# 5

FLEAMAGEDDON

My employer is the owner of numerous properties we could euphemistically refer to as 'affordable housing'. 
I am obligated under the implied employer/employee contract to make necessary repairs and ready vacated 'units' for unsuspecting new occupants for which I am compensated at an hourly wage a full one-dollar and nine-cents above the poverty level as assessed in 2010 but unadjusted for current inflation. 

I am not complaining just being thorough. I enjoy the fresh air, store bought edibles and hey, I'm happy to be employed and be of service in good works for my benevolent employer in this...the 'new' economy.

The property of current infestation is a 'studio' or efficiency model (a two story single-family dwelling it's inside staircase severed and discarded thus transforming the home into two separate living quarters <- a house divided, etc.) there were and still are as of this writing two holes in the wall caused by rain water infiltrating the exterior walls specifically around the windows which frames were and are still in a state of disrepair/deterioration - this was the project, some caulking painting spackling painting - good-enough-and-gone.

The initial visit was a brief walk-through inspection, pen and notepad in hand to record a list of supplies. Later the same day I returned to drop off required supplies and a dehumidifier for the basement (an earlier basement repair involved a spider infestation that, as I now reflect, was a bucolic experience in comparison.).

It was during the same day but later visit that I'd noticed a little bug by my side which I reflexively maneuvered to smush or squish with my finger tip and God's approval but the bug took an arcing flight that, at first, in a brief surge of adrenaline, I questioned myself if this indeed could be...? No, I was just being paranoid.

I say paranoid because, when it comes to fleas ( I'll struggle to stay focused on just this one subject of extreme suspicion) I would rather burn a building down than endure even one bite. The background or history of me and flea goes some 17yrs to an experience I'll never forget and will forever carry it's pyschological scar.

But then, I leave and return the following morning forgetting any matter of bugs as I go about unpacking the dehumidifier and bringing in various things from outside, the general sort of busy type preparing-to-actually-work kind of stuff that the hourly employee knows well how to do.

I am also, while fraudulently collecting my first hours pay (with full justification in mind, of course i.e., I should be getting paid a lot more - do you know how much it would cost to hire a pro, etc and whatever -you get it.) taking a phone call from a renter of another property across town a motor-mouthed fiery red-head Caucasian from "the hood" who, I have laid on the table, the call I mean, and engaged the speakerphone option as it becomes obvious I am not needed to participate in the call except for an occasional "yeah" which, with ambiguous inflection I'd say as I passed by the phone inserting the "yeah" at the end of a sentence (or inhalation), in regards to what I have no clue. The person on the other end of the phone was, I'm sure, interpreting my un-nuanced "yeahs' as either empathy, solidarity or and "You gotta be kidding me!"

Fiery-Red-Head continues in oblivious ranting for 11minutes and 31 seconds. Not to give the impression that I'm indifferent towards the needs of the tenants of 'affordable housing' (nor do I take offense when a tenant, while on the phone or speaking to a co-habitant, refers to me as their 'maintenance man', e.g. "Shut up, my maintenance man here!" - it's not easy but I humble myself and say nothing) on the contrary, legitimate concerns regarding property disrepair always gain my full attention it is in this way that I breath the freedom air. This particular FRH hadn't mentioned any property related issues beyond the first thirty seconds mentioning a city flyer being posted about the neighborhood concerning weeds and garbage and then she went on to complain about the neighborhood, cell phone contracts and much much more, I am sure.

It's at this time, feeling a couple of sudden tiny pinches, I look down to see the jumping invasion. There were too many to count, I can't - Have you seen the photo of the man covered in bees?

Slight exaggeration.

[These are terrorist vampires they wear no uniform but the shiny, hard to squish, coat of sucking hematophagy. It's actually suggested by trusted sources (internet) that one should roll the flea between thumb and finger to 'confuse' the flea - Yeah, get 'em all out of sorts, maybe spin it around in circles until it screams "stop! Stop! I'm gonna puke!" Put a blindfold on 'em play pin the genitalia on the anatomically correct (minus genitalia obviously) cardboard flea cut out.]

Due to time and space constraints as well as possible future interaction in-person with certain possible readers that would likely involve eye contact, I am omitting the immediate panic/hysteria etc. which then caused a flurry of auto-defensive manic-extreme thoughts - i.e., my first thought was to torch the place.

Some random (edited) thoughts 'in the moment':

This place is infested

I'm getting the out of here

there are no emergency phone numbers programmed into my phone's speed dial feature.

No one knows I'm here!

No, wait, the Sheriffs department does.

[BTW - the time necessary to write this spellbinding pot-boiler has, by my estimation, increased by 3,4 or even 5 (to 10) times the usual amount of time spent on spellbinding siphonapterical pot-boilers due to frequent pauses for the scratching and examination of numerous creeping/prickling/stalking itches, imaginary or not. Yes, I'm one of those that get all itched out and twitchy when the topic turns to fleas sucking your blood, lice crawling on your head, crabs crawling on your , genital herpes, scabies - if none of this has any creepy-itchy effect on you (and your not on opiates), please keep your proper distance.] 

About, These Fleas of Mine (obscure DeGeneres reference)

Fleas can be drowned in water. 
I imagine holding them individually under water in a long twisted dream-sequence type of story that I've decided not to include.

From Science News:

(I quote from a quote) "Researchers with the University of Cambridge in England have shown that fleas take off from their tibiae and tarsi - the insect equivalent of feet - and not their trochantera, or knees."

This bit of research is no help at all and a waste of research time/money/effort and the expense and ink to print the results in a periodical unless it was published in the Waste of research time/money/effort section of Science News right next to "more results from ketchup research"

Researchers should be researching ways to kill fleas, in all their life stages, exclusively and if or when that scientific discovery of best methods is made, they should pass that information on to companies such as Black Flag - of the popular Roach Motel & aerosal spray formulas - whose flea killing products, in my opinion, seem to lack the killing aspect.

When a person is in need of flea killing pesticides they might expect that after purchasing a product that boasts (no, EMBLAZONS) the popular brand enhancer 'EXTREME' (at a 45 d/angle - CRAZY, EXTREME FLEA KILLING SHIT - my extrapolation but who could blame me{rhetorical}), that the product, once in contact with said extreme killing contents, kills fleas where they stand (or suck) or at least scare the shit out of the flea as it tries, impotently,to escape.

what you wouldn't expect or want to see is a flea casually strolling up your pant leg even as you direct a fully pressurized spray of Black Flag EXTREME (this scene now reminds me of another scene, one in which Spock goes into a furnace blast of radiation to save something or other - maybe the whole spaceship with JT Kirk aboard, of course - and I'm not really a star Trek mega-fan or sci-fi enthusiast - it probably can be traced back to my childhood, as all things must.) bug spray which also boasts, on the bottom-right corner of front label, stamina so powerful it "Keeps on killing for up to 7months!" This being my second trip to spray, a full 6months and 28days of extreme killing action supposedly still in effect ,not to mention as I mention the 4 HotShot brand Flea Foggers I'd set off just 24hrs past. I remove Spock-flea with the tip of the spray nozzle attached to useless jug of mostly (98.98%) water.

Epic Black Death: In the 14th century the bubonic plague killed somewhere around half the population of Europe but not before they suffered an abundant amount of pain and suffering such as - muscle cramps/seizures/extremely painful swelling of the lymph glands in the groin,armpits and neck/hemophilia of the cochlea/chronic vomiting of blood/aching limbs/even more EXTREME pain brought about by decomposing flesh while still alive. The vector of the bubonic plague & pneumonic or septicemic varieties, is or can be, the bite of a single flea. Overreacting? Hardly.

Plague aside, fleas also cause anemia, tapeworms, stomach 'flu' and typhus.

Fleas don't bite, actually, they 'siphon'. Fleas penetrate your skin and suck your hot fresh tasty blood through their pointy straw like mouths. That's not a bite, it's sicker than that and so is this, flea dirt.

Flea dirt occurs when the flea is so greedily sucking your blood that it must defecate to make room for more and does so while still suck, sucking away on your blood while leaving a pile of ass-blood-shit like substance on your skin. It's like eating pizza on the toilet - not really -like eating a BLT while you rape a pig - no - biting into the neck of a cow while riding around shitting on it?Maybe.

When not sucking fresh blood from it's host/victim the flea lays about waiting for the next liquid feed bag to come unsuspectingly walking into the room. From Wikipedia: When the family and pets are gone, flea eggs hatch and larvae pupate. The adult fleas fully developed inside the pupal cocoon remain in a kind of "limbo" for a long time until a blood source is near. When a person arrives(sensing carbon dioxide, noise and vibrations) he or she is immediately attacked by waiting hungry hordes of fleas. (In just 30 days, 10 female fleas under ideal conditions can multiply to over a quarter million life stages.)

If you can read this, you are the resistance.