Imagine this. You
move into a place, thinking that it is a step up for the same price you were
paying, only to find out that it’s already occupied. Not by squatters, but
rather blood sucking parasites. No, not Republicans, but close. Ticks. Yes,
those horrid little buggers that are the things of nightmares and associated
with Lyme disease. Well, that is our story.
We moved in on
Sunday the 21st of February. The roof of our previous rental had been leaking
and the management hadn’t patched the hole in the ceiling and sagging drywall
in almost a year. So, we were looking for a new place, with a new roof, and
possibly an extra room since I had my gym in the garage. That wouldn’t be too
much of an issue, but we live in southern New Mexico, where the garage would
only be inhabitable for six months out of the year, if that. We found that our
current rental property manager had a different place available, for the same
price. It was a three bedroom house that had a larger yard, which is important
when you have dogs. Since it was the same company, we were able to transfer our
security deposit to the new house, so that was an added bonus.
The actual moving
part went well, no terse words were exchanged and no injuries occurred. We
ordered takeout for dinner, since we were famished and everything was still in
boxes. During dinner, we started to see a few bugs come in through a gap in the
sliding glass door that the handyman had recently installed. We tried to
identify the bugs through a Google search during dinner, but we were not really
familiar with the bugs we were seeing. They kept coming in though. They were
crawling on the floor, on the walls, everywhere. I sprayed them with the only
thing I had available at the time, which was a bottle of 409. Note to readers,
409 does not kill ticks.
We decided to go
to bed and try to get some sleep, since it was a long day of moving and
whatnot. As we were in bed, with our dogs (since they are part of our family),
I started feeling things crawling on me. I was flicking them off of me several
times a minute. I ended up driving to our old place (which were were in the
process of cleaning out and had until the 1st of the month) and tried to sleep
on the floor. Bugs were still on me. I emailed our landlord to tell her about
the issue and then eventually got to sleep, around 4 in the morning. I woke
around 6 and saw that my landlord had emailed me back, stating that she had no
idea that there was an issue and that she would try to get the exterminator out
there that day.
I ended up going
back to our new place, and with the help of my boyfriend, packed up our dogs
and took them to our old place so that I could give them all flea and tick
baths. Going on very little sleep and high emotions, this was not a fun feat.
Dogs washed, I was exhausted, but there was nowhere to sit or lie down at the
old place, since I felt like I still had bugs on me. I took a shower and cried
hysterically (one of many such showers during the past two weeks) until the
water ran cold, trying to scrub the bugs (real and imaginary) off of my skin.
The exterminator
ended up coming out and sprayed inside and out. He said that we were infested
with ticks. There were thousands of them. THOUSANDS! He said that we should be
seeing the number decrease and that to call if they are still bad in a few
days. Since that day, we have spent over $200 on pest control out of our own
pocket, primarily for the dogs... flea and tick shampoo, tick spray, tick
collars, perimeter spray, etc. I also vacuum several times a day, making sure
that I have some Diatomaceous earth in the vacuum to torture the ticks before
they die.
Our valiant
efforts to slay the ticks were not sufficient nor effective, so the
exterminator came out a second time. This time saturating the entire place with
a substance that promised to be the end all for these creatures. We are seeing
fewer of them, but I am still sweeping up 1,000+ per day outside on our patio.
Yesterday our package from Amazon arrived, which contained a pest spray, pump
sprayer , and tick collars for the dogs. These collars came highly recommended
and were a decent price. Well, the dogs had been treated with a tick spot
treatment, tick spray, and now tick collars. All of the chemicals are just
killing me. In the 11 years that Peggy Sue has been in my life, she has never
had a single tick or had to be treated with such chemicals. We even used to go
hiking through the woods at least once a week, never getting as much as a
hitchhiker from the trips. Now, she is the one that we pulled the largest tick.
Last night, the
ticks were back in our bed, which led to horrible sleep and a hangover feeling
that I experience when I don’t have sufficient sleep and am under stress. I
work from home, so there is literally no escape. I smell like I am at a
sleepaway camp, but without the fun and treats. I am covered with OFF (with
DEET) and have found several ticks crawling on me today. One of our dogs which
we place a collar on last night wasn’t acting herself this morning, so I took
off her collar and gave her a bath.
Had we known
about all of the issues, including a dishwasher that doesn’t really work, a
garbage disposal that doesn’t work and smells like the bottom of a dumpster, a
fridge that has a mysterious odor that comes and goes (no, it’s nothing IN the
fridge, so I have no idea), and the tick infestation that has caused us to put
countless chemicals on our dogs and ourselves, there is no way that we would
have moved here.
This place is
nearly uninhabitable. It is not good for my mental or physical health, nor is
it healthy for our dogs. At least our landlord appears to be concerned and has
reimbursed us for our costs associated with the tick infestation issue. It’s
funny (not lol funny though) that the handyman noted that there were a lot of
bugs (ticks) in the frame of the sliding glass door when he replaced it, but
instead of doing anything about it, he just replaced the door and framing.
I don’t really
feel like unpacking at all and have lost close to 10 pounds since we started
moving (about a month). This is probably due to not wanting to be in the
kitchen since there are ... yup, ticks in there too, and just being too stressed.
I am not against moving again, to a house that doesn’t have any ticks and all
of the appliances work. It sucks that the place we moved out of had everything
that I liked, including a fireplace and working appliances... oh, and NO TICKS!
I just want to live in a place that is safe, clean, and habitable. Is that too
much to ask?
