Being eaten alive.

[Millymollymandy]

But if you have on trousers or shorts or a skirt or what ever and they are on the floor, then you will more often than not get bitten where described with fleas. Or if you lie down then around your belly and on your arms. What Pea describes is exactly what my wife gets when she is in contact with fleas. She really does come up badly as well.

I suspect mine (that sounds awful doesn't it?!) jump on me straight off the cat then. I never get them on the legs, usually around the torso and they are quite happy to go inside my clothing!

However I think everyone gets bitten by different things in different ways, as my brother gets harvest mite bites when he is here predominantly on his legs, whereas I get them in all the usual 'sweaty' places - under bra or knicker elastic and waistband - it's where they like best.

[Millymollymandy]

guess the consensus is fleas then. I read somewhere (though for the life of me cannot find the article now) that chiggers (mite larvae) feed on thin skin such as shins, and are more likely to eat females as they're tastier/more delicate skinned. The pictures do look a lot like what I found in the cupboard. Can you see fleas?
Where do we get the ''bomb''? The house is going to be unoccupied for two months soon, would the fleas starve off or is that wishful thinking?

You can see fleas easily but harvest mites (chiggers) you can't see. The difference between the bites is that harvest mites leave scabs every time as they leave their feeding tube inside your skin. They aren't sucking your blood but actually eating your dissolved skin (or something equally hideous ). They are around here (French countryside) from about early July thru to October, so if you have been being bitten since the winter then I don't think it is them.

For fleas you can buy sprays to spray on carpets and furnishings which are supposed to kill the larvae, and you do this at so many weeks interval because doing once may not kill them and then the larvae hatch out later on and you have an infestation again. We've bought stuff from the vets but I would imagine you could get this sort of stuff in a chemists.

Not sure about where to buy these 'bombs', I've only read about them, not used them. They will nuke everything alive apparently but I'm not sure about flea larvae.

[green_pea]

I think I might be being eaten by a combination of all of them while I've been cleaning, I've found more of the mite things which have now migrated from his cupboard, they're teeny tiny and hardly visible like little specks of dust. I also squished a horse fly which left a big splodge of blood on the wall.
The bite I had in October was one with a scab, then the scabby ones started again sort of May time, before that it was just itchy midgie like bites (fleas? ), also had a dozen horse fly bites which swelled up so much it looked like I had deformed calves. Why me! No one else has even had one bite, ick I'm itching now, back to cleaning!

[Millymollymandy]

Blimey Green Pea get some insect repellant on you, NOW!!!!!! I get bitten by everything around too and cover myself in it every day from July thru October - so thankfully just a bite or two a week now instead of every day! (We have biting spiders here too which ignore my husband )

[Green Aura]

You can get flea bombs from pet shops or fleabay

[green_pea]

Ok, so I said they didn't like ankles after cleaning yesterday they obviously got annoyed at me! I have bites all the way up my thighs now, and worst bit is there's a cluster of them on the inside of my left ankle, literally hundreds of bites in one spot, so many that the skin has broken and must have rubbed off on something so it's just red raw with no skin.

MMM I've tried bug spray and I think it'll kill me before it gets rid of any of the buggers. They just bit on any possible patch that I might have missed, and I don't fancy doing a thorough job and then just getting bitten in the rudie bits! I'll probably try it again though but daren't put it on at the moment as it'll sting like hell on my new skinless bits.

Going to clean clean clean more today, wash EVERYTHING, hoover EVERYWHERE. Then if they still persist I'm going to bomb them.

[green_pea]

... biting spiders??

[boboff]

Mate I really feel for you.

Is it rented? Are you at college, I really think you should take your bites and show them to people, to get bitten like that makes your home uninhabitable. Take pictures of your injuries and kick up a fuss with someone.

As well as the sprays make sure you keep yourself covered up, it might be time to get the bike clips out again!

[green_pea]

Yeah it's rented, I really wish we had taken photos when we moved in. It was absolutely disgusting! A centimeter thick of grease/food on the kitchen walls and ceiling, vomit on the curtains, the inside of the cupboards were coated with sticky slime and pubes , no hot water, no fire alarms, the back door didn't lock and the front door had a snapped off handle and no keys that fit it, walking on the carpet was like wading through landfill... I could go on all day..

I have been so tempted, not just because of now being eaten alive, but so many other nasty things. The only thing is, we looked after a dog for a month in November so they would just point fingers at us and possibly take deposits off us (which were a lot of money!) if we kick up a fuss about it. I know it probably seems like it was the dog to blame, but it was de-flead and checked regularly, never came into contact with other dogs and only went out into the paved yard as it couldn't be walked because of operations etc, and besides I was being bitten before it came to stay with us. I wouldn't even know who to go to.

We did try and move out because of all of the above but we're tied in for another year, they said we would have to pay £500 each to get the house advertised and there was no guarantee that it would be rented out (basically, we can only leave if someone takes our place). G isn't even being bitten and he's sick to death of living here too.

Much to everyone's amusement I'm donning skin tight jodhpurs-type trousers, with elastic bands round the bottom and socks tucked in.

[boboff]

Pea,,,,,,

You have to do something about this.

The only tennancy you can be on really is an assured short hold one, which is fixed at 6 months, and thereafter 1 months notice. The landlord is now LEGALLY obliged to hold the deposit at a 3rd party, who could arbitrate if there is an issue.

He should also be testing gas supplies annually and have fire certificates for any furniture.

I am no expert but this is just wrong in my opinion, try the CAB and the housing benefit office at the council, I am sure they can "shut" a place down even in the private sector.

I liking the image of the jodpurs and the Bands.... very..... special.....

[green_pea]

Our tenancy agreement is until September 2012, all signed up (we were made to sign two years agreement as they said if we didn't then they would be bringing in people to look around all the time without having to give us much notice), we tried to get out of here at Christmas. I'm really not sure if it is worth it. We're students but me and G wouldn't want to house share again and as the nature of the town has it, almost ALL of the lets are student lets (aka. cram as many people into one house as physically possible) and anything further away we would have to drive into uni and parking is something ridiculous like £12/day. I would love to do something about it but to be honest, I feel like they would just f*** us over (and even if they just took the deposit that would be £1000 out of our pocket).

eh shurrup- truly better than flashing my scabby legs about!

[boboff]

OK then, possitive thoughts then.

Keep up the cleaning! Try Flea Bay for the bombs

http://www.amazon.co.uk/RENTOKIL-Cockro ... 77&sr=8-16

This one looks good!

[green_pea]

I didn't mean to sound dismissive, you are totally right and we should report it. Just it's quite a bit of money to be risking having taken away, as they would probably blame us for the bugs if they found out we had an infestation. Going to just have to shut up and get on with it for the next year unfortunately. I do hope we can rid the bug problem though. Aha! Thanks, someone we know just went for a job with rentokil, maybe we could get a discount.. hmmm...

[Millymollymandy]

Don't the councils do free pest controls for infestations? I only know they send people out to spray blocks of flats from watching that Grimefighters series.

Your place does sound seriously infested with something - I think that bug bomb thing has to be the most important thing to do first though. Good luck and I'm sorry you are going through this.

Don't worry about spiders, I have only been bitten whilst living in Brittany, never anywhere else! (so don't come here )

[boboff]

You wern't dismissive I don't think.

But it is your call. It will be a fight, you have right on your side, but you are also a student, and like you say "all you need is love" and a "mate at rentokill!"

B side beatles circa 1964.