How to: Delousify your house…ify

With only 10 days left of school, we got the Lice Letter. Again.

The Lice Letter, for those of you who haven’t gotten it (lucky dogs), is a letter from your child’s school/club/organization alerting you to the fact that a case of head lice has been reported in your child’s classroom. It will let you know your child is not allowed to go to school if he or she has lice and provides instructions for removing them.

But it’s a really long letter. And, in my case, it’s a really crumpled letter after its stay in my boy’s backpack. And there aren’t any pictures. Which may be for the best. Close-up photos of lice are pretty disturbing.

What they are

Lice (singular: louse) are tiny (wingless, thank goodness) gray parasites that feed on human (and only human) blood from the scalp. Lice lay white eggs, called nits, on the hair shaft near the scalp. Nits may look a little like dandruff, but they can’t be shaken off (they’re sticky).

Lice don’t fly or jump. They spread quickly by head-to-head contact or by using combs, hats, or the clothing or bedding (think sleepovers and shared sleeping bags/pillows) of an infected person. According to the Mayo Clinic, head lice are “second only to the common cold among communicable diseases affecting schoolchildren.” Anyone can get lice, and having lice is not a sign of poor personal hygiene. It may be a sign of having no concept of personal space, but it isn’t a sign of being “dirty.”

Girls and ladies generally get lice more often than boys and men.

How to find ‘em

When you get the letter, or when you hear about someone else’s class getting the letter (because the kids all share recess, lunch, PE, whatever), check your kid. I find it’s best to sit my kid down on the bottom stair, flip on all the lights in the stairwell, and sit behind him, up a few steps (but my kid is a giant and this is the only way I can get above him anymore). Check behind the ears and along the back of the neck especially. Look for the actual critters—gray flecks about 1/8-inch long—or the nits. If you find them, you’ve got lice.

Now, technically, intense itching is a sure sign of an infestation, but I find as soon as that letter comes home, I start itching like mad so it’s not full proof. Just look.

How to get rid of ‘em

If you find lice, you have to get rid of them. And fast. Head to your favorite drugstore and pick up a bottle of lice-killing shampoo. Follow the directions for ALL members of your family. (Lice spread fast, and family members share couches, pillows, combs.) Soak your combs and brushes in the shampoo.

If you’ve had a sleepover recently, or your child plays a lot with a particular child, do us all a favor and call the parents to let them know they should check too. Remember—you’re not dirty if you get lice. Your darling child just got too close to someone else who had lice. And if your darling child’s BFF doesn’t get a head-check, you could end up doing all this again in a week.

After the shampooing and phone calls, wash all bedding in HOT water and vacuum all the floors and furniture. Anything that can’t be washed or vacuumed should be sealed in a zip-top bag for four days to two weeks, depending on your source.

What you shouldn’t do

You should NOT go to your regular salon. Lice travel quickly and if you bring your little darling in for a head check, you could easily infest all the clients of that salon, forcing it to close for a thorough cleaning.

Got the heebie-jeebies?

If the thought of checking for lice and nits and plucking them off your child’s scalp gives you  the serious heebie-jeebies, call in a professional. Sammamish Patch blogger Kimberley Hornsby will come (discretely) to your house and shampoo the kiddos while you vacuum and wash. Lice Knowing You on Mercer Island uses the Shepherd Method of strand-by-strand nit removal (I have no idea what that method is, but I’ve had a friend with super thick and long hair use this service with good results), but you have to get yourself there.

Now stop scratching!

Seriously. My friend came by to pick up her son while I was writing this. For the entire 15 minutes we talked, I couldn’t stop scratching my head. Entirely psychosomatic, but still DANG ITCHY!

--Val Serdy, mother and editor, has been lice-free since 1993, when she got lice working in a daycare. She bought the shampoo and combed out those nits in time for a hot date to see Cats.