I agree with you to an extent, but the other American was right, they’re really not as common as you might think based on internet posts. I’ve never once had a package stolen, and I get deliveries multiple times a week. For me, going out to pickup a delivery would be inconvenient because I work from home and don’t want to have to make a 10 min trip by car just for that.

This situation is a whole other story though. That’s the delivery driver straight up stealing the package. Absolutely bonkers.

When it’s wet you should avoid getting it on bare skin, but once it’s dried it’s inert and you’re completely fine. The instructions say when you spray your dog or your clothes you should use gloves, but it dries pretty quickly. Usually about an hour for my dog (he’s double coated so it just takes a while for the undercoat to dry), but with most of my clothing I’ve sprayed it’s usually 30-60 minutes depending on the fabric.

With all that said, permethrin has long been approved for and used in lice shampoos, so it’s fine even against the skin, it’s just that it doesn’t work once it’s dry on the skin. All studies on permethrin show it to be entirely safe at the concentrations we use it at. It has to bind to fibers, but on skin it will break down quickly and be ineffective. It bonds to fibers really well though and is why it’s a longer term solution lasting weeks versus spraying harsh smelling deet that wears off in hours. For ticks it’s really the best solution.

You definitely do not need to bathe them and it wouldn’t matter if you did. Permethrin is meant to be a long term treatment (up to 6 weeks) so you spray it on your dog and let it dry days before your hike. Once dry permethrin is safe for humans and even cats. In fact treating your own clothing with permethrin (NOT while wearing them) is a safe and effective way to keep mosquitoes and ticks off you as well. Like dogs, permethrin treated clothes are effective for about 6 weeks (or 6 washes).

Also highly recommend spraying your dogs thoroughly with Permethrin in addition to whatever else they’re on. Permethrin is an insecticide and when ticks come into contact with it they immediately want to get away from it and will hop off as quickly as they can. My dog and I go hiking a lot and I almost never see ticks on him anymore. This applies even if you only walk your dog on paved paths - the ticks sit on the tips of leaves and grass blades waiting for something to come near.

Ok but um…what do we do with California?

A) Completely fucked. Likely dead within days.

B) Less fucked than most I imagine. I do a lot of hiking (multiple times a week) and carry the 10 essentials in my bag, including a water filter. Food would be the biggest issue as I typically only have one meal and some snacks in my bag. I think it’s doable though.

C) I think I’d be fine. I have enough food to last for months if I ration it and the knowledge, seeds and tools to grow a pretty robust heirloom garden. I also have water filtration and backups, as well as tents for shelter, solar rechargeable batteries for light at least until the panels and batteries degrade, and hand tools to build a more robust shelter. If the contents of my whole house came though the difficulty would be feeding my dog and cat, so we’d have to quickly start working on figuring out how to get meat regularly. I’d have about 2 months of food for them, but that would go quick. I am not readily equipped for hunting so I’d have to cobble together some snares. I have Wikipedia downloaded to an old Kindle and that would probably help in that department. I think in this scenario I’d be fine until disease got me. I have emergency antibiotics in my house though so I could at least survive a couple rounds of bacterial diseases.

About the length of a golden retriever

I live in the US, and with the state of things I have decided to make my life more analog and disconnected this year, and for the foreseeable future. Instead of online games, I do puzzles and listen to audiobooks. Instead of doom scrolling for hours, I’ve decided I’m going to start backpacking. Instead of watching so much TV, I’ve been reading more.

All of these things are helping bring me peace. I’ve been pack training with my dog, which means doing longer day hikes with a heavy pack for each of us, and it’s just been so nice. I’m losing weight without trying (which is a good thing as I’m overweight), I’m seeing parts of my area I’ve never seen, and spending fantastic quality time with my dog. This weekend we’re doing a shakedown car camp to see how he does in my smaller backpacking tent and I am SO excited. In 3 weeks we go on our first backpacking trip with a friend, and I’m already dreaming of future trips. All of this is huge for us because I’m allergic to the sun (literally) and he (my dog) is very sensitive to heat, and allergic to wasps (we have to carry epipens for him) so deciding to spend time outdoors has taken a lot of consideration, determination and planning, but we’re doing it. I’m so excited for the adventures we’ll have, I can’t even put my emotions into words.

Part of why cats like you is probably because you don’t like them and seek them out. Most cats are wary of people directly trying to approach them without invitation or greeting. In general cats will find the person ignoring them the least threatening and most approachable.

It never fails that cats tend to flock toward the person that is allergic to them, because that person is typically entirely disinterested in them lol. Not being interested in the cats is likely why you make friends with them so quickly!