So the bug story continues.

Right now I’m sitting inside the Beaches branch of the Toronto Public Library accessing the free wireless internet (so cool!) because my bed, couch and carpet/rugs have all been sprayed with flea killer. Hence my apartment is smelling rather toxic right now.

So after leaving two voicemail messages and a note to my neighbour down below (who is the landlord’s cousin) I finally got my landlord on the phone earlier today. He said he hadn’t heard anything about my bug problem! What the?!

Anyways I explained the scenario to him and he suggested that I might have a case of flea attack not bed bugs as I had originally thought. It didn’t really matter to me at this point, I just wanted whatever the heck that was biting me every night this week to disappear!

He started questioning me about whether I’d had other people sleep at my place (well I had Nadja apartment sit for a month whilst I was in Sydney but she didn’t report any bug problems so I told him “no”), whether I had any pets in the place (definitely not unless you count the couple of times months ago when Mr Whiskey, the neighbour’s cat, had come to visit) and whether I had gone to the beach. Apparently fleas can come from the sand in the beach (anybody know if that’s true or not?).

I still postulate that the bugs came from Presqu’ile or even before then. The only other thing that I could think of were the large boxes that I had shipped over from Sydney, maybe these critters had travelled long distance to come see me…

So about an hour or so ago the landlord came over, sprayed the bed, couch, pillows and carpet/rugs. He gave me a new set of linen, told me to wash the old ones in hot water and hinted that this sort of thing really isn’t under his jurisdiction i.e. it’s my problem and I should deal with it.

I didn’t quite agree with that but I’m not too clear on Canadian tax law (in Australia, the landlord can call in pest control and deduct the expense as maintenance on the property) so I didn’t say anything, and simply thanked him for coming over and doing what he did. It was a nice thing to do, and he also helped me install the air conditioner. That was timely because I was sitting in my lounge room virtually melting away today. So it came as no surprise when the landlord advised me that it was 30 c out today, with humidity even higher.

So as I waited for everything to dry I figured I’d grab my laptop and head out for some much needed fresh air. The insecticide smell, lovely as it is, was getting to my brain.

Now I’ve been told the library closes in 2 mins so I’m getting booted out (booOoo!!). I guess I’ll go outside and sit on a bench for another while.

Hopefully this is the last of my bug problems. Status update soon.