On Poison Ivy

The house next door was foreclosed on several years ago. The owner didn't take care of the property. It was overgrown and falling apart. Someone bought it as an investment when the housing market started to get out of control. They let it sit for too long before they did anything to it so I think it became a bit of a money pit. The house was sold again and has been sitting for another year. They just put a "for rent" sign up which I am not thrilled about (not). Between our two properties is a small wire grid fence. Along my neighbors side, there is alot of plant growth. Miscellaneous and mysterious vines, weeds, bamboo, wild roses and poison ivy grow freely there. I am allergic to poison ivy. These vines will grow towards my yard because I am on the east where, we all know, the sun rises. They get to the point where they take over the driveway and either I have to cut them back or lose my parking space. Of course, their driveway is on the other side of the yard, where there are no evil plants growing (I really am a nature lover). This summer I had to cut this all back so I could find my car and my driveway. I forgot about the poison ivy, although it wouldn't have mattered. All the products I have for controlling poison ivy instruct you to "wash the infected area within 10 minutes of coming into contact with the plant". Considering the fact that it took me 40 minutes to cut back and dispose of the vines and leaves, I would have had to come in and wash up 4x, as well as change my clothing 4x....uhhh...not happening. So I had the rash, all over the place and it just kept spreading. Now if you do research on the internet, several websites claim the rash doesn't spread from the liquid in the rash that forms. I would like those websites to explain why it was showing up on different places of my body throughout the next 10 days. They claim it is the oil on the plant that causes the rash to form. In those 10 days, I thoroughly washed on at least 12 occasions. I seriously think there was no oil on my body. I didn't wear the same clothes and they were washed anyway, so that isn't the reason. I ended up getting my doctor to prescribe steroids, as nothing over the counter was working. Cortizone-10, Ivarest, Aveeno Anti-Itch Cream, were all a waste of money, none of these products soothed the itch or kept it from spreading. Benadryl was probably the only product that gave me any relief until I got the steroids. The internet also advised that steroid treatment had to last for a full 14 days. I took it for 5 days and was fine after that. I also tried rubbing alcohol, bleach and laundry detergent on the rashes, all that did was scar me. Fels Napha and aloe were the cures when I was a child, and then a dip in the Altantic Ocean or a swimming pool. I couldn't get to the ocean or a pool this time, so maybe it only works if you do all three. When I was done healing and got over my phobia enough to do something about the poison ivy I went out and bought a 1.33 gallon pump spray bottle of "Round Up" for poison ivy. I sprayed once, when I got they nerve and was disappointed when I didn't see anything happen. After a week I sprayed again and this time things started to turn brown. I figured "3's a charm" and hit it a week later. Although I am not a fan of spraying chemicals, I also paid good money to have my driveway paved so I could park in it and didn't enjoy my 3 week bout with poison ivy. The weeds are not presently growing on my side of the fence and I can't really say I care if the brown shriveled up dying plants are not attractive. Enough is enough.