If you live by yourself and have animals

[CoyoteChris]

I had to drive a stick shift car when I took my driver's test as a teenager, but haven't driven one since then, and when AWD cars became a thing I started buying those. I only kept a car for about three years and traded it in whenever newer safety features like birds-eye view cameras and cross-traffic warnings were added. Since I've never driven outside any city I've ever lived in, I never put as much as 1,000K on any of them. Finally, being a reluctant driver anyway, although the last car only cost me about $10 a month for gas, I figured out that it was cheaper to take taxis rather than pay insurance and to have seasonal tires changed (in BC it's illegal to drive in winter without snow tires) and annual maintenance, etc, so I sold my last CR-V to a neighbour in my building and exchanged my licence for a provincial ID card.

Whenever I picked up a new CR-V, I'd get the salesman to fold the back seat flat into the floor and then never had it put back up until it was traded in again. To take my cat to the vet I'd fasten his carrier into the front passenger seat and he was happier being close to me.

We were taught the 10 and 2 hand position in driving lesson class at high school, but I've heard the 9 and 3 positions are recommended now for everyone. My husband used to hold his hands at 11:59 and 12:01, resting his forearms on the wheel, which was, shall we say, a small bone of contention between us . He was a research chemist during the day but a pianist and church organist evenings and weekends, and I couldn't convince him he was going to get his "playing arms" broken by the airbags that way.

Wow...its like we are opposites! I never had an automatic transmission till 2018. I never kept a car only three years. Right now, I have a 21 year old, a 19 year old, and a 7 year old.....I have 3 cars and 3 motorcycles. I love driving/riding but not in towns. I drive and ride maybe 10,000 miles a year and my wife 30,000. I love riding all over the west. I drive back to Wisconsin every year.
You are right. You dont need a car....Many people in Europe just rent if they need to go on vacation.
Our SUV tires are rated mud and snow but really are not true snow tires. WA allows studs which are worthless and damaging but the big tire dealers pay off the state politicians. Airbags are very bizarre. If they would stay inflated, they would be of some use. But they only stay inflated for milliseconds. They are for people who dont use lap/shoulder belts, I guess. But we all pay for the tremendous cost of production and installation and repair.
I dont think I have ever seen someone use a top top driving hand hold. ......

 

[CoyoteChris]

A dissenting voice about Subaru: we had a Forester and had nothing but trouble with it. Replaced it with a Toyota RAV4 which we love (though not for parking!) Our town car is a 1998 Honda Civic. That is not a typo!

At this point, Honda and Toyota are our car companies of choice for the Civic's replacement. Really like the FIT, but it came and went during the Civic's lifespan. I would like a car the length and wheelbase of the Civic but the height of the RAV4.

We have lemon laws and they are very interesting. If you were to get a new Subaru and had X amount of issues with it, they take your car and give you your money back. The 2014 had an issue with bad oil scraper rings. But all cars are now so complex, I get extended manufactures warrenties...8 yr 80,000 miles...$600 in 2018 prices.
We had a Honda civic Wagon. 1983. Bought it at the end of the model year and had to pay a premium for it. We had it for 250,000 miles. Sold it to a kid for $1 and he put 30,000 on it. It got 40 mpg. I could work on that car.....

 

[Diana Delafield]

Wow...its like we are opposites! I never had an automatic transmission till 2018. I never kept a car only three years. Right now, I have a 21 year old, a 19 year old, and a 7 year old.....I have 3 cars and 3 motorcycles. I love driving/riding but not in towns. I drive and ride maybe 10,000 miles a year and my wife 30,000. I love riding all over the west. I drive back to Wisconsin every year.
You are right. You dont need a car....Many people in Europe just rent if they need to go on vacation.
Our SUV tires are rated mud and snow but really are not true snow tires. WA allows studs which are worthless and damaging but the big tire dealers pay off the state politicians. Airbags are very bizarre. If they would stay inflated, they would be of some use. But they only stay inflated for milliseconds. They are for people who dont use lap/shoulder belts, I guess. But we all pay for the tremendous cost of production and installation and repair.
I dont think I have ever seen someone use a top top driving hand hold. ......

Drive without being buckled in where I live and you get pulled over and your car confiscated. *Everyone* uses seat belts, in the city anyway. I've never been driven around in rural parts to see what they do outside cities.

You would have gotten along well with my father. He was the dean of engineering at UBC and a professor of mechanical engineering. But he'd really wanted to be a motor mechanic like his father, only he won a scholarship to university in Aberdeen (Scotland, not Washington state ) and his parents were so proud he couldn't disappoint them by not taking it. But his students loved the way he used every excuse to say, "Here, let me show you what I mean" and grab a boiler suit to get right down on the floor with them.

He learned to drive from an uncle in Scotland when he was 12, back before driving licences and age limits were invented (during WW1 when his uncle was home on leave and showing off the new skill he'd learned in the army). Daddy never bought a new car, always used ones that he and his own father took apart and rebuilt. For our family, he bought each of us (himself, wife, four sons and one daughter, me) a used car every year from graduating students and rebuilt them in his complete workshop. We didn't get to choose, we just took whatever he assigned to us. My first car at 16 was quite a bit older than I was -- a 1949 Austin with little signal arms that popped out on each side of the roof instead of turning lights. We lived on the edge of the UBC campus and I just used my little purple (painted with housepaints by the student he bought it from) baby car to tootle back and forth from classes. I was always terrible at parking, so in the student parking lot I'd pull up in the lane, get out and look helplessly at a narrow space, and a male student would always appear and offer to park it for me. (Hey, my generation shamelessly did things like that .)

But my father loved to drive. When I got married and we spent eleven years in Ontario and Quebec, he and my mother would drive across the country every summer to visit us and the grandkids. (He drove, my mother navigated. Like me, she didn't like to drive although she reluctantly got a licence after I did.) They could have flown or taken the train, but that would have taken all the fun out of it for him.

None of us ever rode a motorcycle, though. We kids all had bicycles. Daddy supervised the purchase, but wasn't interested apart from checking the tires and moving parts for us. He loved motors.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Drive without being buckled in where I live and you get pulled over and your car confiscated. *Everyone* uses seat belts, in the city anyway. I've never been driven around in rural parts to see what they do outside cities.

You would have gotten along well with my father. He was the dean of engineering at UBC and a professor of mechanical engineering. But he'd really wanted to be a motor mechanic like his father, only he won a scholarship to university in Aberdeen (Scotland, not Washington state ) and his parents were so proud he couldn't disappoint them by not taking it. But his students loved the way he used every excuse to say, "Here, let me show you what I mean" and grab a boiler suit to get right down on the floor with them.

He learned to drive from an uncle in Scotland when he was 12, back before driving licences and age limits were invented (during WW1 when his uncle was home on leave and showing off the new skill he'd learned in the army). Daddy never bought a new car, always used ones that he and his own father took apart and rebuilt. For our family, he bought each of us (himself, wife, four sons and one daughter, me) a used car every year from graduating students and rebuilt them in his complete workshop. We didn't get to choose, we just took whatever he assigned to us. My first car at 16 was quite a bit older than I was -- a 1949 Austin with little signal arms that popped out on each side of the roof instead of turning lights. We lived on the edge of the UBC campus and I just used my little purple (painted with housepaints by the student he bought it from) baby car to tootle back and forth from classes. I was always terrible at parking, so in the student parking lot I'd pull up in the lane, get out and look helplessly at a narrow space, and a male student would always appear and offer to park it for me. (Hey, my generation shamelessly did things like that .)

But my father loved to drive. When I got married and we spent eleven years in Ontario and Quebec, he and my mother would drive across the country every summer to visit us and the grandkids. (He drove, my mother navigated. Like me, she didn't like to drive although she reluctantly got a licence after I did.) They could have flown or taken the train, but that would have taken all the fun out of it for him.

None of us ever rode a motorcycle, though. We kids all had bicycles. Daddy supervised the purchase, but wasn't interested apart from checking the tires and moving parts for us. He loved motors.

Just like Chris Knierim! He loves motors...not skating.... My first car was a Triumph Spitfire...it had a bad head gasket so my dad and I took the engine apart in the driveway and put in a new one....Fathers and sons dont do that anymore. My dad was a GM engineer without a degree. As a saleried employee, he could make a suggestion and if it was adopted, he would get 10 percent of the first year's savings. He was making so much money GM just made him an engineer so they didnt have to pay him. LOL! He was actually slated to go to the Prestigious General Motors institute as he took all four years of high school math at once...but then the war hit. He taught me how to build model airplanes from scratch. I was much happier being a mechanic than an engineer......

 

[PaulE]

Thanks to everyone here for the discussion of cars. I've been thinking that the Subaru Crosstrek was probably the ideal car for winter and it was nice to hear your opinions. I have a 2001 Subaru Forester that I really like. That is what I drove from the Olympic Peninsula to Colorado Springs for 4CC in 2023 (along with my Basenji dog traveling companion).

 

[CoyoteChris]

Thanks to everyone here for the discussion of cars. I've been thinking that the Subaru Crosstrek was probably the ideal car for winter and it was nice to hear your opinions. I have a 2001 Subaru Forester that I really like. That is what I drove from the Olympic Peninsula to Colorado Springs for 4CC in 2023 (along with my Basenji dog traveling companion).

I loved driving the crosstrek and it fits me to a T. If I live long enough to require another car, that is the one I would buy. (on your 2001, make sure you have the timing belts replaced and the front end seals...and watch for melting of the headlite bulb connectors and use the official bulbs)

 

[CoyoteChris]

Back on topic, we now know way more about the Gene Hackman case. He does have 3 very adult kids but I dont know how close they were. Its sad the wife didnt make arrangments for someone to check up on them. He may have been so far gone that he would have been beligerant to any outside help. He didnt have food in his stomach but he wasnt dehidrated. ALH. is a terrible desease. I had half a day training on hanta virus as it is here in WA and can be found in radio shacks and garages. That is where I got my N100 3M mask training...in the patrol. In the west, any mouse droppings are suspect and should be cleaned up with bleach and water. When I sweep out my garage, I wear a quality N100 mask. One person is dead this year already here. While it is very hard to catch, it kills quickly, as we saw....

 

[Diana Delafield]

Back on topic, we now know way more about the Gene Hackman case. He does have 3 very adult kids but I dont know how close they were. Its sad the wife didnt make arrangments for someone to check up on them. He may have been so far gone that he would have been beligerant to any outside help. He didnt have food in his stomach but he wasnt dehidrated. ALH. is a terrible desease. I had half a day training on hanta virus as it is here in WA and can be found in radio shacks and garages. That is where I got my N100 3M mask training...in the patrol. In the west, any mouse droppings are suspect and should be cleaned up with bleach and water. When I sweep out my garage, I wear a quality N100 mask. One person is dead this year already here. While it is very hard to catch, it kills quickly, as we saw....

Do we probably also have that virus just north of you in southern BC? Should I wear a mask when I take my garbage and recycling downstairs to the garbage room in my apartment building's basement garage? The caretaker does have poison traps around and cleans often, but one winter evening a few years ago I opened that room's door and there was a mouse, unmoving, on the floor. I thought at first it was alive but had frozen in fear when the light went on suddenly, but then I realized it was dead. It appeared to have died suddenly in mid-scamper across the floor.

Now I don't like to think I might track a virus back upstairs on the old shoes I wear only for trips to the basement. My cat is elderly and diabetic, and I have mild asthma and a couple of inherited autoimmune disorders that put me in the vulnerable class for infections.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Do we probably also have that virus just north of you in southern BC? Should I wear a mask when I take my garbage and recycling downstairs to the garbage room in my apartment building's basement garage? The caretaker does have poison traps around and cleans often, but one winter evening a few years ago I opened that room's door and there was a mouse, unmoving, on the floor. I thought at first it was alive but had frozen in fear when the light went on suddenly, but then I realized it was dead. It appeared to have died suddenly in mid-scamper across the floor.

Now I don't like to think I might track a virus back upstairs on the old shoes I wear only for trips to the basement. My cat is elderly and diabetic, and I have mild asthma and a couple of inherited autoimmune disorders that put me in the vulnerable class for infections.

Here is a good link for people in BC

http://www.bccdc.ca/Documents/Hantavirus_Pulmonary_Syndrome_in_BC.pdf

here is a good general link

About Hantavirus

An overview of hantavirus, how it's spread and how it can be treated.

www.cdc.gov

I dont like poison as you never know where the mouse is gonna die. Or how fast. Most people who catch it are cleaning with brooms, filling the air with particles of mouse urine/feces...not sure I would wear a mask taking my garbage down or my recycling . Remember, this is hard to catch. But the charts in the links will show you how many cases are encountered. But I set traps and if they get by my defenses in the garage, and get into the house, they will get caught in the traps in the kitchen....then, its time to use the spray bleachwater and masks. Thankfully, the virus only lasts a few hours to a few days after the mice are gone.
I would love to know if the investigators found traps in the Hackman house hold or garage.

 

[TT_Fin]

I have been volunteering in cat shelter. At the moment I have pause from it because of family member needs much help and I need some rest too. But one common reason they are cats is that an old lonely person has died or is on hospital/nursing home. Thank to neighbours they tell there have been animals. This is a good thread.

 

[Diana Delafield]

Here is a good link for people in BC

http://www.bccdc.ca/Documents/Hantavirus_Pulmonary_Syndrome_in_BC.pdf

here is a good general link

About Hantavirus

An overview of hantavirus, how it's spread and how it can be treated.

www.cdc.gov

I dont like poison as you never know where the mouse is gonna die. Or how fast. Most people who catch it are cleaning with brooms, filling the air with particles of mouse urine/feces...not sure I would wear a mask taking my garbage down or my recycling . Remember, this is hard to catch. But the charts in the links will show you how many cases are encountered. But I set traps and if they get by my defenses in the garage, and get into the house, they will get caught in the traps in the kitchen....then, its time to use the spray bleachwater and masks. Thankfully, the virus only lasts a few hours to a few days after the mice are gone.
I would love to know if the investigators found traps in the Hackman house hold or garage.

The article was interesting, thanks, although I'm afraid my computer wouldn't accept the pdf ("Potential security risk" it said, in big red letters). The CBC website also had an article on the virus this morning. I don't know how I'd tell the symptoms apart from any other flu-like disease I might catch. I'd be more concerned my cat might catch it if he sniffed around my "basement shoes" and I'd walked on a floor a sick mouse might have contaminated. I'm not sure if the caretaker puts poison in the garbage room -- he has a couple of traps in the basement that are solid ones with just a small mouse-size opening. Mainly he vacuums the garage, garbage and elevator equipment rooms, and hoses down the floors several times a week.

Our basement garage has open windows with bars on them. Keeps burglars out, but small birds fly through and squirrels, mice, and wild rabbits (dumped pets, really) use the garage as a short-cut from our condo complex gardens on one side to the small city park on the other side of the building. You check under your car for bunnies before driving out of your space, or at least I did when I still owned a car.

 

[CoyoteChris]

The article was interesting, thanks, although I'm afraid my computer wouldn't accept the pdf ("Potential security risk" it said, in big red letters). The CBC website also had an article on the virus this morning. I don't know how I'd tell the symptoms apart from any other flu-like disease I might catch. I'd be more concerned my cat might catch it if he sniffed around my "basement shoes" and I'd walked on a floor a sick mouse might have contaminated. I'm not sure if the caretaker puts poison in the garbage room -- he has a couple of traps in the basement that are solid ones with just a small mouse-size opening. Mainly he vacuums the garage, garbage and elevator equipment rooms, and hoses down the floors several times a week.

Our basement garage has open windows with bars on them. Keeps burglars out, but small birds fly through and squirrels, mice, and wild rabbits (dumped pets, really) use the garage as a short-cut from our condo complex gardens on one side to the small city park on the other side of the building. You check under your car for bunnies before driving out of your space, or at least I did when I still owned a car.

I find it bizarre that your computer/browser/virus checker thinks an official document from the BC center for Disease Control is a security risk. Its a great document. It also covers the states. If you like, I can send it to you via messages.

 

[Diana Delafield]

I find it bizarre that your computer/browser/virus checker thinks an official document from the BC center for Disease Control is a security risk. Its a great document. It also covers the states. If you like, I can send it to you via messages.

I was able to get it by searching for it as an original request from my own address, thanks. It was probably blocked because it was considered a news story sent from a USA address, yours. Much too complicated to explain why news stories from American sources are blocked and I don't know all the details why anyway. I used to subscribe to a couple of digital newspapers from the US and they were allowed through (at the time -- I unsubscribed to both late last year).

 

[elbkup]

I have 2 indoor/outdoor cats that hunt, one is a prolific mouser the other confines his outdoor time to the stairs at the

entrance. We live in NE New England USA. I have googled the prevalence of the disease in our area which is low but dead mice around the house/grounds are a common occurrence and gives me pause. I use a double scooper to pick them up (without touching them) and bury them a long distance from the house just to get them as far away as possible. The hunting cat is now mostly indoors having gained so much weight from eating multiple times she can barely move. Last summer when one of my Boston friends visited had not seen her for a year said: E! She looks like a football! Seriously tho, I will have a talk with her vet about this..

 

[Diana Delafield]

I have 2 indoor/outdoor cats that hunt, one is a prolific mouser the other confines his outdoor time to the stairs at theView attachment 9113 entrance. We live in NE New England USA. I have googled the prevalence of the disease in our area which is low but dead mice around the house/grounds are a common occurrence and gives me pause. I use a double scooper to pick them up (without touching them) and bury them a long distance from the house just to get them as far away as possible. The hunting cat is now mostly indoors having gained so much weight from eating multiple times she can barely move. Last summer when one of my Boston friends visited had not seen her for a year said: E! She looks like a football! Seriously tho, I will have a talk with her vet about this..

You wouldn't want that beauty to eat anything diseased!

None of my cats ever go outdoors except a couple in the past who liked leash-walks, and they just did a little sight-seeing, not hunting. I don't think any of ours would have shown any interest in a mouse unless it was fuzzy, bright-coloured, and stuffed with catnip. The two leashed explorers each brought in fleas, though. Not something you want in the house either, thinking of bubonic plague which is still around in some parts of the world. After them, I didn't put the idea of walkies into the heads of any of their successors.

 

[CoyoteChris]

You wouldn't want that beauty to eat anything diseased!

None of my cats ever go outdoors except a couple in the past who liked leash-walks, and they just did a little sight-seeing, not hunting. I don't think any of ours would have shown any interest in a mouse unless it was fuzzy, bright-coloured, and stuffed with catnip. The two leashed explorers each brought in fleas, though. Not something you want in the house either, thinking of bubonic plague which is still around in some parts of the world. After them, I didn't put the idea of walkies into the heads of any of their successors.

Bubonic plague is in NV and CA but thankfully its treatable now. Caught a mouse today in my detached garage. It I am sure it dumped its flea load in this unheated garage. You dont want to kill them in the house cause the fleas get on the dogs....Trainer wife had cats and they got fleas in the midwest but they were indoor cats...maybe they killed a mouse in the house?

 

[Diana Delafield]

Bubonic plague is in NV and CA but thankfully its treatable now. Caught a mouse today in my detached garage. It I am sure it dumped its flea load in this unheated garage. You dont want to kill them in the house cause the fleas get on the dogs....Trainer wife had cats and they got fleas in the midwest but they were indoor cats...maybe they killed a mouse in the house?

Or they were tracked in on human shoes. Biting insects consider me a gourmet feast -- I think they organize tasting tour groups in season -- and when we had the fleas in the house, before the pest control company came and got rid of them for us, my husband could be sitting on the couch in his shorts and T-shirt and I'd walk across the room wearing knee socks under long pants. And he'd be untouched while I had them eagerly scrambling up my socks to bite my legs at the top.

 

[Karoltyna]

My mom is 72 and lives alone with a 16 yo dog. She has a smartphone uses it to browse internet and watch netflix but will leave it in random places in her apartment or won't take it with her when she walks the dog. In last 3 years I drove to her 4 or 5 times bc I couldn't call her and I knew she wasn't feeling well. Luckily it's just 11 km, but still nervewrecking.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Or they were tracked in on human shoes. Biting insects consider me a gourmet feast -- I think they organize tasting tour groups in season -- and when we had the fleas in the house, before the pest control company came and got rid of them for us, my husband could be sitting on the couch in his shorts and T-shirt and I'd walk across the room wearing knee socks under long pants. And he'd be untouched while I had them eagerly scrambling up my socks to bite my legs at the top.

Never saw an actual flea on me but mosquitos think I am a 5 Michelin star restaurant. When we catch them on the dogs, we put them into a jar of alchohol....thankfully, they dont do well in arid lands.....

 

[CoyoteChris]

My mom is 72 and lives alone with a 16 yo dog. She has a smartphone uses it to browse internet and watch netflix but will leave it in random places in her apartment or won't take it with her when she walks the dog. In last 3 years I drove to her 4 or 5 times bc I couldn't call her and I knew she wasn't feeling well. Luckily it's just 11 km, but still nervewrecking.

That is a tough situation for you. Like I said, I am 76 and I wear mine in a holster....so if I am cutting down or shredding a tree and something happens, or I fall off one of my motorcycles, I have a chance of reaching the phone. I cant force my current GF to carry her phone in a holster, even though she has a friend who fell off a hay bail and broke her leg and wasnt found right away....I am home alone with two dogs while she is at a trial this weekend 150 miles away and I told her to text me at least once a day so she knows I am alive.