Dear ILE - a flea

I have no horror stories of finding fleas in clothes. but with two dogs and a cat I'm sure the summer holds much flea fun.

We bought our little tortoiseshell as a companion for our stray moggy, and SHE, the half-persion ball of cute, turned out to be hopping with fleas. We lived in a student house with 6 other people, none of whom believed us that they needed to a) vacuum their rooms occasionally and then b) allow us to fumigate said rooms. Needless to say, after a few weeks and a flea population explosion that must have broken records, carpets were burned and fumigation took place.

It was so bad that I'd be sitting at work sometimes and find fleas merrily larking about on my desk, having hitched a ride in. I hope like hell nobody else ever saw them; they didn't say anything. (My colleagues, not the parasites. Nor did the fleas, come to think of it. That would have made it all worthwhile / a nightmare of even more epic proportions).

Anyone else ever kill fleas by popping them? It works but trust me, don't do it.

Irish shelters are not well funded, staffed, or organised. Irish people in general do not have any real regard for animals. Of the three cats I've adopted from shelters, I've had to de-flea them all, pay for them to be neutered, have them chipped, treat their ringworm and earmites, and two of them died on me anyway.

I think I must've been well into my teens, somewhat embarassingly!

They're... are you... I don't believe you.

is it rank? TELL ME!

http://www.wildyorkshire.co.uk/naturediary/images/artwork/bogeyman.jpg

do you guys remember Nitty Nora? She was the Nit Nurse and used to visit the school occasionally. We all had to stand in line and wait for her to run her fingers through our hair in turn to check for nits. Looking back you wonder if perhaps this person was just some kind of perv who liked to run her fingers thru kids' hair.

There was a bit of casual racism in the area of London where I grew up re: nits. There was a large Cypriot community and ppl used to hiss "they bring them back from Cyprus" and attribute the entire parasite problem to our Greek and Turkish chums.

when we were learning the Periodic Table the teacher asked "what are halogens used for?". Somebody replied "headlights" and the teacher looked really, really confused, thinking they had said "headlice".

i have popped fleas before ::shudder::. I have also had the pleasure of combing head lice out of a small, squirming child. :::::SHUDDER::::