hardwood floors: This is a problem with varying solutions. If you don't own the house, slide a piece of furniture over it and hope the landlord doesn't notice it until you get your deposit back. People have been known to rip out hardwood floors and throw them away because of animal stains. I once found a description of a "spot refinishing" method for animal stain on Deja News. I think the woman stripped the entire floor, then treated the stain with some sort of bleaching agent, then refinished the floor. This is a very ambitious undertaking. Just do a search under "hardwood pets" or something like that, and it should turn up. I think you can also hire a professional to strip and refinish just a piece of your floor, but very few will do it. That kind of work is an art. (If you can't find it, email me privately and I'll see if I can dig it up.) If you don't have a very bad stain, would it help to strip the wax? I like the Bruce products for that purpose. On fleas: I have lived in houses with pets and at various times fleas for maybe a total of fifteen years and I can't recommend strongly enough getting the whole mess over with by flea bombing. I know it's unappealing, with the chemicals and all (and you'll be watching yourself for "Gulf War Syndrome" for weeks after), but I promise once it's done you'll wonder why it took you so long to do it. We combined bombing (done twice two weeks apart as per instructions) with indoor boundary spray and intensive laundry washing and flea baths all around. What a relief! No more itching. No more vile ugly little insects. If you're truly not comfortable with the bomb, ask your vet about using something like Program and do some really intensive house-cleaning (wash everything in the hottest water possible, put some flea powder in your vacuum bag and vacuum everything, etc.) I would rather spend a little extra money and time up front than bathe them all every week myself (which adds up in the long run because you never really get rid of them all). Remember, there's NO kill like OVERKILL. Good luck, Catherine Sebastian "We request our subjects to please bring us a raisin souffle--hold the eggs." Mortimer "Oh, look at this little rubber ducky. He is lonely. I will love him and pet him and hold him and..." Mithril--"I got an idea. Wanna play? Huh huh? I said, 'Wanna play?' Damn you! PLAY WITH ME! CHOMP!" [Posted in FML issue 1786]