Oh what a weekend we had at our house. Some of the adventure was planned but a lot of it wasn't. So what happened? Read on and I will tell you all about it.
I am going to start on the planned adventure. Mom brought some fresh fruit home a couple of weeks ago. Apparently she brought home some fruit flies too. That's not unusual with fresh fruit. However, the fruit flies went from just a few to an invasion to a full blown infestation. They were everywhere in our kitchen. Mom was trying all of the natural remedies to get rid of them. Those did very little to curb the problem. She even tried spraying RAID, which she really did not want to do. She finally broke down and called a pest control company to come take care of the problem. Mom was told (over the phone) that the course of action would be to treat the drains, spray the area, then fog the house. That meant all of us kitties and mom would have to be out of the house for 3 to 4 hours!
One of mom's friends came over on Saturday morning to help round us up and get us into carriers. They were literally herding cats!!! Some of had to double up in the larger carriers. Once we were all crated, she and mom carried us out to mom's SUV. Mom put the seat backs down so there would be more storage room. She had us all in the back of the SUV except for one carrier. It had to sit on the passenger side front seat. All of the windows were open, and mom parked the SUV at the back of the driveway under a tree so it was shady. We were able to get plenty of fresh air and stay cool. Also, it was a pleasant fall day with the temperature in the low 70s.
The exterminator showed up and started searching for the source of the bugs. He found a pipe under the kitchen sink that was leaking. It was a copper pipe and it had a little split. Fruit flies need moisture to reproduce. They were breeding in that damp, dark cabinet space. The good news is mom now knows where they are coming from. The bad news is there was no reason to treat the problem until the leak was repaired and the area dried out.
Mom was able to get a plumber at the house on Saturday afternoon. He fixed the immediate problem (the leaking pipe), but he showed mom that all of the old copper pipes are bad and need to be replaced. He will be coming back on Wednesday to replace the remaining copper pipes beneath the sink, and any copper pipes that are in the crawl space beneath the house.
The bug man is scheduled to return next Tuesday (one week from tomorrow) to treat the drains, spray the house, then fog the house. That means mom will have to round us all up again and get us into carriers and out of the house. And she won't have any help this time. She is actually hoping now that the leak has been repaired and the area beneath the sink is drying out, our fruit fly issue will resolve itself. Keep your paws crossed that is the case. Mom really isn't comfortable with having chemicals sprayed and fogged in the house.
The bugman was the planned adventure. The plumber was not. Mom also had one more unplanned adventure. I will save that one for tomorrow!
Purrs,
Clarissa
guys....thatz knot a fun kinda day for sure....sorreee mom & ewe had ta go thru all thiz....sure, a fly or three wooda made a tastee snax....but....knot that manee !!! hope stuff settlez down quik ♥♥♥
ReplyDeleteUgh! I hope drying out the breeding areas will solve your problem too. When Sparkle was alive, everyone had to get out of the house once to get rid of ants. That was way not fun, and there were only three cats.
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