Apparently, I spent much of my adult life sheltered from what must be a daily reality for some folks. I showed an inexpensive bank-owned house yesterday evening to a curious buyer. Among other issues, it was infested with fleas. Up until the most recent housing cycle, I had never seen fleas swarm one’s ankles when walking into a home with wall to wall carpet. I am sadly familiar with that now. It is still disturbing to think that humans live this way, and maybe even unimaginable for most people until you see it with your own eyes. Imagine Redding summer heat and no electricity for so much as a vacuum cleaner.

Yesterday started me thinking about the health implications, so I browsed over to the CDC website.

Ever heard of Typhus? (2 kinds) Tapeworms? Flea-borne Rickettsiae? I was wondering about plague (Yersinia pestis, known in history as black death) but that’s not prominently mentioned. From the site, “flea-borne diseases could reemerge in epidemic form because of changes in vector-host ecology due to environmental and human behavior modification” and “economic factors, as well as changes in human behavior, have resulted in the emergence of new and the reemergence of existing but forgotten infectious diseases during the past 20 years.” Hmm. Anyway, here’s the website if you’re interested:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol3no3/azad.htm -and thanks to the CDC for the image seen above.
It’s quite sight to behold, fleas leaping from carpet to your feet and legs with such swarming gusto. Not all bank owned properties have fleas, but some do. Its not that bad in the winter, but on a hot day, they have remarkable mobility. It doesn’t even startle me anymore. Maybe it should.
The one that still haunts me is the house in south Redding/north Anderson last year, where it was apparent that the evicted had been doing child day-care. I saw the home pre-eviction, when there were kids there, and then a few days after they had left. Along with fleas were the largest rats I’d ever seen. That one was brutal. It ended my sheltered life forever.

News that 600 Starbucks will be closed has recently been accompanied by articles of various towns rallying behind their favorite Starbucks to try and keep it open. When it was announced that this store on the corner of Cypress and Civic Center was being axed, no such outcry seems to have been heard.

There are loads of alternatives to this one if you really need that latte, some just a block away.

Mabel? You smell smoke?

Ran into this while showing bank-owned homes to a buyer yesterday. It’s at the front door. She said it was a curse on the house.

She said “I know how to remove the curse,” to which I replied “So do I. Tear off the paper.”

And she said, “Well it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Maybe so. Too bad for the seller.

The Fourth of July is always a large celebration in Redding. This year it is decidedly low-key because of all the forest fire activity going on. They canceled the big fireworks show, for instance. That’s usually a big deal around here, but the cancellation seems totally appropriate given the fire situation. Anyway, when morning arrived it was so lovely outside, we rode our bikes on the River Trail and I took a few photos. We didn’t have to drive a hundred miles, and our fun was all human-powered. That’s what I love about Redding, all this beauty, all inside the city limits. Click here to see my photos. Meanwhile, we are barbecuing burgers with family for the rest of the day. Happy Independence Day to you!