The nightmare that was yesterday

Have you ever been sitting somewhere, wishing on all that was holy that you would suddenly wake up, sit straight up in your bed while gasping for air and say to yourself, "Oh my gosh, what a terrible nightmare"? I hope not. Well yesterday I found myself, several times, wishing that upon myself.

As we were going to bed on Saturday night Jeff found two tiny little bugs crawling on his arms. He said that lately he has been feeling kind of itchy, and those bugs totally freaked him out. They kind of freaked me out too, but I had a much easier time falling asleep than he did (as I always do...).

Anyway, on Sunday morning I woke up and went into the bathroom. As I was brushing my teeth I started thinking about the previous night and the bugs. I looked down and examined myself to see if I could find any bugs. I did--start the nightmare. Over the course of the morning we found many more bugs crawling on my blankets, our bodies, Hero's fur, the carpet... We spent all morning on the phone with my family asking what these tiny little bugs were and on the internet searching for something...anything that would help us know what these things are!

We could not find ANYTHING that accurately described our situation. The bugs are teeny tiny--like if you had a pencil and you lightly touched it to a piece of paper--the mark would be how big these pesky things are. They just look like tiny black dots that crawl. They don't jump, and they don't bite. The only thing we could think of was that they were fleas, and that Hero brought them in from outside, although they didn't act like fleas at all. Fleas are supposed to jump and be hard to catch. These bugs only crawl--we even tried to make them jump! Nothing. And, neither of us had any kind of bite marks, rashes or anything on us.

So, we decided to pursue the situation as if they were fleas, just to be safe in case they were. We confined Hero to the kitchen (she whined all day long) and then went to Walmart to buy flea treatment and insecticide. Then we came home and COMPLETELY cleaned the house from top to bottom. We washed every single possible article of clothing, bedding, pillows.

We sprayed the mattress and furniture with insecticide. We vacuumed and mopped every inch of floor. We vacuumed all the furniture! Then I gave Hero a bath using flea shampoo, and then after that dipped her in this solution that is meant to kill fleas. Then I gave her medication that is supposed to kill all the fleas, and prevent others from getting on her.

After this--it took all day long--we were feeling a little bit better, although we were both so exahusted. Then we found some more bugs crawling on us. This was one of the moments that I first described to you--I wanted so badly to wake up and just realize that it all had been a dream and that I didn't actually have to go through what I was going through!

Luckily I called my dad and he had me talk to his pest control guy in Vegas, whose name is Jim. What an amazing guy! He was so kind and nice, and totally talked me through all of our problems. If you live in Las Vegas and need pest control, I highly recommend him. He said it sounded like a dry weevil aphid (which I can't find exactly on the internet, but both weevils and aphids look pretty similar to what these things are).

Gross, gross, gross

Anyway, he said they are just plant eaters, and they are probably just feeding on the dead weeds and plants outside, and then come into the house. He said we should call someone to come out and spray our house, and that the bugs should die off once it gets a little hotter outside.

So, even though as I sit on the couch typing this post I still feel like little bugs are crawling all over me, I am relieved to know that they are just tiny little plant eaters who are not searching for ways to suck my blood like fleas or ticks would. AND, on a more positive note, I have someone coming to the house tomorrow morning to spray--and hopefully KILL--all of these horrible little things.

Hopefully I will have a more positive update about our situation later on in the week!