This ended the inspection in 6 minutes

I arrived at the house(6 month vacant repo), went to the basement to get my bearings on equipment and layout, then sat down at my computer to put in some information.

As I’m sitting there I feel an itch on my arm and look down to see five of these little guys hopping around on my left arm and four more on my right. Then I look down at my pants and saw the other 30-40 crawling up my legs. The place must have been crawling with them.

Got out immediately with my stuff. I was still finding them crawling on me two hours later when my friend arrived with some flea spray from the vet so I could prevent them from infesting my truck, home, kids, cat, wife, etc… Had to strip down on the porch and bag everything, even the computer, with flea killer.

What a day.

We had one example of what can happened when left unchecked. Someone had a trailer that had animals in for a short time and regretted it later. When he went on vacation he opened the door the whole trailer was filled with them.

Gross.
Reminds me of 5 years ago when I got bit all over by mites at a lakefront cabin.

Get yourself come Cedarcide. We use it for ourselves, the dogs, the cats and the horses. No fleas, no mosquitoes, no spiders. Works on bedbugs as well. Great, GREAT stuff. No poisons either, not like that crap to put on dogs and cats or the DEET (Off). Super for camping.

It is amazing how they can lie dormant for months on end in a vacant house…and in six minutes they are on you! I had a similar experience…I thought I saw some fleas jumping around during the inspection, so I put down a bowl of hot water, and in about 5 minutes the fleas were swimming all around it!

That’s exactly what I was wondering! How in the world could those things be that thick when the house is empty? I need to look up their life cycle.

And Mike, I would have been game for that dip! Every twitch and itch since this morning has had me paranoid. :slight_smile:

I don’t blame you but what did you tell your client?

20 day life cycle, but then then eggs hatch. It’s not exactly that simple, but if they feed on anyone or anything, they can lay more viable eggs, which further extends the problem.

“Don’t go in the house”. :wink:

He arrived as I was taking my stuff out so I told him we could not do the inspection until the house is treated.

There must be some animal/s in there. It reeked of cat urine but I didn’t see any openings from the exterior where they could have access.

They’re not picky, mice will work too.
That’s when things start to get bad. Feeding on rodents can cause them to spread Tularemia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001859/

I know a guy who contracted it from the mice in his hunting cabin.
It can cross the blood/brain barrier.

You were right to leave.
I’ve been in a house like that.

Fleas are not that scary. Bed Bugs worry me more.

It sounds like choose your poison Brian. :slight_smile:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Scanning_Electron_Micrograph_of_a_Flea.jpg/225px-Scanning_Electron_Micrograph_of_a_Flea.jpg http://images.agoramedia.com/whitelabel/dlp_photogallery_get_rid_of_bedbugs_01_full.jpg

The only thing scary is the thought of lost time and money as I treat my clothes, truck and house for any kind of infestation I bring home.

Never had it that bad with fleas, but German Cockroaches was another story. The whole house was crawling with them. Thousands upon thousands. I even found one in my truck two days later.