Phobias!

Hi Members,

We all have phobias. I'm know exception to the rule. I have 4 bird feeders in my backyard. I love to go out on the patio in the mornings with my coffee and watch them. There is so many beautiful birds i get at the feeders. Cardinals, golden finch, red finch, black birds with red wings and the occasional blue jay.

Over the winter i diligently still fed the birds. Sometimes trucking through a foot of snow to get to the feeder. What i didnt realize was i was feeding the mice as well!

Over Memorial day weekend when i had a bbq with friends, one of them noticed a mouse running in and out of the garage. I became a little nervous and told myself the ole line..."its more afraid of me than i am of it".

As the day progressed there seemed to be many many mice running around the back of the yard! I became panic strickened at the prospect of having a whole country full of mice in my garage.

The thing that really scared me was that they were HUGE. Now i'm wondering....did they get really fat over the winter on bird seed or are these rats! Everyone at the bbq assured me that they were mice and not rats....but i said "they are HUGE"! Not really sure if my guests were just calming me down or if they were truly healthy mice.

Needless to say...i have not parked my car in the garage since the weekend! My neighbors came over Tuesday morning and said "do u know u have rats in you garage and they are eating the bird seed"? I quickly assured them that they are just very big mice (can't accept the fact they are anything but that).

The two kindly gentlmen neighbors offered to go in my garage and find where they were getting in. It seems they made a tunnel under my flower bed against the garage and were boppin in and out that way. They put up plywood to keep them out and layed down DeCon for me.

I have been a bundle of nerves....i know its soooo crazy to have such a fear. For the time being...no more feeding the birds... :'(.

Do you have a phobia.....if so share what yours is.

Lips

As an (ex) psychologist I couldn't resist responding to this question!  A lot of our phobias are rooted in our brain stem...the fight or flight thing.  It is very natural for a person to be fearful of large or "scary" animals.  Because there was once a time when humans REALLY needed to be afraid of animals, more so than now.  The times have changed, but the brain stem is basically the same.  There, we moderns have "primative" responses to things.  That is what is really going on with you...nothing more, nothing less.  You can work to OVERCOME your fear of this, but heck, if you don't want to it is no big deal!  My phobia would entering a dark house...which has the same cause as the phobia you described.

I agree with you drpsyce38, dark houses ARE creepy.  I always leave a light on when I am coming home after dark.
   
      I suppose my other phobia is water. I love to shower, and I love to drink water, but I will never be accused of being a big fan of boating, swimming etc.  If the stuff gets up to my neck,  I can't breath right, and start to panic.  Yikes.. :-\  I can swim, but my phobia always wins, and I have just learned to stay in the shallow stuff. 

Lipstick..I am laughing so hard it's not even funny. 
We get field mice, and they are just little bitty things and I am scared sh**ss of those things.  They are always in my attic, and one found a shortcut into my room last year.  He wasn't even scared of me.  I was petrified.  He came  almost right up to my coffee cup.  At first when I heard him, I banged around, and made all kinds of noise to scare him away, and that worked for about 2 days.  Then, he probably just laughed at me.  Started gettting closer and closer.  Balsy little shit.  Anyway,  I finally went to the hardware store bought about  10 different mouse traps and poison, and layed them down everywhere.  He just walked right by.  I didn't see him for a couple days, I'm like humm..must have gone back outside...good.  Then I get this bad smell around, I can't figure.  I say Ed, do you know what the heck that smell is?  Well, he hasn't stopped making fun of me since last year...calls me a super sleuth...because
I do Inspections and Investigations, etc. and here I am with a freaken dead mouse sitting right next to me..   he's like and you wanted to be in forensics?? and your sitting practically on top of a dead mouse and don't even know it??? super sleuth!!
Hey, they crawl into those little houses, how the heck did I know he was in there??  I checked so many times..no mouse.  He eats the cheese, but thats it.  How would I know it would actually get him.  Poor thing.  I was starting to get used to him a little.
I still do sleep with a water gun next to me though! Just in case

Now just don't talk to me about spiders...

Great stories Nal and Lips.

I remember this one on the news - check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH4EFgRB4bU

Hi Dr,

Thanks for the insight...but don't ya think some phobias are attributed to something in  your childhood? For example fear of a dark house....could that be an actual childhood experience...happening so young..that there is no conscious memory, rather subconscious?

Lips

Yes, it can be related to childhood.  (Family of origin issue.)  Though, these are often way more complex and move us into a darker, darker place to find their origins.......MOST people will not go there!  It's easier to be afraid of snakes, water and hights! lol

I was thinking if you saw that you would be grateful for just the odd mouse around the house.....sorry. 

blue

Hi, How are ya?!!

I thought you were having a premature senior moment...I didn't want to scare you

Hi Members,

Just an update on the mouse/rat epidemic. Right when i thought it was safe to put my car in the garage...

I'm sitting cozy in the office at my house chatting up a storm with PMM a couple nights ago...laughing so hard about some silly thing....when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye i catch something lightening fast run across the room.

I look at my dog, she looks at me like "did you see what i saw"? All of a sudden i see it..a mouse clear as day make a mad dash to the furnace room!

I'm stifled in fear as i begin to think...thats no mouse..no way is that a mouse its wayyyy to big. I can't even move im so paralyzed with fear of the prospect of it being a rat.

I gain the courage to make a mad dash at out of the room. I call my best friend crying hysterically.."omg i just saw a rat in my HOUSE"! I was crying so hard she thought somebody died.

For the last two days i have had to spend the nite at her house. I read that these rodents are nocturnal so i return during the day. I have bought 3 ultra sonic devices that drive them away....come to find out they are worthless and don't work. I also purchased tons of decon.

I have a crawl space under the house. I think thats where they are getting in....entering the furnace room. The furnace room has been sealed up well for any tiny openings.  If anyone has any ideas on how i can rid them of my house please please please let me know!

Lips

p.s. i'm gonna try to be brave and stay here tonite!!!

omg..lips, you poor thing. I would die..DIE!  The puniest little mouse freaks me..and believe me when I say that I have my table lined up with weapons ready for the little bugger.  I would have to move if it was a rat.
You know the other night when we were talking about the mice, I got scared just talking about them.  I shut off LCB, to do something more pleasant, play my favorite slot for a while, to stop thinking about it...I was finally relaxing, getting into the game.  It was the night it was raining, so we always get those freaken centipedes, because my house is over 300 years old..they come out in the dampness.
So here I am playing away, VERY RELAXED, and one of those freaken centipede started flying past my feet, up my blanket, almost up to my computer.  I almost s**t my pants, and threw the computer on the floor. grabbed the remote and started beating on my bed..I don't know where that freaken thing is..but if I don't find it..I will have to find another place to sleep.  My heart was racing so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  You should have seen me, I was paralyzed..I am telling you..BUGS are my biggest.  I have so many bug stories.  Anyway..I ripped the bed apart, and got that stinking bug, and squashed him to bits.  I didn't get relaxed again for hours..lousy night of slots.  Freaken stinking little bug got me so uptight. With its twenty million legs...I'd rather get stuck in a cage with a bear.  Maybe even a rat ::)

Hi Nal,

You bring me comic relief...i laughed so hard when i read your story cuz i would react the same way! I completely understand your fear....and misery loves company.

I wish i could get hypnotized to overcome it. I was right with you when i viewed the you tube video of infested rodents...i couldn't even finish watching it. My skin began to crawl....yikes!

Thanks for sharing and when i get scared I'm gonna think of you and try to find some humor in it!

Lips

hey lips....i'm not much of a nature lover, but my boyfriend is ALWAYS feeding the birds....he won't feed them during the fall and winter though...he claims that it will mess up there migration and since they are being fed, they won't go where ever it is they go in the winters, thus causing them to die!!!  funny story about the mice though,  here's a thought....get an outdoor cat....after fooling us into thinking he was so lovable and cute we ended up getting this kitten, as soon as we got home the demons were let loose..lol, so we put him outdoors, in the last few months he's left 3 mice, 8 moles and 2 birds at our doorstep  and we're still counting...at least he turned out to be good for something!!!!!

Hey your right about the birds Satan...I always feed them too, but some buttinski always gives me crap about the same thing.

I always felt sorry for those little birds anyway, and still fed them.  And this year a couple of them made a nest under my air conditioner right next to my bed.  I usually put it away  in the winter, but I didn't have the heart to ruin their home. HAH!

Those noisy, squawky little s.o.b.s...between banging on the ac making their nest, and squawk squawk squawk..I've wanted to glue their little beaks shut.  I figured it would be better in the spring, but now they had babies, and they keep guard, and really squawk. 

I froze my but off all winter from the draft, so they could have a home..had to fight with the creeps in my house to leave the ac there, and regretted every second of it.
I think I heard them sing nice two times..I said, oh you have a reason to live today.
Not falling for it next year. :-\

haha...funny, well at least you didn't have 2 bluejays attacking your head on the way to the mailbox....i had no idea a cute little bird could be soooo evil, turns out there was a baby jay in the front yard that was still learning to fly and apparently they are VERY protective of their young!!

Lips?
    Would this be a good or bad time to tell you  I have 2 little fuzzy mice as pets??
     
    It's true.....
                                  PMM2008

it's different if you WANT them..besides, you know where they are, and they are usually in a cage.

Good morning Lips,
Sorry to hear of your troubles and sounds like you have some work to do. Rats have been with Humans since the very beginning of time and will very likely outlast us here on this earth. They are intelligent, resilient and as omnivores can live almost anywhere under almost any conditions. That said... it is preferred not to have to share the bedroom with them (unless you are married to one, a totally different breed).

It was nice of your neighbors to help with the plywood, unfortunately Rats have no problems gnawing through Plywood, particularly if it is blocking access to their nests and babies. Also your crawl space to can be a bypass that gives them access as you stated.
You have two things you can do right now to make your home less attractive as a living quarters. One will even help you save money on your energy bills.

The first part is kind of common sense and pre-emptive. take out the trash regularly, use Metal type trash cans for outside storage, keep lids on tightly, do not store foodstuffs in the garage (50lb bags of dogfood etc.)

The second is doing what we call in the energy field as "Air Sealing" your home. From an energy standpoint this is a good thing as a house or building "breathes" with air infiltrating at lower levels and exfiltrating at upper levels (stack effect) and when doing so carrying the conditioned air you paid for away replacing it with new air that needs conditioned to bring it to your comfort level. If we slow how often that complete change occurs (Air Change per hour) then we slow how often your furnace/cooler needs to consume power to condition...

What does this have to do with rats? Simple, Air sealing is just what it sounds like, finding holes in your home with direct communication to outdoors and sealing them up.
Now I use fancy expensive tools to do my airsealing effectively, a "blower door" ( a large fan mounted in a doorway that creates a slight suction throughout the entire house. When a draft is discovered, it is sealed.) Thermal cameras that can see what is happening behind walls and ceilings, Pressure manometers that determine where the Negative (infiltration) and Positive (exfiltration) zones are in the home... yada yada yada.

Lets take care of your rats. make a trip to your local Home Depot/ Lowes type store. Purchase Steel l (comes in a bulk package) and two or three big cans of "Great Stuff foam (also a good pair of rubber gloves, that foam gets on you it will stay on you for a long long time). Steel your nerves and head off down to the basement/ furnace room. It is easiest to start at one corner of the home. Now moving your eyes slowly look from floor to ceiling for any cracks or openings , holes larger than a 1/4 inch. when one is found, rip off a small hunk of steel l, stuff it into the hole and then give a good squirt of the foam. the foam will expand filling it entirely and is not something the rats find tasty, while the steel woll resists their burrowing efforts and is  locked in place with the foam. Do the walk, sealing as you go enterly around your basement.

Some places to pay special attention to is where you see the framing joists (wood used to holed up your home) pay attention as there may be small openings above or below where this d is "plated". Pipe and Plumbing chases. if you see any pipe that enters your home find where it comes in and stuff steel l around it, then foam it.
(For energy, a similar crawl through your attic/cockloft space  foaming and sealing as you go).

Now we get to your crawlspace and furnace room.
First thing is to figure what purpose that crawl space serves. While we just spent all this time "air sealing" there is one place you want to ensure there is plenty of fresh air entering your home, and that is your furnace. Unless it is an all electric home your furnace needs air to burn the fuel properly to heat your home. in many cases this is one of the purposes for the crawl space. That and access to plumbing fixtures/electric
conduits.
In the furnace room Identify where the INTENDED air comes from, Measure the opening and make sure it has a screen or mesh over it. (quarter inch opening grid style mesh works fine). seal up everything else with the same attention to detail you did for the rest of the basement. Pay attention to pipe penetrations as there are probably a few of them.  Locate the other end of the crawl space. is there a door or screen? is it in good shape? repair as neccesary. For energy I will usually go into that crawl space and insulate all the pipes and ceilings/walls of that crawl space but for now you have made your home Much harder and less attractive to rodents.

All the above you can do yourself (or bribe those helpful neighbors with promises of smile and barbecued foods).

If you would like to go even further, Dense packed blown in cellulose insulation injected into all wall cavities will complete the air sealing filling all the nooks and crannys where a rat might try to make a home. (the cellulose is treated with a borax solution that rats and other vermin do not find palatable). The cost of having this done varies from location to location but is typically between .75 - 1.50 per square foot. From a rat fighting aspect this may seem expensive but from an energy standpoint the cost of the insulation is usually recovered in lowered fuel consumption savings in the First heating season.

Now here is a little secret. You can get someone to come to your house with all those expensive toys in many places here in the us and canada (and yes in areas of UK and europe as well) by scheduling an energy audit with your local utility company. in Many cases it is free. In other cases there are contractors like myself who can do the same at a minimum charge for the audit (the cost usually directly applied as a credit when you commit to having the contractor do the airsealing/insulation work). In the case of the Freebie utility company audit, do the walk through with him, take notes as to where those infiltration points are for later seal up.

Who would have thought ratproofing a home could be considered "Green".

Hi Jimbeaux,

You leave me speechless....to take the time you did, really touches me. Thank-you so much. I will heed your advice.

Don't know if you ever saw Big Love...but if your a mormon...and looking for another wife let me know...wink!

Lips

Hey lips... that night when your friends put up the plywood to keep the rats out... did there come a time later that night, while chiiling out on the couch and thinking about your problem in the garage, did you ever wonder if maybe you locked the "big mice" ...in?  lol

Rats... taste like chicken, no? Come on now, we all have eat'n at a few chineses buffets.  did someone say PHOBIAS?

Lips,
I found along time ago that the best way to face fears and phobias is head on. Girded for battle and a do or die attitude. It is amazing when once steeled, you put on your game face and go straight in. Suddenly the very fact that you are facing it brings you to the realization that you are made of much sterner stuff than the simple phobia.

As for Big Love, nope, not Mormon... But not adverse to auditioning for a second wife...
I am the pushover... wife #1 is a bit harder to impress, but not impossible...

Applications being accepted... line forms to the left.

(PS from wife #1... Does she wash dishes?)

Hi Members,

Here is an update on the rat situation. I layed out D-Con in the garage and under the house. I decided to call the Village and tell them my plight. I asked if there was any rats reported in the area..they said No. I was told that they would send out public works and put some heavy duty poison around my house.

The next day public works knocks at my door. They decide to lay the poison on the outside of my property because of my baby boxer Hazel. They also put some in my crawl space.

In the mean time a neighbor a few doors down tells me he has seen rats in his back yard too. Okay so now im thinking there is really a major problem.

The next morning i go out to the yard....i see 2 squirrels fighting and running up our tree in the back yard. I'm thinkin how cute...when i see something in the squirrels mouth. I double take..oh no...please noooo...he has the poison in his mouth that the village put out.

I was heart broken. I call public works...they are going to lay traps now instead. He also said he thinks he knows why there is a rat prob...apparently there was a dumpster left unattended for a longggg time down the street. The Village will comb the area this week and try to resolve it.

So now no bird feeders and no squirrels....and i miss them both  :'(

Lips

p.s. i still have not parked my car in the garage...lol

Lips..damn..I keep sh..ting in my pants every time I hear the little field mouse come back.  And it is VERY cute.  But when I am stuck in the same room with him, and we are about a foot apart,..its either him or me.  I have graduated from the squirt gun,  (he just moves and comes right back..must think we are playing),to a large canister of compressed gas called the Dust Destroyer.  It's meant to clean the electronic equip, etc, but blows the hair right off his face..keeps him away for the night.  Real funny.
Still scares me..I can't even imagine a RAT..I would FREAK!!!!!

ya right..you know what I am talking about, I KNOW you do lips!!!

The adrenaline from seeing that thing makes you heart race 90 million miles a hour...just when I hear it.  It wakes me up from a coma...I turn on all the lights, and get out my weapons...bang, clash, slap everything around, trying to scare him..wait for about 15 minute, silence..GOOD, I can try to go back to sleep.  My heart is probably just starting to beat back in its chest again..I shut the light off.  One minute later..He is BACK!  Do you know how much noise one little mouse makes?  He's only about 1 1/2 -2 inchs long...might as well be a monster.

What would a RAT do?  I WOULD DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I spider can give me a seizure....a RAT.......AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

We had them on my street when I was little, when they dug the street up...I didn't leave the house.

Bugs and creepy crawly things will probably be what kills me from a heart attack.

If my mother was alive, she would still be telling everyone THIS story, what a weenie I was when I was little, she said I was letting out these blood curdling screams, and she thought someone was killing me.  She ran out in the yard, where I was supposed to be out picking stringbeans...there I was sitting in the dirt, screaming because I thought the butterfly was after me  

It only gets worse after butterflys

Ok so I was watching a show about people with all kinds of different fears.

Some of them were Clowns, Spiders, Heights etc etc..What I was wondering, what makes some afraid of something, yet another person has no fear of it whatsoever.

My fear is cockroaches, I cannot be near one, or I will lose it. It's more than a OMG get it out of here reaction. I will literally go into a panic. If it's in my house, I will get my kids to kill it for me. .

Another one for me is heights, I was watching this show on extreme thrill rides on the Travel Channel. This guy goes to all the amusement parks in the country and rides the scariest rides they have.

Anyways, this particular episode, he was going to be the first public jumper to do a control free fall of the Stratoshphere in Las Vegas, NV.

890 in the air, you jump off the side of the building. No parachute, just you and a wire, 45 MPH and once you get a few feet before you land, it slows down and you land on your feet.

Now as I was watching this, I got really nervous. I felt shaky, started sweating, I got nauseas. I had a panic attack JUST watching it.

I couldn't imagine, not even for all the money in the world doing something like that.


What are you afraid of?


:-*

Rats,Cockroaches,Spiders,Flies,Snakes,Ants,Moths,Bees,Worms,etc......
Any thing with wings or no wings, legs or no legs,anything slimy...
All thew BUGS in the world...
And oh, yeah...cocky man,a man who chew on tobacco and repeatedly spits,man or woman who is surrounded by Tattoos all over his/her head and face(sorry no offense...can't help it!),someone who carries GUNS and Knives,kid who doesn't act like kid,etc....................PHEW...not done yet but will stop at here!!!

Bees and wasps - they send me into a panic.  I've been stung 3 times on the head on 3 separate occasions.  I have really thick hair and I think they like that for some reason or the colour?  If I hear a buzzing near me, I literally get a cold shiver down my back and then my arms are going all over the place like some crazy woman trying to scare whatever it is away - I run away too.  I look like a real idiot (lol normal heh heh).

blue

worms, I hate worms and I have an unusual fear of rabies.

Same here Bees and Wasps, cockroaches and anything that had a rat type tail, i would freak out and get panicky when i see the tail of rats, heights are another.

One weird thing my mother had was all her young life she lived on the beach, her home was a beach front, she swam every day, fished, boated, swimming pools anything that had to do with it, she loved it.
Well, one time a man drowned and they pulled him from the water she was in the crowd watching, as they wheeled him by, his toe brushed across my mothers arm and since that day happened she was scared to death of water, wouldn't go near it, showers were fine it, was any open area of water she wouldn't go near. She was afraid of drowning, when it would rain here she would wear a life preserver because of the flooding, driving in a car if it started raining she would put on one of those tubes around her. She would get anxiety attacks if we drove by lakes or oceans. Swimming pools and jacuzzi's she tolerated somewhat but still you can see some slight panic. If she was going to get into one she would have every kind of life perserver gear you can imagine, and it would take maybe hours before she would get pass the knees.
I felt so badly for her, and it would hurt me so much that she had this fear.

Jimb- so funny, I would take Lips on in a heartbeat lol. 

Dr. Psych- I think I am one of those who has ventured into the dark to figure out why the hell I am the way that I am.  It's not very pleasant at times, but I have this need/desire to know the truth, good or bad.  It really bugs my few relatives that I see things differently.  It's much better to live in denial, at least they look like they are enjoying things more. 

Anyhoo...one physical thing I am afraid of is dogs.  Not cute cuddly dogs, pit bulls are number 1, but some dogs just freak me out.  I made my kids leave the park the other day because there was a dog loose without a leash.  The owner wasn't paying any attention, and you just don't know what will make a dog snap.  This is definitely from being attacked by a pit bull when I was 11, I'm sure of it.  I have tried to get over it, and am OK with friends' dogs that I know, but a loose dog just freaks me out completely.

OH LORDY, roaches....I had to go live with an old senile aunt for a whole summer when I was about 20 or so..geez she had so many roaches I couldnt rest, apparently there was a big crack in the foundation of her house and her neighbors were nasty and triffling, the first day I got there I was wearing all white and sitting in her recliner eating a box of fiddle faddle when out of the corner of my eye I see something move and look down to see a GINORMOUS roach crawlin on my skirt.....well within a few seconds I was up screaming bloody murder and fiddle faddle was everywhere! My Auntie who was lying on the couch turned and looked at me like I was loony.I explained what happened and she just chuckled and said, "tehehe oh that happens every time someone sits in that chair" (Cue in the music from Pyscho as I stand there in SHOCK realizing I was going to be there for months)
Eventually I would drink a few glasses of wine to pass out, so I could sleep.
Oddly I am afraid of opening cans of biscuits, touching frozen metal ice cube trays,and pricking my finger to test my blood (I know,duh)

I almost forgot, heres a link that explains and gives the proper name to a bunch of phobias.

http://phobialist.com/

ahhhhhhhhhhh YUCK!

I would die if one ever crawled on me...literally.


:-*

Spiders, spiders and spiders! The local poisonous little sucker is the brown recluse. I have looked up people that have been bitten and OMG!

It's ridiculous but I flip no matter what type of spider.

I had the biggest spider ever on my car one morning and had to debate 10 minutes as to how to get rid of it. I know, most people would probably just drive away.  It had built a web from my car to the garbage can in the driveway (about a foot away). I ended up tossing twigs at the web and when the spider fell of i ran my a** off.

LMAO


OMG I know...Why are they so damn gross   YUCK.



:-*