So the wonderful, needy, overly affectionate kitty went back the Seattle Humane Society today looking a hell of a lot better than he did when I picked him up. They were about to foist another kitty-in-need on me for another 14-day "fostering" session but I begged off saying I had to do something about the fleas which were now happily residing in the shabby old carpet in my tiny apartment.
I mentioned that I'd been using baking soda and diatomaceous earth and that the fleas just sorta laughed that stuff off and I asked if there was something between baking soda and a RAID flea bomb which I didn't want to do as you have to like go check into a motel for a few days until the Sarin gas wears off. Somebody said something about 'boric acid' which you can get in powder form some where and it's only mildly toxic to people-n-pets but apparently way more irritating to fleas, the Star Trek Borg of the parasite world ('resistance is futile!').
So off I went to the vast, depressingly empty Factoria mall and at Petco I let a cashier talk me into "Zodiac Carpet and Upholstery Flea Powder". Remember that name, folks, because it should have had A GIANT BLACK SKULL on the front of the can and they should have called it "Ode 'de Love Canal" or "Essence of Linfen" (Linfen is supposedly the most toxic city in China).
The truly witty part in this purchase? The effing can said something like "may treat a 200-400sq ft area". Fuck me running. It should have said: "To kill everyone at Safeco Field during a game, open can, and run away very fast."
This shit was so bad, I'm pretty sure if Keith Richards snorted a line, he really would die ... or at least have a bad cold for a week.
I put a small half-circle of the crap around the bottom of my bed frame as that was Valencio's favorite napping//lurking area. I then began the 4-hr task of washing every piece of linen I own including all the towels the cat had bedded down on and all my sheets, duvet, etc.
I came back upstairs and about then I noticed the paint-peeling vapors from this small line of powder in the carpet. I had already opened all my bay windows, cranked the fan, etc. The directions said "allow to sit for 60 minutes or over night". If I had actually let it sit over night, I'd be dead right now and the powder would have burned a crescent-shaped hole thru my floor!
Instead, I immediately vacuumed the shit up and desperately started sprinkling baking soda everywhere the nuclear waste had been. There were multiple sessions downstairs cleaning my vacuum, knocking crap out of the now pretty trashed HEPA filter, wiping every part of the vacuum down with Orange Clean and water, etc.
Finally, after five hours of living inside a freezing wind tunnel, the vapors seem to have eased off. I took a long shower and will have to wash the Agent Orange out of my clothes tomorrow and dust every single freaking surface in my apartment.
A quick look at the can, which is bagged up and going in the trash tomorrow says:
Linalool 2.5%
piperonyl butoxide .5%
pyrethrins .075%
Nylar pyradine .020%
"other" 96.9%
Yummy!
I'm sure this stuff wouldn't fly with the cocaine crowd but if you like a good gas huffing or glue sniffing high, this stuff will do the trick. I'm still dizzy and confused.
And if even one flea egg hatches and I get one more bite after this AND I grow gills or a hand-shaped tumor in the middle of my forehead, I am so suing "Zodiac".
