Fleas Release Me

Warning: this will almost definitely make you itch.

Getting a cat was my girlfriend's idea [despite being nearly 40, I can't help referring to her as my girlfriend, mostly for want of a more appropriate term - partner is far too modern [and boring], other half is so twee that it actually triggers my gag reflex, while co-mortgagee seems to be selling the relationship somewhat short]. Ostensibly for reasons of hygiene, I was staunchly opposed to letting some primal, instinct-led beast waltz nonchalantly into our relatively clean living space, carpeting the place liberally with its moultings and intermittently causing digestion-related crises. The idea of an accompanying flea infestation filled me with genuine horror, and having just experienced - and finally seen off - a comprehensive incursion of the little bastards, I can only say that I probably ought not to have relented so easily.

Aah, what a kee-yoodie.

That's probably a bit unfair. While the cat was originally a birthday present from her closest friend, I inevitably warmed to the idea of having a cute little kitten lolloping about the place - hey, I'm not made of stone - and in the intervening years I've sort of appropriated her as my own pet. I'm not overly bothered about her getting onto the kitchen surfaces [expect, perhaps, when she's got back-end cleanliness issues], it's not unknown for me to drop unnecessarily generous slices of cooked meat into her bowl and I don't get annoyed when she wakes me up in the middle of the night by purring loudly and hooking her needle-sharp claws into the soft skin of my throat.

But then: the fleas.

Scientists estimate - very broadly, since fossil records are extremely rare - that fleas have been sucking the life blood of terrestrial species since the late Jurassic period, between around 200 million and 160 million years ago. Their development accompanied that of an increasing population of small nocturnal marsupials, whose descendents have been rolling around and scratching frenziedly behind their ears with their hind legs ever since.

A prehistoric mammal yesterday.

There are numerous species of flea, each needing the blood of the specific animal they've evolved to afflict in order to breed, but as long as there's a plentiful supply of the stuff they're good to go. In the course of its lifetime, a female flea will lay about 600 eggs, which cascade from the host onto the surrounding environment. Temperature and humidity permitting, these eggs will hatch within a few days and, like the godless monsters they are, the worm-like larvae instantly shun the light and crawl to the safety of darker recesses - between floorboards or into the deep, luxuriant pile of your expensive carpets. Once they pupate, these wretched abominations can lie dormant for up to two years, until ground vibrations or a rise in carbon dioxide levels - caused by the proximity of a potential host - trigger the emergence of an adult and begin the hideous cycle anew.

Here's a photo I took on my phone.

It's difficult, in some perverse way, not to admire these perfectly evolved pests, whose bodies boast some incredible features. Propelled by strong limbs, and with backward-facing bristles on their bodies for additional traction, their vertically flattened bodies can sail unhindered between the individual hairs of a host's fur [the chinchilla, incidentally, is one mammal with such a dense coat that it's naturally immune to epidermal parasites - they just can't penetrate the fur. On the downside, they enjoy gnawing through all your electric cables, so it's swings and roundabouts, innit?]. An adult flea's armoured carapace is so resilient that simply squashing them with a fingertip against whatever surface they happen to be standing on has no discernible effect: they have to be crushed flat between hard surfaces - both thumbnails are ideal - which elicits a tiny but satisfying popping sound. The chances of getting them to stay still while doing this are minimal, however, as a remarkable internal mechanism constructed of elastic protein will trigger their freakishly long back legs and enable them to jump horizontally up to about 30 cm - some 200 times their body length. They do this with such rapidity that they seem to disappear before your appalled eyes. Rolling them very tightly between finger and thumb will temporarily disable them, I discovered, allowing a brief window in which to administer the merciful killing stroke.

Satisfying though this might be, it should come as no surprise that dispatching them one at a time is not an effective long-term solution. We must have tried every available domestic product over an increasingly nightmarish six-week period: dozens of cans of spray, packets of powder, sticky rollers, lamps suspended over ultra-adhesive discs, flea combs - including an ineffectual electrified contraption apparently designed to function not as a comb but as a unique device that wastes money and squanders hope in equal measure - our house rapidly became a proving ground for all manner of freely available anti-pest measures.

Here's another one I took. It's got some fancy filter on it or something.

Those weeks of intensive trial and error eventually yielded two predominant [and fairly obvious] essentials for ridding one's habitat of unwanted residents:

1] Dose your beast up with some serious poison. This takes the form of a small capsule of liquid that you spot onto the bare skin of a cat's neck, so it can't wash it straight back off again. The poison is absorbed into the bloodstream and kills anything that drinks it. Simples. Secreted somewhere behind the veritable pornographic smorgasbord that the web offers up with such alacrity, however, are numerous interested parties arguing whether or not fleas have developed an immunity to Frontline, the cheapest and most popular product on the market. Frontline say they haven't; Frontline customers say they have. We gave the cat a fresh dose of the stuff just before she became alive with undesirables, so make of that what you will. What I make of it is this: Frontline is absolute rubbish. Two weeks after a second go-round with slightly pricier competitor Stronghold, the fleas had vacated the premises. Advocate and Advantage come similarly recommended.

2] Blitz your living space. While fleas need an uncontaminated [or Frontline-dosed] cat in order to breed, they'll hop around your house merrily enough, and in the absence of a suitable feline beverage they'll give human claret a bloody good go. For a fee, any reputable pest control service will spray the floors of your house with an odourless insecticide that dries to a powder and will allegedly doom any flea that so much as brushes against it. This treatment remains effective for several weeks afterwards, so you should avoid dysoning during this time [this advice proved superfluous in our case].

Yes, my friends, we may have won this one small battle, but make no mistake: the war against fleas is one of attrition and victory can but be pyrrhic. Borne by rats, they were instrumental in spreading the Bubonic Plague, which wiped out a third of the world's population, and they will doubtless be drinking the irradiated blood of mutant mammals long after we've checked out. Never let your guard down for an instant.

And hey, don't have nightmares!

Thousands of fleas were mortally harmed [and badly Photoshopped] in the making of this post.