You're insane; I love the drama.

[judecorp]

Because I know you're all riveted by our ridiculous dramarama...

Bug Dude came around 8:30am right when I was leaving for work. He walked in to Jen finishing up the frantic baseboard vacuuming and a house overcome with plastic bags. He looked at the bug bodies that Jen had found in the closet and said that they were definitely not bed bugs, just a couple of random bugs. He then looked in the bedroom, living room, and guest bedroom, including our suitcases, closets, and dressers, and said that he found no evidence of bed bugs. He could not do any treatments because by law there has to be proof of an infestation before you can exterminate, apparently. He said that Jen is probably being bitten by mosquitos. (I am dubious.)

I don't know whether to be happy or even more frustrated. Jen had finally sold me on this bed bug thing and I was hoping for some closure. Especially after all of that work for the last couple of days! Argh!

Also, drugs arrived via UPS this afternoon, so Operation:Frankenbaby is back on starting tomorrow.

Comments

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

Wow! All of that bug drama for nothing? I don't know if I'd be happy or pissed.
Glad your meds are here. Watch out clomid beast is coming!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seriously. I will not miss Clomid when it's gone. (But it HAS made my periods super short!)

I'm pissed because we don't know what's causing the biting. Mosquitos? Fleas? Mystery bugs? Who knows.

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

Yea for shorter periods! Ack on the bug issue!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Exactly. On both counts.

(Although I worry that the shorter periods mean my lining is thin b/c of clomid.)

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Gotta say, I think this is reasonably good news.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Except that there is definitely biting going on. By SOMETHING.

[estrange.livejournal.com]

Be happy! This is good news. It's probably good you washed all your clothes & cleaned a lot anyway. Cleaning never hurts!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I am happy about the cleaning, that's for sure. I love a clean house!

I hope we don't have fleas. Fleas are better than bed bugs but I still don't want things biting me!

[estrange.livejournal.com]

I was thinkint about it - could it be from a fragrence? Have either of you started using a different scented perfume, lotion or laundry detergent?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no. We're pretty set in our ways and use the same products over and over. And we use a lot of fragrance-free stuff. Last night, no bug bites! So I dunno.

[siercia]

Well, reasonalby good news, if you can figure out the source of the biting. Have you flea combed the cats recently? I remember being covered in bites when our house had a flea infestation.

(I love the frankenbaby icon, btw)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it's my mad scientist that keelamonster gave me!

And yeah, we're starting to wonder about fleas, too. Although the cats never go outside. We have some squirrels living in our roof (which of course is kind of like being in our wall) and I wonder if somehow some fleas are coming to us that way. We're thinking of bringing in one of the cats to see if s/he has fleas and if s/he does, getting a bunch of flea treatments. But that still won't help if the fleas are coming from squirrels.

How do you get rid of fleas?

[hoo.livejournal.com]

Simultaneous treatment of the house and the cats. The house gets bug-bombed, with cannisters you can get from any CVS or Stop&Shop. That means clearing out of there for a day or so, while the poison gets everywhere. While you're waiting you'll want to give the cats a flea bath. If you don't do both, the fleas and the cats will find each other again and re-infest.

The house I shared with GodOSpoons went through a couple of rounds of fleas as the housemate with the kitten couldn't grasp the concept of 'simultaneous'.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm going to get a flea comb today and check the cats. I haven't seen any sign of fleas on them but I want to check anyway. And I did some reading yesterday and would probably get some sort of spray rather than a bomb because a) those bombs scare the crap out of me and b) you can get sprays that are non-toxic to kids/pets.

But I looked in the cat beds and I don't see anything!

[siercia]

Interesting. In my experience, the flea dip seemed to give the cats a week or so's worth of "immunity" where the bugs didn't come back. But maybe our house's infestation was not so bad.

[siercia]

If you go buy a flea comb and comb them, you should be able to tell if they're flea ridden pretty easily (you might pull out actual fleas, but you can also tell if you comb out little pieces of dried blood - wiich is really yucky).

We had all-indoor cats get infested pretty bad - just like any other bug, humans can carry them into the house, and then they go nuts. When we had them, we flea dipped the cats, boraxed the carpets and the sofa (borax being a type of soap that desiccates the fleas so they die, while being completely safe for humans). We washed bedding that the cats had slept on, didn't really have to worry about the clothes and stuff. We did not have to bug bomb the house at all.

They sell treatments for flea now that are preventative - if you think they're coming from the squirrels, you'll want to investigate those, so as to make the house an inhospitable home for the fleas.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm going to get a flea comb today and check the cats. I haven't seen them itching more than usual but they could just have thick skin or something from all of the Fin harassment. ;)

Did you have any hardwood floors? We don't have any carpets so I'm wondering if just washing the floors would do the trick if we did have fleas. Or if we would need to spray something on the floors or something. Thanks for the tip on the Borax.

We had flea-treated all of the cats when we got Fin, because Fin had ear mites (no fleas) and the vet decided to just do one of those 3-in-1 treatments on each cat. But if I see any fleas, I will go get more of those because a) they were super easy and b) all of the cats tolerated them just fine.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

It is complete insanity. I'm going to get a good flea comb and check the beasties to see if they could be the culprit. I don't much care for being a bug detective.

HEY - I am going to be in NYC with some coworkers on July 29th to take in a Yankee game. We should hook up!

[calledmara.livejournal.com]

(scabies)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

No way, man. I've had scabies before. I know what they look/feel like.

[calledmara.livejournal.com]

dirty gutterpunk

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Takes one to know one!

!!!!!

[rachelmichellek.livejournal.com]

So they weren't bedbugs after all!!

Ay-yi-yi!

Re: !!!!!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I know, crazy, right?