Here's another phenomena involving a different kind of packing: http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/05/29/why-diy-fecal-transplants-are-a-thing-and-the-fda-is-only-part-of-the-reason/
Threadjacks are frowned upon in the first twenty comments. Plus I'm pretty sure that's been discussed.
estimating the right size container to hold the leftovers
I'm very good at this, but generally deficient at other estimation tasks (distances, ages, time elapsed, etc).
Here's what tidy people do tell untidy people, regularly: you don't need half of that stuff and you can't fucking find it anyway the way it is now.
My wife is always telling me you can fit more clothes in a drawer if you fold them properly. Do you disagree, heebie?
4 is the rightest thing on the internet.
Estimating the right size container to hold the leftovers is in fact my very boring superpower! But I also have stupid messy dresser drawers crammed too full of stuff. This is because (a) quick, stuff the stuff in the hole! get it out of the way ugh! and (b) it's not trivial to find the right new thing to hold the more stuff. Sometimes the right new thing would be, like, a remodeled kitchen. There is also a side order of (c) it's hard to get around to regularly going through and pruning the stuff.
5 is also right, but not that important. Unless your clothes are made of artificial fabrics of the sort that smash well.
Although folding may beat out just crumpling, you'll definitely fit more by rolling up clothes than by folding them.
That said, I am also about to order some nice clear boxes from my beloved Container Store to contain and organize the art supplies that are currently the main offender, clutter-wise. I'm not sure whether I properly qualify as a tidy or an untidy person. I contain multitudes (of stuff).
My wife is always telling me you can fit more clothes in a drawer if you fold them properly. Do you disagree, heebie?
You fold the clothes and tidily put them away. Then you can jam in more, around them!
To keep my clothes tidy, I've got a policy of only buying to replace something that I'm getting rid of.
One thing that living with Jammies has helped is my internal voice that says things like "Wait. The last time I did this, Jammies redid it. Maybe I should imitate what he did."
Untidy people are oddly inhospitable to the suggestion that some things should just be thrown away. Like, say, receipts from Trader Joe's from last September.
I claim that tidy and untidy are adjectives that are harmful, there's a gradient between any pair of people. There's a multidimensional propensity to order (lists, punctuality, a cartesian-ordered place for everything, and extreme scrubbing of floors, all independent). Individuals who cohabit and differ a bit on any component of this vector will disagree about how to store spices or whatever.
Many people respond to visible clutter with excplicit alarm or just a sense of unease. That said, touching my old cameras in the extra room where they are not hurting anyone is a bad idea. jm, are you delivering the message in 4 or receiving it?
"Wait. The last time I did this, Jammies redid it. Maybe I should imitate what he did. wait for him to do it and instead go do something I'm naturally better suited to, like blog-commenting."
Like, say, receipts from Trader Joe's dinner from last September 17 years ago.
Not that that's from personal experience or anything.
3: to be sort of boring, there's pretty good evidence that estimations of volume engage a different brain system than estimations of discrete quantity. There are nifty results showing that the former develops pretty late in childhood, dating back to Piaget (see here, although there's more to it and don't believe that stage bullshit). The latter there are somewhat less nifty results that may show that it correlates with math ability. It also may well be the case that estimates of distance recruit a different subsystem yet, and it even might be the case that estimations of small distances (like, the distance between two things on the table) recruit different resources than estimations of distances in the environment.
Like, say, receipts from Trader Joe's dinner from last September 17 years ago.
But I might need those someday!
I'm just about maximally untidy, and I attribute it to being just too good for this fallen world we live in. Putting anything away is completely impossible without having a well-designed system for where literally everything in the process should go, and any ambiguities or discrepancies are completely intolerable. Leaving everything I own strewn across the floor and all other visible flat surfaces isn't a flawed system, but rather a failure to accept a flawed system, and is therefore highly preferable.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Over nearly twenty years, the messy party in my relationship has adopted labeled large boxes and sometimes uses lids. The neater party keeps one room clear and has given up hope of a partner desk.
I view it as a form of procrastination. This object will either be time-consuming to put away now, or time-consuming to find later. Pick one based on your own preferences. Invent mumbo-jumbo about discounting until you feel good about your choice.
21 Is very close to my way of thinking. I'm trying to accept the inevitability of a flawed organizational system and not having a lot of luck. The kitchen manages to work pretty well but the rest of the apartment is a bit of a disaster area.
partner desk
[shudders uncontrollably]
L'enfer, c'est les autres.
Putting things away neatly is more boring than almost anything else I can think of. So I only do it when I have lots of papers to grade.
Have I mentioned my office has a new admin? She has resolved some piles of filing I'd been horrifiedly ignoring for years. I feel guilty about it, but man, is the better-organized office sweet.
21 is exactly my thinking.
I do fold and put away my and the kids laundry, though, since I have a system for that. I don't usually put away my wife's, because she won't agree to a system. She just jams it all in there. Based on experience, I have to say that peep's wife is completely wrong -- she fits more in her drawers than I do in mine.
My work is moving us to different cubes before moving us back to (new, improved?) cubes. I think I can maybe get a stand-up desk out of this, but will at least have reason to recycle lots of paper.
The Bernstein Bears' The Messy Room directly contradicts the OP on this issue.
30: That book is my organising bible.
I'm tidy and good at organising. The key is to take a little time each day rather than to let it build up. Periodically, though, you need to have a massive, work-intensive reorg.
I used to think I was bad at figuring out how much would fit in a space, but my unexpected detour into retail (and working in a very small, quaint shop) has revealed unknown skills in this department. Also, while anything that squishes can take up less space if just shoved in (though not always), this is not true of anything else. If you take the time to organize it, you'll find yourself with loads more space.
That might be Jammies' favorite book. He switches the "Mama Bear" and "Papa Bear" when he reads it, though.
Just as I would spend the extra 10 minutes I would live if I stopped smoking with a cigarette, so would I use the extra space from organizing to set down a book that I might read p[retty soon.
I'm not exactly a tidy person, but when things are out because they don't actually live anywhere, it makes me uncomfortable and unhappy.
32 -- really? That was a specifically-you-directed troll. My kid fucking loves those sanctimonious bear motherfuckers.
I hate the Berenstain Bears so much (though not because of The Messy Room, which I've never read).
I have almost no memory of the B. Bears. Why are they so hateful?
Mrs. McQueen begins the move to her new house this weekend. I think I've never anticipated anything as eagerly as I do the removal of her clutter. My house will once again be a shrine to order.
I hate the Berenstain Bears so much
Word. Somehow we ended up with a shitload of those books, and when they had become lost in the clutter for long enough that I knew the girls had forgotten about them, I extracted them and put them in the recycling bin.
They are nasty and smug and sanctimonious and moralizing and horrid. There is one I especially loathe called "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food" that Jane kept trying to get me to read to her at the local used bookstore.
38: They're ugly, they're artless, and the characters are loathsome.
They are nasty and smug and sanctimonious and moralizing and horrid
...and have no redeeming humor or charm.
Although 40, 42, and 43 are true.
I am adopting the signage in 41 for my own delight and for the instruction of my children.
We have the junk food one. On top of the rest of it, it's about ten pages too long.
The book linked in 41 looks fantastic. I just skimmed the "How to Solve America" section.
I just skimmed the "How to Solve America" section.
That's its weakest section, so if you like that, you should definitely read the rest.
That may be Buck's Father's Day present.
Oh, hey, I didn't read this thread because I was upstairs reorganizing the playroom, which I've complained about here before. I was able to move things around in the way that I like (turning Lee's unused desk into a giant art station!) and have also almost filled a whole garbage bag with junk. Meanwhile, Mara is up there playing away like crazy and it definitely is a plus for her that there are so many different kinds of toys there where she can find them. Her Dora was driving a dump truck and singing when I came down here to take a break since it's ridiculously hot on the third floor.
I reorganized the bathroom, which I've also written about, and I'm loving having all the hair things separated in useful ways and having multiple empty drawers in this Ikea hutch thing I assembled for the hallway. It's bothering Lee that there are empty baskets on top of it, but someday there will be things that need a place to go and this way we have a place.
"Weakest" is putting it lightly; it's positively awful. Megan would probably like it, though.
48: Berenstain Bears And The Slightly Too-Long Book
I had a tidiopathic friend who refused to accept that tents and sleeping bags that were designed to be stuffed into stuff sacks should actually be so stuffed. He'd usually get something worked out with the tent that was semi-orderly, but sleeping bags generally defeated him and led to much fun and rude comments from onlookers.
41: CLEANLINESS IS LOVE / LOVE IS CLEANLINESS as a parenting guideline gives me the creeps bigtime.
55 reminds me of the time on The Adventures of Pete and Pete where a very tidy person was defeated (why it was a defeat, I can't remember) when he ate fried or perhaps it was barbecued chicken very tidily—which is not the proper way to eat said food item! Everyone cottoned to his mistake when one of the Petes, probably Lesser Pete, offered him one of those moist towelette things. His hands were clean, and he had no need of the M.T., which just showed that he'd done wrong.
A new entry on a well-traveled path. (I think we did the christnet Soviet porn one here already.)
I think probably the best part of that book is the postscript to How to Retire at 41, "What Finally Became of Me", which transforms almost everything that comes up to that point. rfts and/or snarkout will confirm this, I'm sure. The second best, I claim, is the second-to-last part of HtRa4, on Montaigne and Thoreau. (Though I haven't finished the third part, admittedly.)
Yes, I concur. It reminds me (obliquely) of the turn in The Towers of Trebizond. Since no doubt everyone here has read that, this should be a very enlightening comparison for all.
Of course everyone has read it—I've recommended it, haven't I? Twice, if that second counts as a recommendation!
Just as I would spend the extra 10 minutes I would live if I stopped smoking with a cigarette, so would I use the extra space from organizing to set down a book that I might read p[retty soon.
This. I see (or very occasionally make) a tidy desk or counter top and immediately think of something that it would be more convenient to have there.
I'm very untidy. Some of that is probably a manifestation if procrastination, though. Also, I'm aware that I'm untidy and try to prevent it a little here and there. Buying e-books instead of paper books, for example. It annoys me a tiny bit that Teresa doesn't, at least not in the same ways. Like shopping for kitchen appliances we do not actually have counter space for. We can use it, it's a gift so money isn't an issue, but still, where are we going to put it?
Like, say, receipts from Trader Joe's from last September.
One time, when I was helping clean out my late grandfather's effects, I decided to go through one of the many fire-proof filing cabinets he left behind. The second drawer from the bottom of one of these contained hanging file folders. The front folder of this set contained exactly one item: a bar tab from 1973.
re: 16
That said, touching my old cameras in the extra room where they are not hurting anyone is a bad idea
Now I just want to know what old cameras, and how cool they are?
One thing I find, people who are really tidy often can't find shit. As they are more about the absence of clutter, than about a system. I'm about middlingly untidy. Personal spaces can be quite messy. My desk at work is pretty messy, and the area around my desk at home ditto, but I don't leave laundry or whatever scattered about and 'shared' space [kitchen, bathroom, etc] is tidy.
I can usually find things, quickly. I've had partners who keep things neat but regularly lose things, forever. Or, worse, lose _my_ things.
The front folder of this set contained exactly one item: a bar tab from 1973.
Sometimes a memory needs a physical manifestation. When I look at the bar tab, I can smell her perfume.
Leaving everything I own strewn across the floor and all other visible flat surfaces isn't a flawed system, but rather shows admirable restraint in not using pins and tape to colonize the walls and ceiling.
Plus I'm pretty sure that's been discussed.
One thing I find, people who are really tidy often can't find shit. As they are more about the absence of clutter, than about a system.
As much as I would like this to be true, it is alas not borne out in my own experience. The tidiest person I know is very much about systems and can find everything, always.
Putting anything away is completely impossible without having a well-designed system for where literally everything in the process should go, and any ambiguities or discrepancies are completely intolerable.
I think having things like a junk drawer is the middle ground here. I'm pretty tidy, but there are those things you just can't deal with in an ordered way. There's a designated place for them to go and be all in a jumble.
Also, reference to The Messy Room is making me remember how much I want a peg board. We just got a little teeny one to put on the side of some shelving in our newly combined office space. (Tweety got kicked out of his room to make way for Zardoz.) Tweety was worried I'd think it's too garage-workshoppy, but no way. I would be thrilled if we could line all of our kitchen and half of our office with peg board.
Jammies has actually organized our junk drawer. It has tidy dividers and everything has a place (but "everything" could be larger if I chose to jam stuff in there. Just saying.)
As they are more about the absence of clutter, than about a system.
It may be that there are different varieties of tidy people. There are simple purgers, who are anathema to my family lineage, and there are those who want things organized systematically.
I, like Grandfather, am a hoarder and a systematizer. I want all the things, and I want them in alphabetical order.
In addition to being a crass manifestation of the will to power, this inevitably leaves me with a pile of crap.
A pile of crap is, itself, a crass manifestation of the will to power.
she fits more in her drawers than I do in mine
What's happened to you people?
Oh yes pegboard. Pegboard for tools, or shallow drawers. Ideally anything should be available one -handed.
Boxes for Projects or Parts. Projects tend to absorb tools and parts and squat on them, but I think that's innate.
One grandfather pulled, oiled, sorted and stored nails. We moved them cross-country for him. Some are cut rather than drawn.
Ideally anything should be available one -handed.
The top half, sure.
So someone here linked this at the other place (I remember who, just not sure on the ethics of saying so -- take credit if you want it, kind person!) and I found it enlightening in re: my own particular form of untidiness. It actually started a process of multiple self-discoveries, at least some of which I hope will lead to actual growth and self-improvement. My bedroom, for example, is in fact pretty darn tidy now -- and my sock drawer meticulous. The rest of the house, though, still a shithole. So, anyway.
re: the OP-- but wait, you're tidy enough to both have containers for the leftovers, and know where they are? lids too?
I'm not hopelessly untidy, but the tidiest-- Stepford tidy, and exactly that genre of tidy-- people I know are forever implicitly accusing others of running off with their goods (have you seen? did we lend?), because you know, they couldn't possibly have misplaced them. 'cause they're so freaking tidy.
I'm currently in the middle of a move to a really small cottage-y space, and it's kind of overwhelming how much stuff I have and how little space there is for it all. Maybe I'll put pegboard up everywhere.
Whoa, Heebie, I think you just figured out my whole life.
I've spent a disproportionate amount of time over the last year or two wondering if I'm one of those people who is jokily untidy until they are pathologically untidy until they are in the pit of hell and then they somehow magically transform into a really organized person who gets tons of shit done and is really tidy and good at organizing everything and maybe even write books about it and gets a little rich. I don't actually think this will prove to be the case, but wondering about it sure beats figuring out where to put everything.
What is this 'other place' people keep talking about?
I don't know why this is such a big deal. If you can't find something in your stuff you just hire some kid to go through it for you. Cheap too. A ride in a fancy car will usually buy the little tyke.
I enjoy the boldness of implying that this place is to the other place as, say, ttaM's is to the other place.
but wait, you're tidy enough to both have containers for the leftovers, and know where they are? lids too?
My mother-in-law and I have an ongoing disagreement about leftover containers and lids. I stack the containers and stack the lids next to them. She insists containers have to be stored with lids on so they don't get lost. I'd be okay with that, even though it takes up more space, except that she is really bad about putting dishes away before they are fully dry. So she gets this cabinet full of closed-up Tupperware that all has condensation inside. It's gross.
"everything" could be larger if I chose to jam stuff in there
Ahem. (better, Blandings?)
92: That's super yucky.
We replaced all of our Tupperware with Pyrex. But still the containers are stacked on the left of the shelf and the lids on the right. It's not terribly confusing.
I stack the containers and stack the lids next to them. She insists containers have to be stored with lids on so they don't get lost.
When the guy I'm seeing lived with his last roommate, they had one drawer for containers and a second drawer for lids. It did actually seem to make finding things easier.
Every year or two, I have to take all my containers out of the drawer and throw out the ones that no longer have lids. (Or lids that no longer have containers... )
Just as a general rule, I'd say you should let your mother-in-law have her cabinets her way and insist she leave your cabinets your way. My mother-in-law does try to encourage me to dry the dishes as I take them out of the dishwasher, but she feeds me steak and shrimp all the time, so I don't really complain about it.
The best thing about my mothers-in-law back when I had some was that they both lived 4000 or so miles away.
Just as a general rule, I'd say you should let your mother-in-law have her cabinets her way and insist she leave your cabinets your way
Ah, if only it were that simple.
My m-i-l has a dishwasher (came with the condo they bought after they sold their house) but she doesn't ever use it. EVER. She survived the Blitz, and she did it without a dishwasher, thank you very much.
She could use it to store containers, with the lids on the top rack.
84: and it's kind of overwhelming how much stuff I have and how little space there is for it all.
The last few years of my life have to some extent been an ongoing object lesson in the tyranny of stuff. Mostly due to involvement in various younger and older family members going through life transformations which involved moving/reducing/sorting through/acquiring stuff. Entailments Stuff is bad, Mr. Cunningham. And yet I still regard as improvements our having significantly increased the stuff-storing capacity of our humble abode by putting down plywood on the garage rafters and waterproofing the basement (so it is now a dry pit from hell, rather than a moist one). I think in the end we're just going to have to pull a Gilbert Grape.
Mostly due to involvement in various younger and older family members going through life transformations which involved moving/reducing/sorting through/acquiring stuff.
My parents, who have accumulated sentimental treasures until their gigantic house is packed to the gills, and haven't moved in 35 years, are in this stage.
My brothers are fucking worthless, as far as keeping family items in the family - it will end up at a garage sale, if it goes to them. Jammies and I have a perfectly nice house, but we don't have that much extra space to acquire all the things that need a home. It's stressful to me.
103: My wife and I have an ongoing refrain of reminding ourselves of the need to be "ruthless." Ruthlessness is outwardly applauded and valorized. But we're both actually sentimental softies and secret hoarders. Although we have gotten better at identifying what are the things that might have actual family value down the line. But then again we have somewhat mixed feelings about the way our living room has transformed into an inadvertent shrine to the past.
100: my sister only ever uses her dishwasher as a place for hand-washed dishes to hang out to dry.
I plan to spend about an hour today sorting Legos. It is a very soothing activity, especially in the evening after the first beer has been opened. My goal is to get to the point where we can reconstruct some of the big kits that we made, then disassembled and let all the pieces get mixed back into the general pot.
I find sorting fiddly little things to be incredibly relaxing. I think it goes back to when I was a little kid and my dad would have me sort his collection of random screws and bolts. It's so satisfying to have an organized collection of little things once you're done.
100, 105: my girlfriend would do the same thing if left to her own devices.
103 -- My dad's aunt and uncle (who raised him and his two siblings when they were orphaned) made a list of everything, sent it around, and had people pick stuff they wanted, ranked by priority. The wisdom of doing this when there are more than a couple of kids, or where items have particular sentimental value, is pretty much self-evident. My parents, though, are not organized enough to do it yet. Or close enough to home break-up.
We're doing wills right now but we don't have half a dozen items that are worth designating.
105: Yes, thinking about it, one sometimes finds large serving trays or baking dishes in there.
She also refuses to use a sponge of any kind in her dish washing. She washes them in dirty water with a stick, in the manner of Cold Comfort Farm before Flora Poste buys them "a little mop."*
*OK, slightly exaggerated.
I do all hand washing of dishes with a paper towel because the sponge smells funny. Or rather, the sponge smelled funny and one day I threw it away and nobody bought another one.
My father has begun microwaving his sponges every few days, as an antibacterial measure. I suppose it might combat smells as well.
(I hadn't heard of anyone doing such a thing before he started.)
That plus not paying attention was how somebody destroyed a microwave and forced an entire floor to evacuate.
I use a stinky sponge because I believe that regular exposure to low levels of bacteria gives my immune system a workout. Also it's the simplest approach to getting dishes clean.
Paper towels are just as easy and you don't have to figure out a place to put the wet, used towels. I store the rolls in the bathroom so they get some bacteria on them before I use them.
It is in fact supposed to effective as an antibacterial measure, though.
On the other hand, one friend of my mom's runs the sponges through the dishwasher, which seems likely to be rather less effective.
Yes. I don't see how you clean something that absorbs water without somehow having a squish-step in the process.
People! Go to Costco, buy a giant thing of sponges. (I like the blue ones with a scrubby side.) Take out a sponge. Use it. WRING IT OUT SO THAT'S IT'S PRETTY DRY before you put it down next to the sink. It will stay non-stinky! When it starts looking beat, switch it to the bathroom, and take out a nice new sponge from your giant Costco pack for the kitchen.
I mean, I guess boiling them would work fine.
Er, -'s. I'll let you figure out which one.
119: I am fairly sure that you are talking to people who are not in this thead. But if you can somehow convince my mom that wringing out sponges before putting them down next to the sink (or, better yet, wringing them out and then putting them in the nice wire holder we put up so that they don't have to sit flush with a surface) is a good idea I'm sure Blume would be much obliged.
Putting microfibre cloths through the washing machine seems to work. What are these sponges you speak of, granddad?
119: It costs $50 to shop at Costco. I don't have that kind of money in my sponge budget.
I drive right past Costco to go to Target. The Target was there first and I fear change/having a basement full of giant cases of stuff.
We get our sponges at the dollar store because those are the only kind Blume likes.
Those dishes aren't sponge-worthy!
119: Is it my dish sponge or my counter sponge that I'm supposed to move to the bathroom?
Go to Costco, buy a giant thing of sponges. (I like the blue ones with a scrubby side.)
"Go to Costco" is my strategy for basically everything. I use the blue ones with a scrubby side for dishes and the yellow ones with the green scrubby side for bathrooms, floors, etc.
It costs $50 to shop at Costco. I don't have that kind of money in my sponge budget.
Actually, if you pay for the $100 plan up front, you get 1-3% cash back at the end of the year (on everything bought with your Costco American Express card! Not just Costco purchases!). Costco pays me a significant amount to shop there.
131 was me, for those who couldn't identify me by my cultish Costco love.
131. Lots of credit cards offer 1-5% cash back.
For me, the problem with bulk buying is waste and quality. If it turns out that the huge volume of cheap stuff is off or too sweet or whatever, I wind up throwing away most of a big container rather than a small one. The most expensive stuff that I buy is either fresh rather than packaged or branded where the no-name stuff is noticeably worse.
Sponges don't go off. Unless you use sea sponges. But I don't think they sell those at CostCo.
I don't just clean. I also cook!
110.1: This has been generally done in our family for things that people want (not always accomplished without hard feelings). But that usually accounts for about 2% of the actual stuff measured by volume. It's the remaining 98% that is the issue.
119 is what I do. When the dish sponge starts to get grungy, I clip off one corner with scissors and it's demoted to being a counter sponge. When it gets even grungier, a second corner gets clipped off and it goes into the pile to be used as bathroom/toilet/cat-box/other-nasty-stuff-throw-it-out sponge.
137 Beware THE SPONGE WITH NO CORNERS!
My sponge has no corners!
How does it smell?
Terrible!
So no one else microwaves their soggy sponges until they're thoroughly boiled?
I microwave the dish and counter sponges every few days.
It's the remaining 98% that is the issue.
Let me guess. It's all much too important to get rid of but not important enough to put in the basement of whoever says it is too important to get rid of.
136: My father ran the process described in 110.1 when his mother's house was being prepared for sale. We found a lot of entertainment value - probably too much - in seeing people rate things highly which we wouldn't have wanted in a million years. I believe a genuflecting Santa was a the pièce de résistance.
Noticing how excited I was about the corner cutting system in 137 has made me now feel incredibly old and boring.
We're really supposed to be microwaving sponges now? Good Christ.
You should microwave your kitchen knives periodically to kill the germs in the crevices your sponge can't reach.
144: It was the 2nd best thing on the internet for me today after the artisanal small batch high-fructose corn syrup kit.
137: And when your nice, clean food-prep scissors get grungy, you could use a hacksaw to make a notch in the handle as a way of demoting it to sponge-corner-cutting scissors.
How many corners should a sponge-corner-cutting-scissors-sponge have?
I had no idea you were all crazy sponge hoarders.
I microwave my sponges. They come out smelling like cooked food, which strikes me as predictable but unsatisfying from a hygiene perspective.
I too am excited about the corner cutting system. Let's be old and boring, Di. While we're sharing top tips, I have gotten great results from sticking a pair of plastic placemats to the back of the litter box as a splashguard.
Oud's system in 119 is all the system anyone needs. Certain other people's habits make me very happy not to be afflicted with mysophobia, and I'll be happy to get back to using the kitchen sponge to wipe up spills on the floor with impunity.
I have gotten great results from sticking a pair of plastic placemats to the back of the litter box as a splashguard
I'm also looking forward to dealing with feline hygiene issues by getting rid of the cat.
I have gotten great results from sticking a pair of plastic placemats to the back of the litter box as a splashguard.
If your litter box needs a splashguard maybe you'd better think about taking the cats off the wet food.
I have gotten great results from sticking a pair of plastic placemats to the back of the litter box as a splashguard.
Just be sure to cut off two corners first so you don't put them back on the table by mistake.
I have gotten great results from sticking a pair of plastic placemats to the back of the litter box as a splashguard.
Well, if we're going to embrace old and boring... Do you mean like using the place mats more or less to extend the walls of the box upward? Can you share a photo? (My cat doesn't like using the litter box with the dome on top, but kicks litter (etc.) all over if the lid's not there.)
I'm also looking forward to dealing with feline hygiene issues by getting rid of the cat.
I guiltily indulge this thought far too often. But he's not that old and I'm just gonna have to get used to the idea that he'll be around for awhile. He's an okay kitty, as kitties go. But my first cat (who, now 20, is still hanging in there -- like a mangy, underweight version of those motivational posters) is pretty much the awesomest cat who has or will ever live.
Come to think of it, I'm similarly okay with my current car, but still long like a sentimental fool for my first car which was pretty much the awesomest first car ever.
It's probably a good thing Rory's an only child.
I've also had good luck using plastic placemats as a splashguard, although we don't have a cat, so I tape them to my face.
Do you mean like using the place mats more or less to extend the walls of the box upward? Yes, exactly. The cat tended to pee over the back wall, even in the extra-large box. (He is an extra-large cat.) Two placemats from Target, set long-side-up, fixed to the box with double-sided wall-hanging tape. I wish I'd thought of it last house, we could have saved the marmoleum.
||
The apocalyptic eye problems some (and by "some", I mean "anyone who stood near me for more than a minute") of you heard me complaining about at UDC seem to have gotten better. So that's a relief.
|>
(He is an extra-large cat.)
I can confirm this! Big cat, baby-eater.
torrey pine (formerly YK)
Hooray for memorable pseuds!
My friends have had good success with just turning one of the extra-large storage boxes from Target into a litter tray, if the peeing outside the box thing is a problem.
I still don't understand why nobody can make a floor-toilet for pets.
Things I Have Observed, Watching Tidy People
They don't get that messy people genuinely don't mind the mess. Makes living with them a pain.
My cat has one (given a liberal take on what a floor-toilet is).
I should have specified a flushable floor-toilet.
They don't get that messy people genuinely don't mind the mess.
Or we do mind the mess, but have accepted that we have limitations in this area that aren't going to disappear just because some OCD neatnik wags a finger at us.
My son has asked for a hamster, perhaps because he's smart enough to know that a dog seems so much more appealing when compared to a hamster than when compared to no pet at all. However, hamsters are a good way to teach kids about the inevitability of death.
Death and stupidity and dullness.
It's all death. Death comes first to excitement, then to interest, then to the hamster.
Various pets have been teaching me about the inevitability of death over the course of my entire life, but somehow the lessons don't get any easier when it comes time for the next one to give me a refresher course.
True. Hamsters are basically less exciting rats with good PR.
Good lord. Actually, googling, it turns out that hamsters are all a bunch of inbred Syrians that descend from a single brother-sister pairing. The Joffrey Baratheon of animals.
173: Poor Robert Halford never had the privilege of meeting Roland the King.
174: According to that, either the pet store sold some very old hamsters or my sister's care was not letting them live to anything approaching a normal life expectancy.
160: Either I'm the world's worst listener, or you are exaggerating a little about how often you complained. But I'm glad your eyes are better!
After the hamster dies, you can cut-off a corner and use it for the counters.
As far as I know the pseud "Hamster Splashguard" is still available.
157.last nearly made me laugh out loud.
Speaking of death and pets and cats, is it wrong to leave poison in your yard with the intent to kill the neighbor's cat, who won't stay out of your yard? (N.B.: a neighbor poisoned my cat in this manner when I was a kid, and it made me cry, so you would think I would be disinclined towards this proposal, but now that I'm older and wiser I understand where she was coming from.)
Yes, you shouldn't poison your neighbor's cat. What is wrong with you?
Also, if you do poison it, don't eat it afterwards.
183: You could try really big glue traps and say you were after a mouse.
It keeps killing things in my yard. Today I had to rescue a little baby bunny that it had mangled. The baby bunny was whimpering. And the cat was just watching it die, for fun. Plus, I'm allergic to cats.
What is the cat doing that's so objectionable?
My feeling is that cats are a little like wildlife and out to be treated with the same respect - i.e. if you want them out of the yard you make your yard hard to get into rather than go around slaughtering everything.
Outdoor cats are vicious animal murder machines. I'm worried my neighbors cats will kill our birds and chipmunks! I've been wondering if there's any good way to scare them away. So I understand where urple is coming from.
We had a dog that killed a whole litter of baby bunnies and put them on the patio. He also killed the mommy bunny.
To be fair, the bunny decided to build a burrow inside the yard in which we fenced our dog.
It's not nearly so bad when it just kills things. I can dispose of bodies. But when it leaves living but mangled animals laying around, whimpering as they slowly die, and I have to put them in cardboard boxes and take them to the park, I get pretty upset.
You could get a hamster, kill that, and leave it as a message for the cat.
As I've said here before, there's a giant feral cat colony next door, but I'm totally fine with it. They've removed any fear I had of return of the rats. The parrots can fly and escape them. They look cute and like pictures from the internet. Cats up, rodents down, I say.
Why do you take the mangled, living animals to the park?
Why are you showing pictures from the internet to feral cats? And how, for that matter? Do you bring an iPad outside or do they gather 'round the window?
Funny, I don't know if I'm human-centric (so you don't kill pets, but the death of non-pet animals is just nature taking its course) or predator-centric, but either way cats killing other animals doesn't bother me. I mean, if I had a cat someplace I could let it outdoors, I'd feel responsible to look into the ecological effect of it all to see if people who talk about cats being a problem for the bird population in aggregate are right, and if they are I'd keep the cat inside. But a cat eating a bunny is fine with me -- there are plenty more bunnies where that one came from.
Urple is a kind of one-man Make a Wish Foundation for dying chipmunks.
Catch the cat and put one of those "no killing for you" collars on it? You'll be mauled in the process and the neighbors will take it right off, but.
198.last: and it's hard to argue that they aren't delicious.
Could you line your yard with plastic placemats as a splashguard?
196: I didn't know what else to do with it.
Urple, this is your chance to pepper spray a cat. That's the brand we carry on the job and I can personally attest to its fiery goodness.
The problem is that there are too many cats. One in ten birds in the united states is killed by a housecat every year. It's unsustainable except that they have cat food to fall back on after they kill everything else.
193: To be clearer, are you taking the dying animals to the park because you are using the park as a burial ground and that is also what you do when you find a dead animal. Or are you taking just taking the still living, but mauled animals to the park so they can have a last moment on the swings.
Urple, the ideal solution is for you to dress up in a scary dog costume and chase the cat out of your yard.
None of you read my book! I'm so irrelevant!
Those statements are both true, but not related.
207: I didn't want to kill the bunny myself, the cat just wanted to watch it die, which could have taken hours, and Mrs. urple insisted that it be gone, because its whimpering was upsetting her. Throwing it in the neighbor's yard might have been just, but seemed wrong. (Partly because I'm not sure who's cat this is, so it would have just been a guess.) So I took the bunny to the park and left it there under a nice tree. It can't have survived more than a few hours.
One in ten birds in the united states is killed by a housecat every year. It's unsustainable except that they have cat food to fall back on after they kill everything else.
The main issue is feral cats, which are doing the bulk of that killing.
Couldn't you have chucked it onto your roof?
You should have probably put the bunny down. Just be sure to save the body until the cops come so they know you had a legit reason for firing a gun within city limits.
Really, the neighbor poisoned my cat when I was a kid. Is that just totally unacceptable these days?
Christ, whose 214 to 211, save us from being mangled and placed under a tree in the park.
Is that just totally unacceptable these days?
Yep. Can't smoke at the swimming pool now either.
Forgive us our cat poisonings, as we forgive those who cat poison against us.
a legit reason for firing a gun within city limits.
For a bunny? Do people not own shovels anymore?
222: If people need an AR-15 to bring down a deer, I need a 12 gauge for a bunny.
You could have beheaded it with a shovel, thus putting the poor thing out of its misery, then impaled the head on a stake and left it in the suspect neighbor's yard as a warning.
218: you sure they didn't just take it to some sort of farm?
A farm with a stream of antifreeze.
I once threw a mouse with a broken leg into a dumpster because I didn't have a shovel or a gun and couldn't bring myself to step on it. Of course, it wasn't my fault the mouse broke his leg. If he'd have tried to take the Sugar Pop with his mouth, like a normal mouse, he'd have died cleanly.
I need a 12 gauge for a bunny.
Might want to goggle up for the, uh, backsplatter.
Our apartment has mice, and we have glue traps, and so I spend a fair amount of mornings clubbing trapped mice to death with a cast-iron frying pan to put them out of the misery. I can't see just throwing the trap away with a live mouse on it.
Not sure if I could face clubbing a bunny to death with a frying pan.
I need a 12 gauge for a bunny.
Because that always worked out so well for Elmer Fudd.
228: I have place mats tied to the stock.
229 brings to mind this great comment:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_12804.html#1560209
I can't see just throwing the trap away with a live mouse on it.
That's why I never check the traps now.
When our dogs mangled a baby bunny my son insisted that we take it to the vet. I said it was useless, but the bunny and the son were both squeaking loudly enough to wear down my defenses, and I relented and brought it in. the vet's receptionist said that she had a litter of bunnies in her backyard, and she'd drop this one in with the rest and the buny mom would take care of it. It may just have been the story she tells all the kids who bring dying animals in, but at least I never saw it again and there was no bill.
Something tells me that leaving bits of dead animal around pour encourager les chats is likely to be ineffective at best, and most probably counterproductive. But inviting carrion eaters to join the fray might be entertaining.
I have killed a fair number of cat-mangled critters and birds. My technique. Put the animal in a paper bag and then grab its head and body "through" the bag, twist quickly and snap its neck. Dispose of the paper bag.
Not a relished task by any means and thankfully our current cat is such a putz that she only gets the occasional unwary chipmunk.
An old boss of mine said that we he caught a mouse in a glue trap, it took the mouse/trap assemblage and placed it in a freezer bag. Then he dropped a very heavy book on the mouse.
I'm not talking about holding a cat down and choking poison down its throat, JP--just leaving some poison out, for the cat to drink or not to drink, as it may choose of its own free will.
We all have to admit that the Judge Judy in which Urple is accused by his neighbor of having poisoned the cat would be one of the greatest moments in television history.
I agree, but there's always the chance that the result would be a felony animal cruelty charge instead of a small claims property issue.
A semi-related-to-the-OP ATM:
My uncle died last December. (I mentioned this uncle a few times over the past year-ish. There were some serious mental health issues as well as alcohol abuse going on at the end which was stressful for me in various ways that I whined about on the internet).
He was an infuriating combination of a very OCD neat freak and also a pack rat. He had sent most of his stuff from DC to Montana already, but left a small storage unit in Bethesda. Since I'm the only one nearby, I got nominated to figure out what's in the storage unit and what should be done with it.
So I have a pile of very neatly packed, but inaccurately labeled, boxes and tubs in my apartment that I'm going through today. Mostly so far it's been photos, artwork, random mementos, etc. But the box I just opened is full of journals.
What should I do with the journals? Read them? Throw them out? Tell my mom and her other siblings that they are here? Hide the box under the couch and deal with it later?
242: Or someone else's pet or toddler gets ahold of the poison. Not smart.
just leaving some poison out, for the cat to drink or not to drink, as it may choose of its own free will
But wouldn't the bunnies, birds, and occasional adventuresome four-year-old be faced with the same choice?
243: Sorry about your uncle. I'd tell your mom and her other siblings after briefly flipping through a few pages to be sure they don't all start with, "I never believed this kind of thing could happen to me...."
At least one is the daily writing thing from that one thing where you do daily writing.
243: put them under a nice tree in the park?
Obviously I would keep watch over the poison. I'm not insane.
... The Artist's Way.
It starts out complaining about how "the whole thing seems bogus but at least no one will ever read this"
249: They probably make child-proof, cat-assessable containers. You could ask at Home Depot or something.
Also my uncle's handwriting is really similar to my handwriting and it's creeping me out.
Obviously I would keep watch over the poison. I'm not insane.
WARNING: PRONE TO CAT ASSESSMENTS.
252: This isn't some kind of Fight Club thing, is it?
I hope not. I'll let you know if I find out.
Obviously I would keep watch over the poison. I'm not insane.
Obviously I would keep watch over the poison. I'm not insane.
And celebrate with the open stall fist pump if and when the cat ate the poison?
Re: tidiness and storage space, the size of the space available makes a huge difference. Part of the urban vs. rural thing. I grew up in a house with four bedrooms plus an office, a partial attic and basement, and two three barns on the property. (They weren't weatherproof or properly locked, but they were fine for storing yard furniture and stuff.) The house I bought last year has three bedrooms and that's it. (We'd like to dig out a basement, but that's a big project.) If our parents don't winnow down their stuff a ton before we more or before they die or need to be put into a nursing home, then a ton of stuff is just going to be thrown away.
220
Yep. Can't smoke at the swimming pool now either.
Or in the pool. Political correctness gone mad, I tell you.
238: That sounds Rasputanian.
Personally, I've been lucky enough not to find too many vermin too big to stomp indoors that shouldn't be. The one time was when my sister had a problem with mice in her appartment and just happened to catch one in a trap while I was visiting. It was a glue trap. (Hindsight being 20/20, a stupid kind of trap to get, especially when we had no good place to humanely release them. Why didn't we think of that at the time?) In the end, when I was nominated to finish the mouse off, I put a second trap face-down on top of it and stomped on them. Mouse sandwich.
That is brutal. I'm a pacifist.
Who's contemplating poisoning a cat and let a mortally wounded rabbit enjoy a drawn-out death. Check.
It was a glue trap. (Hindsight being 20/20, a stupid kind of trap to get, especially when we had no good place to humanely release them. Why didn't we think of that at the time?)
I wasn't aware that you could humanely remove a mouse from a glue trap.
261: he's going to WATCH the POISON, nosflow. Geez.
My neighbor has a live-capture trap for groundhogs. Maybe if you put a little rabbit inside, you could catch the cat in one of those. It looks big enough to hold at least a small cat. I'm not sure how much smarter cats are than groundhogs.
Obviously I would keep watch over the poison. I'm not insane.
The pellet with the poison's in the saucer with the flaw, sir - the bottle with the dot'll have the cream that's a dream ...
265: Are you from Buffalo? Surely that didn't get wider airplay. I don't think the girls were overly impressed when my dad played it for them on YouTube recently.
267 No, I'm not, and why Buffalo? I'm mostly from LI but I am a fan of Ernie Kovacs and originally heard it played on late night on NY's WBAI many years ago when that station was still good.
Googling around and coming across Joey Reynolds I understand the Buffalo connection. I'm familiar with Leona Anderson's version from "Music to Suffer By." She used to be a regular guest on Ernie Kovacs.