There’s a saying “I can’t win for losing.” Meaning that no matter how hard you try, your luck never runs good.
Yeah, that’s me these days. In fact, I’m thinking of naming this blog: The Misadventures of Vanessa Kier. Or maybe Vanessa’s Misadventures. What do you think?
We still have no resolution on my latest skunk situation. The companies that do the rodent proofing have ghosted, while the skunks are still around. Over the past week, they’ve sprayed behind my unit and in front of my garage. Yep. Still marking my place as their territory.
All hail Vanessa, Queen of Skunks!
Now I have a new problem. Fleas. And midges/biting gnats.
It started last week. The side of the building where I usually park my car during the work day has become the territory of a very aggressive robin. One who sits on our side mirrors and poops. It also likes to poop in the grill between my car’s windshield and hood.
After several days of cleaning bird poop, I decided to park on the other side of the building. When I arrived that first morning, the landscaping guys were using the leaf blowers. That’s normal. But when I got out of the car and walked to the trunk, I noticed that my legs were covered with little brown bugs. I couldn’t brush them off. I had to pick them off.
I freaked out, afraid they’d been inside my car. But when I opened the driver’s door, I didn’t see any. So I think they’d been blown toward me by those leaf blowers.
I returned to the trunk and discovered more bugs on my slacks.
I pulled off the latest batch, grabbed my backpack from the trunk, and made a beeline for the front door of the building. I continued to find a few bugs on me for the rest of the day and once or twice the next day.
But mainly at the office.
The bugs were brown and jumped around a bit, so a coworker thinks they were fleas. Although I remember them as being more stick shaped than roundish like a flea.
Last night, I took my trash out to the garage. As I was working on my computer a while later, I felt something crawling on my chest under my shirt. Turns out, I had several bugs on my skin. Ick! These appeared to be more similar to gnats/midges than fleas. Black or dark gray. Yet they also jumped around. And were really hard to kill. I had to smash them fiercely with either the edge of my fingernail or a plastic spoon.
Once I was sure that the bugs were no longer on me, I put my clothes into separate baggies, and the tissues/killer spoon into another baggie. But all evening I kept finding a bug here or there. These were the black/gray ones.
Even though I checked the sheets before I went to bed, I woke up with more bites on my ankles, drops of blood on the sheets, and a few bugs on the sheets. Ugh.
I was afraid to go out to my garage. I didn’t know if I’d walked into a cobweb that had trapped some of them, or if I had a swarm living in my garage now, but I was scared to go in there. However, I rushed to/from my car when I had to go to work and didn’t pick up any noticeable swarm on my clothes. So, yay for that.
And there were fewer bugs inside my place tonight, although I did kill several. Plus, I destroyed a particularly vicious piece of dark blue lint. What?! It looked like a bug from a distance. LOL
There seem to be different methods for getting rid of fleas (vacuuming being the main one, since I don’t have pets) and midges (trap them with apple cider vinegar mixed with soap). A coworker suggested using a pesticide made with orange oil. I have no idea if any of these will work. Or whether or not this is a chronic infestation or if they’ll be gone in a day or two.
For now, I keep feeling as if something is crawling on my skin, even when it’s not. Worse, I’m covered in bites.
Ugh.
Yeah, 2021 is not proving to be any better than 2020. Apparently, trying to think positive and attract good luck has the opposite result for me. Maybe I need to try to get struck by lightening, then something good will happen to me?
*sigh*