Since Tobi's birth our guest room has gotten quite the workout. It started with my parents, who came to help out shortly after Tobi was born, followed by Andrej's sister, Marina ("Tet Mina"), who spent 7 weeks with us. My parents came back during that time also for Kaiya's birthday. We were so blessed to have the extra hands and help as we transitioned from our family of three to our family of four. Then a few days after we got back from our Labor Day trip to South Carolina, our dear friend Lenka, from Slovakia, came to visit us for a week. She spent the summer working in Alaska, and since she was so close she decided to pop over to Michigan for a visit :-). We had the best time catching up as it had been over three years since we last saw Lenka. I thoroughly enjoyed the "girl talk" and it took me back to the many conversations we shared during the time I lived in Slovakia. Kaiya fell in love with Lenka immediately and it made the transition from Marina leaving a little bit easier.

During Lenka's visit we spent a lot of time hanging out, catching up and managed a quick trip out to Lake Michigan.

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All of the house guests up until this point were invited, wanted and greatly appreciated. However, shortly after Lenka left the uninvited and unwanted ones moved in and we are still trying to evict them. I'll need to back up a little to explain. Since our guest room is also our office, Andrej created a make shift office down in the basement during the time my parents were first occupying the office/guest bedroom. Andrej has a web development side business and needs a quiet place to work.

While our basement isn't the nicest place in the house, it is finished and provided the space Andrej needed. Towards the end of Marina's time here, Andrej began to notice that he wasn't alone in the basement. As he worked he could hear a squirrel munching on his dinner and once even heard him sneeze. Upon further investigation, he found out the squirrel was in the chimney and could be heard through the fireplace. Andrej knew the fireplace was closed and there was no way for the squirrel to get into the house so we went about life and didn't pay him much attention.

Fast forward a month and half, and we started to notice a flea here and a flea there and when I found one attached to Kaiya's earlobe one afternoon I started to get worried. Andrej and I were both baffled because we don't own any animals, nor have there been any inside our house. Andrej figured he had picked them up during one of his daily walks with Kaiya. A few days passed and we were still finding one or two on us a day. Then one evening Andrej had a friend coming over so he could help him with his website. Since Andrej hadn't moved the office back upstairs after Lenka left, he decide that he and his friend would just work in the basement. Andrej went downstairs to tidy up a bit and was back upstairs in minutes completely frustrated as his socks were covered in fleas and he had been bitten numerous times.

We were both so confused as to how we got fleas in our basement without owning a pet. Andrej called a friend who is a housing inspector to see if he had any insight on our situation. Our friend asked if we had any problems with squirrels because they are known for carrying fleas, and it clicked immediately. The "cute" squirrel munching away in the chimney had not only made himself at home, but also allowed his fleas to do the same.

Thankfully, we rent our house so we had/have our landlord's help to tackle the problem. We called him immediately and he came over the next day. After inspecting the chimney and unable to find the squirrel or a nest, our landlord believes the squirrel actually got into the basement somehow, although the theory has yet to be proven. We immediately treated the carpet, fireplace and surrounding areas to kill the fleas, and sealed off and stopped using the basement to stop bringing the fleas upstairs into our home.

The treatments seemed to have worked as we thankfully haven't had anymore fleas upstairs, but Andrej thinks they moved to the very back room of the basement where our storage is located; one of the few rooms we didn't treat. Lovely! We are leaving for our trip to Slovakia soon, and I'm thankful for a break from these unwanted house guests. I'm really hoping they will be gone once we return and we can put all of this behind us. We are also praying the squirrel doesn't decided to take up residence again. He is not welcomed!