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Old 01-24-2003, 05:21 PM   #1  
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Unhappy MAJOR STRESS – doing my best not to eat but …

… I'm struggling and have slipped up.

UGGHH!!! Stress, stress and more stress. I’ve succumbed a bit to stress-eating and I’m not pleased with myself.

Last week I thought I heard something in the house … after doing a little investigating I decided it was a mouse. We set a trap and caught it. I live in a very old house in a suburban area. In the spring we often see evidence that mice or other small critters may have spent the winter in our garage (which is NOT attached to the house). We’ve lived there 16 years and only had mice in the house once … we were doing some major remodeling, some walls and a crawl space been opened and I saw a mouse one night. We caught two mice in two days and that was the end of it. So when we caught this critter, I figured ok it’s done.

Well we were fine for nearly a week. Then I started hearing more noises. In the last two days we’ve caught three mice. And I saw one last night. I’m freaking out. How many are there? The local hardware store says that lots of people are experiencing the same thing. It’s a colder than normal winter and their normal ‘winter homes’ (like my garage) may not be cutting it this year. Also, the coastal areas in our town had major flooding a few weeks ago which may have forced mice out of the garages and sheds in those neighborhoods. I want to call an exterminator. DH says they won’t do anything different then we’re doing … I don’t know, but we know there’s at least ONE more. We catch that and then if we hear or see or catch more that’s it … it’s exterminator time!

So far my kids don’t know about the mice and I don’t want them to … but my son thought he heard ‘squeaking’ this morning. I told him it was the birds outside at the feeder and turned up the radio. In reality, I think it was another mouse on a glue trap … but I couldn’t look while he was there … I left it for dh – who wasn’t home at the time. I don’t understand it … they’re not in my kitchen. I see no evidence of them on the first or third floors. They seem to be only on my second floor. They found Christmas candy in a closet (left-over stocking stuffers). I got rid of that before we caught the first mouse and there’s no more food up there … but they’re still around. My kitchen is like a one-story addition to the house with a peaked roof and a doorway on the second floor that goes into the attic of the addition … there’s no basement under the kitchen, only a crawl space. I think they may get in there, go up inside the walls and then follow some baseboard heating pipes into the bedroom and family room … either that or they’re climbing the gas and water pipes to the second floor laundry room (do you think food spills on the kids’ dirty clothes could attract them?) but I don’t THINK I’ve heard anything in the walls. Can you tell from this detail that this is REALLY bothering me!?!?

THEN, on top of all that … dh got laid off from his job last August has been looking unsuccessfully ever since. Now, he has a real good chance at getting a 3-month contract at good pay, starting the middle of next week. Sounds great right? Not necessarily … it’s 2 1/2 hours from home. For the first few weeks he’d need to be there 5 days a week --- 4 nights away from home. After that he’d probably be able to work from home a couple of days. My kids are in school from 8:30 to 3. I need to find somebody to pick them up at school and stay with them or bring them to the sitter so that I can still work my required hours. And, my kids have never experienced a parent away from home on a regular basis. They get upset if only one of us is there at bedtime, I know this will cause major disruptions for them … AND … I’ll be forced to deal with the mousies all by myself!!! I don’t cope well with that sort of thing!

Last night at 10:30 I went out to make some colored prints and copies for dh to bring to today’s interview. I got home close to 11:30, logged on for a while and then about midnight succumbed to stress-eating. I wasn’t TOTALLY out of control, but it was about 200 unplanned calories at a time when I should have been asleep. EEEK!!! It was freezing outside and everybody else was asleep … I SHOULD have just gone to bed, but no I sat at my computer, playing games and snacking. NOT GOOD!!!

This morning I didn't have my planned breakfast. I had one egg, two slices of bacon and an Engish muffin (sandwich) ... so I wasn't exactly bingeing, but it wasn't exactly 'healthy' either. UGHH!!

Anyway … I guess I just needed to vent. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.
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Old 01-24-2003, 06:02 PM   #2  
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Hang in there Steph and please don't beat yourself up! You may have gone a little off plan, but it sounds like you at least tried to keep it under control! You should be proud for that at least!

I am sure things will get better soon, and as far as the mice go, I can relate. We got them one year, and I decided we had to use the humane traps, well, that lasted for a while, and we caught 7! But they just weren't going away, when we finally set out regular traps, we caught lots of them I won't even tell you how many we caught, cuz it'll freak you out, but we have not had problems with them since. Plus they never got into our rooms, and we live in a very small house, less then 1000 sq ft. I hope that helps at least a little. Also, you may want to try putting peanut butter and chocolate on the traps. Maybe we just had mice with a sweet tooth, but that's what worked the best! You may also want to try putting the traps in small lunch sacks. Then when you hear them snap, you can just close up the bag and throw it away, never having to see the mouse.

HTH
Nicole
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Old 01-24-2003, 06:04 PM   #3  
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Don't fret. I've lived with rats the size of possums, mice aren't that bad!

May I suggest sticking the glue traps in the freezer when you hear a mouse has been caught? It's the most humane way to kill a suffering mouse (except for actually snapping their necks, and I wouldn't touch them!). If you have a deep freeze that's away from your kids, that will keep them from hearing it. You can also stick the trap in an empty shoe box and then into the freezer so you don't start thinking about dead mice in your freezer.

When I lived back east in the middle of the woods, we used to get lots of critters. We got a cat and then we never had mice problems again.
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Old 01-24-2003, 06:13 PM   #4  
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Ok I just gotta say AMEN!!!! I seem to have an abundance of mice in my kitchen and I live alone so I have to deal with little mouse carcasses myself I have found two drowned mice in my kitchen, one in the dogs water bowl the other in my crock pot I am going to just get traps that kill them instantly I got 2 kittens back in September but they are just now 6 months old and starting to get interested in the kitchen so until they start pulling their weight I'm just gonna snap the mice...YUCK!!
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Old 01-24-2003, 07:59 PM   #5  
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We also are having a mouse problem, Steph. We've been catching 'em right and left!
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Old 01-24-2003, 08:03 PM   #6  
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We had a big problem with mice when we first moved into this house, got traps and found they were pretty good at getting the food out without getting caught, even so we were catching 6-7 a night. Then we put ratsack down in the bottom level of the pantry and around the house, within a couple of days they were all gone. The good part of ratsack is they go elsewhere to die so you don't have any little bodies around. I don't think I could do mice in with a glue trap, would probably take them to a park and let them go (I even have trouble killing insects!)
As for the snacking, don't be too hard on yourself, 200 cals is really not a binge or anything, good to rein it in before it get's there but your doing great, you really are. I beat myself up a couple of times I went alittle over, in the long run though it's not alot, punish yourself by doing an extra session of exersize, you'll burn those 200 cals of in no time
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Old 01-24-2003, 11:12 PM   #7  
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Default Re: MAJOR STRESS – doing my best not to eat but …

Quote:
Originally posted by Step
I don’t understand it … they’re not in my kitchen. I see no evidence of them on the first or third floors. They seem to be only on my second floor. They found Christmas candy in a closet (left-over stocking stuffers). I got rid of that before we caught the first mouse and there’s no more food up there … but they’re still around. My kitchen is like a one-story addition to the house with a peaked roof and a doorway on the second floor that goes into the attic of the addition … there’s no basement under the kitchen, only a crawl space. I think they may get in there, go up inside the walls and then follow some baseboard heating pipes into the bedroom and family room … either that or they’re climbing the gas and water pipes to the second floor laundry room (do you think food spills on the kids’ dirty clothes could attract them?) but I don’t THINK I’ve heard anything in the walls.
I had one running above the ceiling tiles. I put some poison up there, they went to the lowest level of the building to find water (the basement) and wound up dying there. I had to cook my friend a nice dinner to get her to remove the dead carcass for me.

Haven't seen any this year. I think the new landlord might've sealed up some places they were coming in last summer.

Everyone has off days, Steph. Venting helps!
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Old 01-25-2003, 06:48 AM   #8  
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My husband is the pest control business and a combination of sticky traps and posion gets them best. If your not sure where their coming from call the ______ man (No advertising LOL!) Depending on your problem something else may have to be done.

I understand stress eating. It most often hits me in the middle of the night. 200 calories, thats awesome. I have often eaten enough calories for a day in that one sitting. I hope things start to go better for you!

Best wishes,
Miss Chris
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Old 01-25-2003, 08:22 AM   #9  
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Thanks everybody for all your support and advice regarding the critters!

Nicole you're right about the pb and chocolate, it was Reese pb cups that they found in my closet -- And I love your idea about using the little lunch bags ....

Goddess Jess ... it hasn't been above 12 degrees here all week, with windchills running about 10 to 20 BELOW zero! So, we've been bagging them and putting them out near the trashbarrels ... same as the deep-freeze. (Which I don't have by the way.)

Miss Chris, I bought the poison yesterday. Kitty, I'll have to remember to check the basement for dead bodies. Funny thing is, I just threw out deconn about a month ago. It was un-opened on a top shelf of a closet and it was almost 4 years old ... see, I jinxed myself -- lol!

The last time we had them, I only saw them on the 3rd floor. But at the time the first floor had very little heat and there were contractors working on the kitchen.

Before anybody thinks I live in a mansion or something .... yes, we have 3 floors, but I have what the town assessors refer to as a 2 1/2 story house (dormer on one side of what used to be the attic) and 7 1/2 rooms. (The 1/2 room is abut 6.5 x7 and has no closet so it can't be called a bedroom.) Basically in the part of the house that has a basement, there's 2 rooms on each floor. Then the kitchen sort of hangs off the back of the house ... the thing about the kitchen is that it LOOKS like an addition, but when we took it apart we found out that it was actually OLDER than the rest of the house ... very rough wooden studs, nails that look like mini railroad spikes, not those needle-like or flat-top ones of the 1900's ... the main house was estimated to be built in 1880 but the foundation is more like 1930s,the previous owners told us the house was moved 'during the depression' ... so it fits what the building inspector found on his own. I just wish I knew how they were getting in ... you're right Miss Chris, if I can't figure that out, it's time to call the pros ... as for advertising there's no pest control that I know of around here called _____Man -- lol!

Thanks again to everybody!!!
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Old 01-26-2003, 02:14 PM   #10  
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Stress eating is a major problem. I have learned to compartmentalize aspects of my life like a man really. My OP-ness is my sacred place the area of my life separate and apart from the rest of my life so that nothing outside affects it . Boy it took me a long time but was well worth the effort and is now my most treasured skill. I couldn't cope without it!
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Old 01-26-2003, 08:17 PM   #11  
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I feel for you. I agree with the poison and the regular snap traps. That is what worked for me.

About your husband, mine is in the military and drives truck so he is away often. He is in florida right now. Your kids will be fine, just have your hubby call and say hi. It's not that bad. You will do fine. Just think that you can make a great healthy dinner for you and your kids.

Good luck,

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Old 01-26-2003, 10:31 PM   #12  
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Steph!!! **hugs** I think stress eating is the #1 thing that throws ne off plan. A couple hundred calories...I think you did pretty good. Don't beat yourself up.
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