Angel Hunt

I go car-free in a place that everyone tells me it is not possible to be car-free. Yet I've done it successfully for 2+ years. There are definitely limitations on my ability to move around, but so far those limitations have not dwarfed the significant expense of owning and maintaining a car for me to justify buying one. I currently work remotely, which helps a lot, and I was very intentional about living someplace where I could easily get around by foot or bike (analog). Almost all errands I need to run are within seven miles or less, so I can easily get by with walking or biking in most instances. Grocery shopping is no problem. There is a grocery store around the corner, another slightly nicer one that is 1.5 miles away, and some specialty health food stores that are a little farther. I enjoy walking, so I usually walk to the one that is a mile and a half away, carrying a backpack and a couple tote bags (sometimes insulated ones in the summer). Yes, it takes a little more time and effort than driving to the store, but it is worth it to me because I see it as an investment in my health and fitness. I get exercise, fresh air, sunlight, and a chance to listen to a podcast or catch up with a friend. If I want to save time, I can bike instead. I have hauled some large and heavy items as well by attaching a trailer to my bike. Very seldomly I have gotten rides from neighbors when I couldn't manage a load on my bike.

I've been able to accomplish about 90% of my wants and needs with walking, biking, and public transportation, and I think people vastly overestimate how hard it is to get around without a car. But there are some real limitations. While I can get around town easily enough, it is difficult to get out of town in this rural area to visit nearby attractions, most of which are only accessible by car. I don't enjoy biking after dark, which limits my options for socializing. But I don't have a strong desire to go out these days, and I am not into nightlife much, so it does not really bother me.

What I was not prepared for was the sense of alienation. I don't know anyone else locally who is intentionally car-free, and I think people see it as weird or tragic. Additionally, the judgment and pressure I get from family to get a car has been disappointing. They told me at the outset that it would not be possible for me to survive without a car, and I thought after showing them that I was able to do it for a couple of years that my family would concede. Instead, they have become more insistent that it is impossible to survive without a car and increased their pressure on me to buy a car. They cannot see the contentment, financial savings, environmental advantages, and health benefits that going car-free affords me. All they can see is how frustrated they believe they would be in my shoes, and so they try to project that frustration onto me.

Sometimes I think I will buy a cheap used car in the future. But whenever I think about how much of my precious time and money would have to go into maintaining a vehicle, I balk. I think car owners vastly underestimate how much of their time and money goes into owning a car.

Just as an update, I overcame my fear enough to avoid my crisis of conscience. The exterminator came today, and I decided not to have him spray outside. I could not stop thinking about how the spray might kill the lizards, which would be horrible in and of itself. But it would also be counterproductive because a waning in the lizard population will probably lead to an increase in pests. And in this extreme heat, even a limited, targeted spraying could possibly aerosolize and kill pollinators.

So I am going to continue to focus on trying to seal up the house to keep roaches from entering the living areas and pray I won't see many more. We are finally getting some rain here, so maybe with more moisture outside the roaches will wander less.

Edited to add: At one point the exterminator and I were standing outside with wasps buzzing all around us. He just stopped, looked in awe at all the wasps flying in and out of nests in and around my house, and said he has never seen so many. Even though I am kind of worried about the increasing number of wasps right at my front door, I was quite proud to receive such distinction from an experienced professional who has undoubtedly seen his share of wasps! I like to think it means my garden is becoming a blossoming ecosystem.

Christopher Weeks wrote:That's a tough situation. I lived ten years as a kid in a house with endemic roaches, so I know they're a little nasty to deal with -- leaving little brown flecks (their waste?) around. I think roach motels are non-toxic. Were I in your position, I'd probably use those while trying to work on my phobia.

I cannot tell you how much fear I've worked though already just to get to this point of being able to confront them directly and remove their supposedly dead bodies. I think I have already reached my limit for how much fear I can overcome in a year.

John F Dean wrote:When I took over as CEO of a not for profit, I quickly learned that spraying simply did not work for me.   The facility was over run with roaches. The company we used refused to acknowledge their existence. Yes, they had sprayed inside and outside on a monthly basis.  I would come into the building late at night, turn in the lights, and the floor would be covered with them.  I killed off a couple hundred, placed then in a large envelope, and mailed them to the pest control company with a letter saying we would no longer be using their services.

After much experimentation, I finally found a bait that did work.  Unfortunately that was many years ago, and I no longer remember the source or content of the bait.  

That is horrifying!

I forgot to add that there is a second component to this dilemma. I am also faced with the question of whether the exterminator should spray outside for wasps. Unlike the roaches, I have zero desire to kill wasps. To the contrary, I see it as a badge of honor that my property is hospitable enough for them to want to call it home.  I want them to be here, and these last two years I managed to coexist with them quite peacefully even though they built nests close to my home.

This year, however, there are many more nests, and most of them are right outside my front door, which is new. I told the exterminator not to spray them, but in the past week I have noticed that the wasps seem more assertive and are flying around me more. I am getting worried about the potential danger to myself and guests. I don't want to be idealistic to the point of naivete. I know if these wasps do get defensive, it won't be a matter of one sting, which is bad enough. It will be multiple stings at once, which could be very dangerous.

I asked the exterminator if he could just move the nests without spraying, but he said no. One of the nests I knocked down when I saw by chance it was unoccupied, but they built it back the next day. The others are even more difficult to tackle because they are nesting inside crevices in my awning that I can't really access. The exterminator said he could bring his bee suit and seal up those crevices, which at least would avoid the use of poisons.

I am at my wit's end. This summer my home has been beseiged by roaches. I'm talking about the huge ones also known as waterbugs, palmetto bugs, wood roaches, etc. I am deathly, viscerally, irrationally terrified of them, and it is really taking a toll on me.

I feel constantly on edge in my home. I can't relax. I am always looking out for them. My heart races when I think (often erroneously) I spot them in my peripheral vision. I barely practice daily yoga anymore because I am scared of roaches scurrying over me during my practice. For similar reasons I am cutting back on floor sitting, which is an essential aspect of my mobility practice. I have insomnia on the nights I see them. I am laying here in bed writing this post to delay my morning perimeter scan for roaches. In short, I'm miserable, and my health is suffering.

So I made the decision a couple of weeks ago to go against my usual judgment and hire an exterminator. They offer both interior and exterior treatments, but I decided I would not let them spray outside even though the roaches seem to be coming in from outside. I considered it and almost rationalized how minimal the impact would be, but ultimately I thought about the beautiful five-line skinks (lizards) I see running along the perimeter of the house, and I worried about how it would affect them. So I mentally drew a line in the sand around exterior spraying (or so I thought) and focused on sealing up the area inside the house where I knew roaches were entering.

But yesterday I had my first live roach sighting since the spraying. It shattered what little sense of security I had left because it violated all my expectations: two roaches at the same time, very much alive, weeks after pesticide application, during daylight hours, in the area where I work and spend most of my time. I concluded that they must have come in the house from outside after the exterminator sprayed, and it has left me complete demoralized because I do not know what else I can do. I already sealed up the entry point they had been using, and I cannot figure out where else they could be coming in at.

I have to do something because I cannot keep living like this, but the only thing I can think of is letting the exterminator spray the perimeter of the house in hopes of destroying whatever colony is invading. I am loathe to do it, but I feel like I've run out of options.

Inspired by your suggestions, I tried again to remove the cartridge with the hope of replacing the faucet myself. This time I got it to budge, and I felt optimistic! That is until water starting flowing out of the cartridge continuously, wetting my counters and floors and beginning to drip under the cabinet (I left it a while because I erroneously thought it was old water that would run out quickly). I turned off the water supply to the faucet yesterday and I confirmed again today that they were off, but fresh hot water was flowing to the disassembled faucet despite the supply being off. Now I am worried something might be wrong with the supply lines as well as the faucet. So I am back to trying to get professional service.

Before I got this house, I had such lofty dreams of repairing things myself, but the repair problems I face never seem as simple and straight forward as what I see in my maintenance books and in YouTube videos...

Thanks.

Yesterday my kitchen faucet broke. I am not a particularly handy person, and I know nothing about kitchen faucets. Complicating matters is the fact that I inherited this faucet with the house and have no clue what brand it is let alone what replacement parts I need.

I gather that my faucet is the type that uses a cartridge, and the cartridge broke off into the handle (see attached). My plan was to pull the cartridge out and take it to the hardware store to see if I could find a replacement, but I was unable to get the cartridge out. Because the tip of the cartridge broke out, there is not much to grab onto. I tried to use pliers, but I was unsuccessful. I feel defeated. and I am thinking maybe I am just not strong enough. And even if I were to manage to get the cartridge out, I don't think I could get the broken tip out of the handle.

So my reluctant thoughts at this point are to hire a professional to replace the whole faucet. I just want to double check that there is not an easier, more cost-effective solution. Am I on the right path with a professional replacement or should I try something else?

I am a huge baker, so summertime always poses a challenge. Getting a toaster oven last year was a game changer. It's a small toaster oven, but it is just big enough to fit a loaf pan or 8x8" square pan. It allows me to bake things without heating up the whole house.

Pre-toaster, I tried to limit my baking to griddle breads like English muffins and naan. Stovetop steam baking and thermal cooker baking are interesting options for avoiding the oven, but I don't have much experience with either because my baking pans do not fit into my stockpots. I think I may have tried steam baking with ramekins once. If I recall correctly, it worked okay but was not comparable to the results of the oven. Still, it would do in a pinch if you are intent on baking and want to minimize the heat.