Oh Silly Universe

So, maybe the universe isn't mad at me.  Maybe it just wanted to teach me a lesson.  Lesson of the week:  don't assume.  Because if you do... well, something about a donkey. 

You see, after Jason and my mysterious bites and the discovery of little black bugs in our living room, we jumped to the conclusion that we had bed bugs.  After further research this week and upon finding a few more of the little guys today, we're thinking that's not the case.  Jason even took one little guy to school last week to look at under the microscope with our friend Paloma, the science teacher.  She wasn't convinced they fit the whole bed bug description.  For one thing, our bugs aren't flat.  And they are more of a black/ white combo than red in color.  Oh, and what sold me today, is that they have wings. 

So, what are they then?

That's right, we're thinking they are carpet beetles.  If you look up pictures of the two, you could see how we could make the mistake.  And as my mom reminded me today, we're not entomologists.  We're just a banker and a teacher trying to survive the trials of home ownership.  And, come on, we watch you tube videos to try to fix running toilets, so our pest expertise shouldn't really be trusted.

On the bright side, if they are really carpet beetles, at least we don't have blood sucking parasites.  We just have little critters who love to eat fabric and wood and are equally hard to get rid of.  I found the source of our problem today.  It's our maroon chair we inherited from Jason's parents.  They have been telling us to get rid of it for years.  It survived three teenage boys, my college years, and our first years of marriage.  It's looking pretty sad.   But it's just so darn comfortable we couldn't say goodbye.  Tomorrow it will be heading to the dumpster.  RIP maroon chair and ottoman.  You will be missed.

We're also looking into a monthly pest control treatment.  DE, you've done us well, but we're bringing in the professionals.  If anyone has a suggestions on who to use, let us know.

Oh goodness, so much to take care of, and so much to learn.  Universe, you prankster, we can be friends again.

Can Someone Please Tell Me How to Get the Universe Back on Your Side?

Let me start off by saying that I know I am extremely lucky.  Blessed even.  Good job, loving family, sturdy roof over my head.  And I also know that there are many not as fortunate and I in no way ever want my insignificant complaints to be construed that I am not grateful for my life.  Because I am grateful.  Extremely grateful. 

And let me follow that up by saying that I promise within the next few weeks to go out and do something fun (and follow up with a fun, happy blog post) so this blog doesn't turn into an outlet for my whining.

Now that the disclaimer is over with, I'm going to whine.  Complain.  Rant.

You see, I think the universe is mad at me.  Or it's having a good laugh at my expense.  Not sure which yet.

Maybe this story would best be told through pictures.

What's Jason up to?  A little spring cleaning?

Oh, perhaps this looks familiar.  Are you thinking that our fleas have come back?  Not quite.

Nope, not fleas this time.  We think we have bed bugs.  Or more specifically, couch bugs.  And my arm, that's one bite.  Remember a couple weeks back when I thought I was bit by a spider?  Well, pretty sure that wasn't the case.

So, I think you got the idea.  Since we've moved into this house, the universe has sent us fleas and now bed bugs.  Freaking awesome. 

Of course, we're not positive they're bed bugs.  But I've now been bit three times and Jason three times as well.  And today I found one little critter on the coffee table when I was dusting.  So we dismantled the living room.  Found a second little critter.  Comparing pictures from the internet, we're pretty darn sure they're bed bugs.  Our living room is now covered in diatomaceous earth.  It took care of our flea issue, and now we're just hoping it continues to do its magic. 

Just in case, we're researching other potential infestations.  Because honestly... what's next?  Rodents?  Termites?  Fire ants?  Bees?  I just hope it's something diatomaceous earth can tackle. 

Should we call a priest to come bless the house?  A hippie to bring in the good vibes?  Someone acquainted with Chinese culture to take care of the chi?

All I know is that I need to convince the universe that we need to be friends again, because I don't know how much more of this we can take.

Bedrooms

Well, I think this might take care of showing you the rest of the house since we moved in. I finished putting up the curtains today, so now I guess we're officially done moving in. Maybe now I can actually spend some time getting out in the neighborhood and exploring what all it has to offer. It was a pretty day today, so maybe I'll take a bike ride tomorrow.

Secondary Bedroom

View from the hallway. 

 

For now, I just have my old quilt on the bed. Jason wouldn't let me put my pink college bedding in there and I didn't want his plaid maroon college bedding. I did find a bedding set at Target that I think I am going to order.

I had told Jason awhile back that I really like distressed furniture. Especially the country chic look. After he saw the rug in the secondary bedroom, he told me that he thought this type of furniture would look good in there. 

Master Bedroom

 

View from the hallway.

 

Another view.

I want new bedside tables for this room as well. We don't really like matchy furniture, so I was thinking about a round pedestal table for my side of the bed and maybe a square table with a drawer or drawers for Jason's side.

Flea Update

So Radar's been biting himself a lot today, so I just did a flea check. I found two of them. It's just so aggravating. We've treated inside, we've treated outside, he's taken flea baths, had his monthly medicine, and is wearing a flea collar and there are still fleas! I feel like we are never going to completely win the battle. 
 
Today a stray cat came and sat on our front door step and meowed for about 10 minutes. Something tells me that the old owners must have been feeding it. I'm usually an animal lover, but not when they are bringing fleas into my yard and house. 
 
Jason and I realize that if we had found two fleas on Radar a year ago, it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. Wash his bedding, make sure he was current on his meds, and that would be it. Now though, we are just sooo paranoid that it is going to become as big of issue as it was when we moved in. We just can't go through that again. Ugh. Can fleas survive winter? Please tell me they can't. 
 
Ok, I'm done with my flea rant. 
 
Next week I need to buy clippers and learn to groom the dog. Since we moved, our groomer can't come visit us every 6 weeks anymore. And I hate taking Radar to the groomer's since he isn't a big fan of other dogs, so I'm determined to learn to do it myself. I'll be saving a bunch of money too. Wish me well in that endeavour. It should be an adventure in itself.

Moving In

Consider this a sneak peak post. We were finally able to move in yesterday. Our movers weren't set to come until 4 pm so we didn't really have all of our stuff in till about 7 pm. Jason was pretty burnt out so we didn't get much done last night, but he woke up at 4 am and was ready to start unpacking. So, all of our stuff is here and we have started putting up decorations, but we are no where near being settled in. Here are just a few pics to keep you entertained until I can show off more of the house and neighborhood.

Master Bath

This is our orange master bath. I first thought I was just going to buy new bath decorations to match it like I did the green bathroom, but I really like our existing stuff. And, I just really dislike the color. It really doesn't match the blue in the bedroom either.

So, I've decided I'm going to paint. This is the new color scheme.

Can you picture it? I think it will look really nice.

Patio Furniture
I've been sorta looking for patio furniture for awhile now. My criteria has been: 1) affordable and 2) not too flimsy. I found a set yesterday that fits both criteria. You wouldn't guess where I found it either. Kroger. Ha. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm pretty excited about it either way. 

Flea Update

Oh, how are the fleas you ask? Well, we found 3 yesterday, but I'm pretty sure Radar had brought in 2 of them. The other one was from the garage. The ones we are finding are very slow and lethargic. Like the are on their last leg of life. Radar has a fresh dose of his flea medicine and outside is still pretty well dusted, so I'm hoping they don't become near the problem they were. I'm pretty sure Jason and I are scarred for life though. Last night, our first night in our home-sweet-home, we both had nightmares about flea infestations.

I'll post more updates later this week. I don't want to show too much until we are fully unpacked and decorated.

Guest Bath & New Rugs

Today we ran over to the house to show it to my parents. Flea counts were 0 inside and 1 outside. With those counts, we felt pretty good about starting to decorate. I cleaned the bathrooms and put together our guest bath with the new shower curtain and towels we had picked out. We also rolled out the rugs to see how they would look in the spaces. I ended up going back over there this evening to roll the rugs back up after I read that the floors really need to cure a full 7 days before you put anything down, but it was nice to see how they would look in the space either way.

Guest Bath

I think the new shower curtain and the brown towels and bath mat look good given the color we were given to work with. Jason is still unsure, but it will work for now.

Another view of the bath.

Jason installed this new Kohler shower head. It is fancy.

Rugs

The living room rug. It is bigger than we meant to get, but I think it will work once we get all of our furniture in there. It works well with the floor and wall colors as well.

We originally had bought this rug to use under the dining room table, but like I said, I accidentally got way too big of sizes. So, it will be used in the guest bedroom.

Other Fun

I brought Radar with me this evening when I ran over. I didn't want to chance him getting fleas from outside and I didn't want him on the wood floors, so I carried him in and barricaded him in the kitchen. He wasn't too happy with me, but I threw him his toy frog so he was a little happier.

As I was leaving, this guy rode by. He was selling raspas (snowcones for those of you not from S. Texas.) I'm kinda looking forward to taking advantage of this this summer. We also had a icecream truck come by earlier this afternoon. Icecream and raspas and a hot summer day - what more could you ask for?

Finished Floors

Our floors are finished! Between my camera and the lighting, the pictures don't really do them justice, but they really do look nice.

Before

After

A close up of the grain.

The finished second bedroom.

From the pictures, they don't really look much darker than what the original owners had in there, but we can definitely tell the difference in person. Now Jason and I walk around and notice all the imperfections in our walls, windows, doors, etc. The floors outshine everything (literally and figuratively.)

We won't have much to report for the next few days. The flea issue seems pretty much resolved in the house. (hooray!) I'm afraid to celebrate too much until we give them a few days to see if they are going to gather their armies to lead a second round of attacks against us. We can't really do much about the fleas outside this weekend because rain is in the forecast. (Did anyone experience the crazy storms that went through last night? Even Radar was a bit upset, and he never gets scared of storms. He even slept through Hurricane Ike for goodness sakes!) Once the rain pasts, we'll do another good dusting of the yard.

I think (cross our fingers) that we will be moving in next weekend. We want to give the floors a week to dry and harden before we start dragging our stuff across them. Jason might run over there to do a few projects next week, but for the most part, we are playing the waiting game.

It's really only been two weeks since we closed on the house, but it feels like this has taken a year off of our lives. Ferryn said that a bad move in makes for a happy homeowner experience for the rest of the time (kinda like the rain on a wedding day makes for a good marriage idea), but I'm 99% sure she just made that up to make us feel better. I guess we'll just have to see, but I'm hoping for at least a few weeks of less excitement.

Floor Progress & Other Projects

So a lot happened while I was out of town for business, so bear with me as I try to walk you through all the progress.

Flea Update

We have seen significant improvements in flea counts. Last night, I was at the house for about 45 minutes and only found one on me.

Today, I was at the house for about an hour. I found about six on me, but five of them were from when I was outside. I think the smart fleas led a revolt and marched all of their friends from inside where all the DE was down to outside.

Either way, these counts are much better than the 30-50 fleas within the first 10 minutes of being there like the first week.

I found a flea on Radar yesterday. And his flea allergy rash is getting worse. Poor baby. I'll just have to keep an eye on him and keep up with his flea baths and flea medicine.

Floor Update

The floor guys started on Monday.

They first started with the second bedroom.

They pulled up the fiberboard and replaced it with hardwood.

Then they sanded all of the floors.

These are the stain samples they gave us to pick from. Jason liked the ones with the yellow tones, while I really liked the more modern dark stains. We settled on "Antique Brown" which was the third sample from the left.

Today, they stained all the floors. They still need to add the polyurethane, but I think they look pretty darn good.

So to recap...

What was once this...

And then this (eek!)...

Is now this! :)

Other Improvements

Speaking of improvements....

This has been replaced...

With this.

Jason also added wine glass hangers under the cabinet.

And started to paint the iron gates.

One Last Laugh

We have a thief. Last time I left the house, this tomato was almost ready to be picked. Looks like something decided to enjoy it before we could.

A Day of Rest?

A day of rest? I wish. I tried to pull that one on Jason this morning, but he just wasn't having it. Then I tried to use the whole, "But I'm the mother of our dog... you have to be nice to me today" tactic, but that didn't work either.

Flea Update

Last night we ran into the seller's real estate agent at Blockbuster. She asked, "What are y'all doing all the way over here?" I responded, "Oh no. You don't want to know." After I explained the whole situation and our attempts at remediation, she seemed genuinely surprised. Of course, there is nothing she can really do at this point but wish us luck. She is, however, now the buyer agent for the sellers, so I'm sure at some point she is going to have an interesting conversation with them.

I would say today was the first day we saw a big improvement in the flea counts. We saw maybe a fifth of the fleas that we normally see. We were going to sweep up all the DE inside, but Jason really wanted to leave it down for another night. He'll just head over there really early tomorrow before the floor guys come.

We threw the carpet to the curb today. Tomorrow is heavy trash pickup day, and I'm not clear about whether or not that includes just tree limbs or other stuff, so I'm really hoping they haul away everything.

Because we were storing the carpet in the garage until we could put it to the curb, the fleas were pretty bad in there. We used the rest of our DE in there today.

Jason worked so hard today, he rubbed holes in his tube socks. Those went straight into the garbage.

Overall, today was another productive day. Jason pulled out all the plants and weeds from around the garage and I finished replacing the locks on the doors. Tomorrow the floor guys start and our new appliances get delivered. I won't be in town for the next two days, so we won't have any updates to share until Wednesday. I REALLY hope that when they start repairing the floors that the fleas don't come out in numbers from under the boards. I'm pretty sure I'm starting to have nightmares about this stuff. Let's all hope it's over soon.

A Night Off

Yesterday I asked my kind, sweet husband if we could go to dinner and watch a movie instead of going over to work at the flea house. He obliged, thank goodness. I really needed a night away from the fleas, powder, and despair that is our house. So, instead, we went to a wine bar and then to watch Iron Man 2.

The wine bar was nice. Still not as nice as the one we had by our place up in the Woodlands - that one still has the best caprese salad we've ever had, and the prices are much better than the one we went to last night.

Our waitress commented that we must be from Houston if we could tolerate the heat and sit outside. I think it hit 90 degrees yesterday.

Okay, call me paranoid, but as I was scrolling through the pictures we took, I couldn't help but think, "OMG, is that a flea on me?"

Yikes, I sure hope it is a piece of dirt or pepper. I just went and checked in the mirror, and I don't have a freckle right there.

Yesterday, I had to explain my co-workers at lunch the careful process Jason and I go through not to cross-contaminate our cars and the apartment every time we visit the house. It involves a lot of careful inspections for fleas and clothes washing.

One last picture before we head to the movies.

The movie was okay... lots of action. I'm, sadly, officially an old fart and fell asleep during part of it. I'm sorry... but it was a long week and it was past my 9 pm bedtime.

When Jason wakes up we'll be heading back over to the house today to do some more flea hunting. We also want to change out all the locks on our doors and do some weeding in the yard. I keep telling myself that all this work is worth it. At least we will be able to move into a house that is even nicer than when we bought it.

A Flea Haiku for You

i really hate fleas
they are ruining my life
i want them to die

Home Ownership - A Series of Unfortunate Events (Week 1 Recap)

So, a few weeks before we closed on our house, I mentioned to Jason that I wanted to start a blog about interesting things in our neighborhood and about the fun adventures of being a new homeowner. Our house is located in the Southeast side of town, and not many people appreciate the hidden jewel of a neighborhood that it is located in. Anyhow, I hadn't planned on starting the blog until several weeks after we were settled in, but then again, I hadn't planned on home ownership being so exciting in just the first week. So, before we head out into the neighborhood (which might not happen for a few more weeks) here's a recap of just our first week of being homeowners.

Day 1 (Hours 1 & 2) - Happy Homeowners:

Jason is excited to be in the house!

One of the many dorky pictures we took in front of the house.

The living/ dining room. Our rugs were delivered yesterday. I'm looking forward to when we finally get all of our furniture in there.

The kitchen. We will be updating the refrigerator and dishwasher with stainless steel appliances. We have also done some research on painting the laminate cabinets, but that might have to wait to be a summer project.

The sunroom. We will put bookcases and our records in here.

The secondary bedroom. Notice the freshly vacuumed carpet.

The bright green hall bathroom. We bought a new shower curtain (not pictured) and bath rugs from Target that I think will help tone the color down a bit.

The master bedroom.

The master bathroom. The shower has a retractable shower head that really helps when it comes to washing Radar.

Day 1 (Hour 3 and Beyond) - The Beginning of the Demise:

As I sat on the master bedroom floor trying to close a loan over the phone with work, I looked down at my socks and noticed they were covered with fleas. Playing it cool, I threw my socks into the corner of the room and calmly remained on the phone for another hour. As soon as I hung up, I called Jason and had him call an exterminator over ASAP. The exterminator came and sprayed inside, and indicated that all of the fleas should be gone in about two hours.

So, in two hours, Jason and I loaded up our cars with a second batch of all of our belongings and headed over to unpack. At this point we had Radar with us, because, after all, the fleas were all supposed to be gone...

This is what I looked like when we found out that the fleas were in fact, not all gone. I'm sure I'll someday regret posting a picture of this sad, pathetic face on my first blog post, but I really want y'all to feel like y'all our there with us - raw emotions, grubby clothes, and all.

We dusted the bedrooms with Diatomaceous Earth. Before we left, we checked Radar for fleas. He was covered in them. We had to give him a flea bath and carry him to the car before we headed back to the apartment.

Day 2 - Flea Bombs & Carpet Removal:

Jason and I headed over early in the morning and set off flea bombs in every room. We left them in there for two hours while we ran errands and met Ferryn and Steve for lunch. I think Ferryn and Steve felt sorry for us (probably because I was on break-down number two of the week) and came over to help assess the situation. Even after the bombs, we still had fleas. Ferryn suggested ripping out the carpet and I thought destroying something might make me feel a little better, so ripping we did...

Do I look a little more excited? We found out that there were hardwoods under the carpet, but there had been some previous damage patched with fiberboard.

There was also a lot of pee stains under the carpet.

Ferryn and I went to a couple of floor stores to price carpet vs. repairing the hardwood floors. While carpet is much cheaper, the thought of what was under it grosses me out a bit. We've settled on repairing the hardwoods.

Day 3 - White Socks & Dog Baths:

While Jason dusted outside the house again, I attempted the white tube sock method of flea removal. How does that work? Apparently fleas are attracted to white. They jump on your legs and you pick them off and drown them. We wear white socks and keep bowls in every room now when we visit.

When I got back to the apartment for the evening, I had to give Radar a second flea bath. Poor little pooch. Not only are his seasonal allergies acting up, but now he has a horrible rash caused by his flea allergies. He is not a happy dog.

The one plus of Day 3? We ordered our new refrigerator and dishwasher. They will be delivered and installed next Monday.

Days 4 & 5 - Floor Guys:

While I was working overtime on Monday and Tuesday, Jason met with several floor guys to get quotes on what it would cost to get all the floors refinished. We are hoping that after all of the sanding, staining, and polyurethane any remaining fleas will be stuck for good under the floor and won't be able to emerge. Jason also met with the exterminator once again who treated inside and outside to no avail.

Day 6 - Diatomaceous Earth:

Jason sums up our sentiments in three words.

Preparing for the dust down. Jason's eyes show pure hatred for the fleas.

Get 'em, Jason!

After we spread the dust, we tried to get the dust in between every crack and crevice on the floors.

Day 7 - Ups and Downs:

So, that's where we are at. To make matters worse, the air conditioner in our apartment is out. It is about 85 degrees in there right now. Also, Radar has panic attacks every time we leave him at the apartment by himself. All of our stuff is gone (just our big furniture pieces remain), so he thinks we are running off and leaving him forever. A glimpse into his past life before we adopted him? Who knows.

Although, I do have to admit that there are a few good things about our predicament.

1) So far, Jason and my freakouts have not happened at the same time. That's a good thing, because when one of us is down, the other one can shed a little bright light on the situation.

2) Our friends and family have been very supportive. Thanks for all of the funny comments. It makes us happy to know that at least our misfortunes are entertaining. Believe me, we realize that one day we will be able to look back and laugh about all of this... we are just not there quite yet.

3) We get newly refinished wood floors. While this isn't something we were planning on doing, it will be nice to move in and enjoy them. We even get to choose a new stain color.

4) Our appliances will be delivered before we move in. No having to move furniture to get them in the house.

5) While it sucks that we have to eat out every meal because all of our dishes are at the house and our food is at the apartment, we got free sake last night when we went to eat sushi. Jason and I don't really like sake, but it was kinda a neat experience either way that would not have happened if we were already moved in.

I think our go-forward plan is to do the white sock removal method through Sunday. Sunday we will sweep up and vacuum the powder. We will also remove the rolled carpet from the garage and put it out for bulk trash day. We need to re-dust outside, especially the garage once we remove the carpet. On Monday, the floor guys start. I hope most of the fleas are gone by then.