Why I hate apartments.

I've lived in a lot of rentals over the years. Not a crazy-lot, but a lot. And with few exceptions, I have run screaming from all within a few months.

My townhouse with S is no exception. Probably the worst part is I went in knowing it would be awful. But it was cheap, it had vague lease terms, and a lax pet policy. But as I always say, you get what you pay for (also why I believe in government funding of social/cultural policy, but that is for a different blog).

Of the many complaints we've had, none have been by themselves deal breakers. Not like the time my land lady brought a handyman into my house unannounced while I was in the shower. Nor the time my roommate tweezed her nether regions in front of me, then nonchalantly wiped the hair onto the shared floor. But, like a bad boyfriend, these small complaints add up to a bad apartment and a whole, it isn't worth working it out.

We looked the other way at the poorly repaired flooring and the incomplete painting. We gritted out teeth as the towel bars that were installed a month after we moved in, fell out of the wall from their unanchored screws within a day. And we ignored the plethora of spiders that sat in every corner. "I'm not sure what they're eating, and I don't want to find out," I said.

And now we struggle with the infestation of fleas our poor cats are riddled with.

Riddled.

Each morning, Dharma follows me to the bathroom and I brush her with the flea comb. Each stroke pulls 3-5 fleas from her face and neck. We put Frontline on them after each received a soapy bath, which S had good luck with in the past, but each morning, I still pull off the handful of fleas on each stroke. Torah was even worse. He hates to be brushed, but every scratch to his head sprinkled the flea dirt on the ground, like so much dandruff. Maggie seemed better, but even she had them. On all of them, the fleas were winning.

Tonight, another round of baths. This time, deeper water with longer intervals of their bodies held below the surface. Tiny bodies surfaced, while others abandoned ship, or sought the higher ground of face and head. We only took them out of the bath when we could find no more bugs, usually by the time the poor cat had given up the struggle to get away. Then we put Advantage on them and hoped. I vacuumed the carpet, and watched the jumping fleas scramble through the dust within the cyclone chamber. I left the vacuum out. I'll do it again tomorrow.

I can't wait to get out of this apartment and it's infestations, but I really hope we can get these parasites taken care of before the house is ready.

Meanwhile, everything is a waiting game.

And I pulled 5 more live fleas off Dharma's head before bed.