him because he splashes, a lot) and I immediately started plucking them off him and crushing them. In the end there were so many of them, and while I was delousing him the b$%&@ds were munching on me, I just lobbed him in the bath and washed them off him, then left him splashing while I killed the ones left on me. Then I had to shout for Wookiee to watch him while I got my big can-o-flea-killer and sprayed the bedroom, the landing, the stairs, the hallway and even the living room.

I think the bedroom was worst because the cats are not allowed in there unless accompanied, so the fleas had hatched out (thanks to the heat) and had nothing to feed on until Ewok and I walked in.

It's my own fault for not treating the cats for fleas sooner. I noticed they were scratching several weeks ago, but I've been so busy I didn't go to the vets to get some more flea treatment. You can be sure I'll be going there tomorrow, to get that and a new big can-o-flea-killer as that stuff prevents (re)infestations of eggs and larvae for 12 months, and fleas for 2 months. So the whole house is getting dosed, there's still a floor to do and the can I have is almost empty. Fortunately there doesn't seem to have been any hatching on the lower ground floor as that floor stays relatively cool, except for two rooms into which the cats never go.

Ewok and I are now covered in bites, him mostly from the waist down, me around my feet and ankles, with several more up my legs, arms, and on my back, and I'm itching all over from the thought of them as much as the actual bites. On top of that I'm mildly allergic to cat fleas, I get hayfever-like symptoms when I get bitten, the more bites the worse the reaction, so I'll be buying some antihisthamine pills tomorrow as well. I dabbed witch hazel all over his bites and mine. It's not helping me much but it seems to have helped him. We'll see what he's like in the morning.

If you've managed to make it this far then I suspect you're now joining me in some sympathetic scratching.

Urgh *shudder* fleas!