Monday, August 25, 2008

Overwhelmed

I wanted to share with you the very relaxing and wonderful vacation we had last week, but the past 40 hours or so since my return have been tremendously stressful. Despite the money we've spent having the house fumigated and bombed, the flea infestation was at a fever pitch when we returned on Saturday. Although we'd left Seamus outside, he snuck back in to soil several pieces of furniture. Alec had tried to shut Shannon out of our bedroom to keep her off of our mattresses, but it resulted in her getting locked in Lindsay's room. I can't blame her for using Lindsay's changing pad as her litter box. If you've watched nature shows featuring piranha, the fleas were similar when we returned. I immediately took the girls outside and sprayed them head-to-toe in bug spray.

We had had the foresight to schedule another bug treatment on Saturday afternoon, so Alec waited with Lindsay for the Orkin man, while Lauren and I went out to take care of some critical errands - buying presents for her friends' birthday party, replacing the pair of glasses Lin broke while we were on vacation. We finished in time to pick up Lindsay and Alec as the Orkin man told us that if we were to let the cats back in the house, Frontline or not, we'd be doing this until December or January.

We'd made the decision given Seamus' new no-litter policy, that he would be living in the yard from now on. We debated what to do with Shannon while we were out. I can give you a hundred rationalizations about why it's best for us to do that, but ultimately, Shannon herself made the decision. While we were out, she somehow escaped her pet carrier.

We spent yesterday throwing stuff away and vacuuming. I had saved quite a lot of Lindsay's smaller clothes in the drawers under her bed, where Shannon slept while trapped in her room. We bought a new vacuum, an upright canister vac with a HEPA filter and Alec vacuumed nearly every surface of the house. I've done approximately 8 loads of laundry, despite having returned from vacation with 3 suitcases of clean clothes. Today, there are still 3 loads in progress, and despite seemingly constant cleaning, our kitchen is too filthy to cook in, but the laundry and kitchen have to wait for other commitments today.

I'll tell you about vacation when I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed. Given school starts in 10 days and Lauren's birthday party is Saturday, that might not be soon...

3 comments:

karen said...

Sounds like Dante missed a circle of Hell - fleas. What a horrible way to end vacation! While we're only squishing ants inside here, I feel your pet mess pain. Chris and I have been sleeping in the guest room since Kippah decided she likes to pee on our mattress pad when we have the sheets off. I'm guessing it's because we changed the type of litter in the box and she doesn't like it but if going back to the original kind of litter doesn't fix it, she's going to be either on the market or on the menu, cute and sweet or no.

Bud Weiser, WTIT said...

I was sorry to read this yesterday. You must be at wit's end!

Anonymous said...

Those poor animals, sounds as though you can't handle them. Why not put them up for adoption?They shouldn't be left outside while you take a nice vacation.