Since some of you were kind enough to identify the photos of household tormentors as fleas, I thought you might be amused to hear of the subsequent happenings.

After two treatments, a week apart, of carpets, bedding, clothes, etc with insecticides, etc, we stopped getting nasty bites around the ankles, and I didn't find any more clear physical evidence of fleas. But we carried on feeling itchy. Was this psychosomatic? Was this because baby fleas don't bite so bad, and the bites would get worse as they grew up?

No, as I finally spotted yesterday, it was because we were simultaneously suffering from headlice.

At least we are in possession of a 5-yr-old child and thus getting head-lice is unsurprising. I still feel sore for getting fleas when we don't have a pet. And have a wife with a cleaning fetish.