wicked_leste's profile at Help.com

User Involvement

Last 1 Posts Authored

• We’re moving in a couple weeks, and we have two cats, ages 11 and 4. posted (1 year, 6 months) ago
  Both cats were street cats we took in, and both are terrified of any place that isn’t home. …

• All Claimed Posts »

wicked_leste's Top (3) Replies by other users' votes

• (2 votes) There is a critter in my house!
  

  The bucket trap is valid for a mouse, except I always heard you should line the inside of the pail with Vasaline or some other type of grease to prevent escape. If it’s a small rat, one of those high topped buckets, such as you can buy at Home Depot would work. However, if it’s a big rat, it would just be able to hook its paws at the top and pull himself out. Rats can stretch pretty far if they need to, so you probably would need a bucket about three to four times taller than the rat is sitting down.
  
  Right now I’m going to tell you that if I were you I would NOT use poison. I know it’s tempting, however, your cat is probably avoiding the creature, because it knows it could hurt her. If you poison it, your cat may go after it sensing it was weaker. And if the cat eats the rat, the cat will be poisoned. I lost a cat this way, my neighbor upstairs was poisoning mice that then got into our apartment, where my cat ate them and eventually it killed her.
  
  I am going to assume money is an issue with you, because if it wasn’t, you probably would have called an exterminator, who would be your best, and likely most expensive, way of dealing with this problem.
  
  If Ronald Rat is as big as you say, then you’re going to need a good sized trap. Call animal control, sometimes they have traps that they lend out for this very reason. Be sure, if you do call animal control, if they will pick up Ron after trapping, if you don’t think you’d be able to kill it yourself. If you decide to be decent and let the rat go, I’d ask you to keep two things in mind:
  
  1: Get it far enough away from you. I’m not talking feet, I’m talking miles. Rats know a good thing when they have it, and will come back.
  
  2: You have to take it as far away from ANY people as you can. If you take it to a populated area, even if it’s just one guy in a cabin, you’re giving someone else your problems.
  
  I understand that to some folks taking any life, even that of a parasite seems wrong, but wild rats are dangerous. Not only do they eat almost anything, but if they find food and can’t eat it all, they will often destroy it, by urinating or defecating on it. And, most rats carry fleas and a variety of other parasites. I would strongly suggest you try to keep your cat as far away from the rat as possible. Don’t feed your cat unless you can supervise its eating. Don’t leave food out for your cat. Yeah, it’s a pain, but it’s safer for your cat, and it also will make your home less attractive until Ronald packs his bags and moves onward.
  
  You can also buy rat traps that kill in stores. Be sure it’s a rat trap though, they’re huge. And be sure to put it in an area the cat can’t get to.
  
  Don’t use a glue trap, unless you can stand the sounds of hearing something suffering. Not to mention if Ronald only gets part of himself caught, he’s likely to just gnaw off a leg and then bleed all over the place. But seriously, a rat in a glue trap is inviting yourself to listen to the agony of a slow death that could take hours, even days, if he’s fairly well hydrated.
  
  If your local animal control does not have traps to lend or rent at a reasonable price, you could also try a really disgusting alternative, which is to try to get your hands on a strong predator scent, such as artificial wolf urine. Trust me though, it reeks something awful and you’ll have to deal with that smell around your kitchen for awhile. I suggest it as a last resort only.
  
  Your other options would be to call an exterminator, explain the situation, and try to see if you can work out a payment plan. Exterminators are human beings too, and some are decent people who understand times are tough and will work with their customers, knowing that to let your uninvited guest stay will mean the trouble will keep escalating until a minor job becomes a major one.
  
  - written 1 year, 7 months ago – voted for by Dæmon, Mariam*

• (1 vote) My girlfriend has threatened to kill herself.
  

  You need to get out of there. Do you have any friends/relatives you can stay with? Preferably very, very, far away from her? If so, pack a bag and get out the moment she’s left. If you want, call the police and tell them that she has threatened to kill herself if you leave her, but you have to for your own safety.
  
  Then, swear out a restraining order.
  
  It sucks not having a job, but in a way, if you do have friends/relatives, it’s easier to go there, start over and find a job. But she is sadistic and her threatening to kill herself is just her way of making you stay with her, so she can continue to abuse you.
  
  - written 1 year, 7 months ago – voted for by ⓘⓝⓚ

• (1 vote) I wish people who claim to want help always actually
  

  I’d rather help a hundred people and find out that 99 of them were faking or trolling, than to ignore one person who might actually need help.
  
  Sometimes, these people who want help can’t get it. Seriously, have you ever been so depressed that getting out of bed to go to the bathroom is an ordeal that you have to plan? It happens. Depression can eat a person from the inside out, it can not only cause sadness, but it can be physically demanding and painful. Some of these messages might be the only thing people can do right now to help themselves. They want to get help, oh yes they do, but if getting to the computer is a major event, how in the world can you manage to pick up the phone and call people? You might as well ask these folks to try to empty out the ocean with a teaspoon.
  
  We can’t make the calls for them, all we can do is tell them that yeah, we’re out here. Yeah, we’re reading, yeah, we care. And hopefully, that will give them the strength to one day have the energy to pick up the phone and get some help. But for some folks, they might have to come here several times before they get that strength.
  
  Again, no one likes to feel that they’re wasting their time giving advice. And no one wants to feel they’ve been duped by trolls or fakers, but I’d rather be known as gullible than to find out that I dismissed someone who really, really needed someone to say “I’m here, I’m listening.”
  
  - written 1 year, 7 months ago – voted for by ⓘⓝⓚ

Last 5 Replies – All 107 replies »

• We’re moving in a couple weeks, and we have two cats, ages 11 and 4.
  

  [quote Zirbel]You know the fragrance cats love most and excite them very much (in the sense of feeling at home) is Valerian.
  You can buy Valerian drops at drugstores and pharmacies.
  Two or three drops are enough to get them used to a new cat litter box or a new place of them.[/quote]
  
  Okay, I’ll have to check that out, Zirbel. Thank you.
  - written 1 year, 6 months ago

• “The Secret”
  

  That’s the trick, Nab, you never recover from depression, you just learn to control it. Right now it’s really bad, but I have valid reasons for being depressed, along with the normal stuff (Lost both parents within 7 months of each other, sibling trouble because of that, so on and so forth) At least though, I know this is normal.
  
  I think The secret is appreciated mostly by people who are the type to already feel the way the book tells them to, if that makes sense. The expression, “The power of positive thinking!” has been around for quite awhile and pretty much, that’s what the book seems to be getting down to in basics. “Think the best and the best will happen.” And, there could be something to that, but I’ve spent a good part of my life finding that if I expect the best, I get slapped in the face. So, my usual philosophy on life is, “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” It’s like hurricane planning, I hope a hurricane doesn’t hit my house, I really hope the hurricane will blow off course, but the news is telling me I’m right in the path of it, so I’d better board up my windows, fill the tub with water, make sure the generator has gas in it, make sure there’s food in the house, and make sure we’ve packed an “emergency bag” in case we have to evacuate. Because hurricanes really don’t care much about the power of all my positive thinking. :-D
  - written 1 year, 6 months ago

• We’re moving in a couple weeks, and we have two cats, ages 11 and 4.
  

  [quote nab]Wow! Your cats are really lucky to have you. Cant think of anything else that you could do. Hope you all have a smooth comfortable shifting.[/quote]
  
  Thanks, Nab. I hope they’ll be okay too. They’re such worriers, I swear they learned it from me! :-D
  - written 1 year, 6 months ago

• “The Secret”
  

  Yes, deciding to fix it IS positive. However, before you get to that positive, you have to have a negative thought. “This is wrong.” If you don’t allow yourself to have “negative thoughts” you won’t see what is wrong (because seeing wrong things is negative) thus you can’t move on to the positive (”Hey, that’s wrong, let’s fix it.”)
  
  It’s also a pretty lousy book for anyone who’s experiencing unhappiness/depression. It implies that bad thoughts have way too much power and that negative thoughts are pure evil. Sorry, but bad things happen. Should I not mourn my parents, because grief is a negative emotion? I suffer from depression too, is it really wise to imply that something I have little control over is going to kill me? Yes, I take my medications, I go to the doctor, but no matter what, I have negative thoughts, that’s the nature of the illness. A book that glibly suggests that negative thoughts are the reason for everything wrong in my life is not going to help me, and in fact, ends up doing the opposite.
  - written 1 year, 6 months ago

• “The Secret”
  

  I’m not too keen on a book that suggests that negative thoughts are the cause of all my problems and half of the world’s problems too. The only way real change happens is when we say, “This is wrong, let’s fix it.” If you force yourself to never think anything “bad” then you’ll never fix anything wrong.
  - written 1 year, 6 months ago

wicked_leste's conversations are tagged:

Feel, friends, depression, Right Now, Love, school, life, Family, Today, Times, Ideas, crying, drinking, She Was, Mind, Tomorrow, Carry, advice, boyfriend, birthday, hurt, Die, like this, Insult, scared