u/Lanky_Rhubarb1900

Edit: We have two useless cats that follow the bugs around like “huh? What’s that?”

The bugs don’t really bug me. We don’t see them incredibly often, but the teen is the one starting to wig out. About to go hit the perimeter of the house with diatomaceous earth.

They don’t bother me too much, and I know they’re a fact of life down here. We’re in a 50’s-built home with a shelf basement so keeping them out seems like it would be a losing battle. But my kid is starting to wig out because she’s noticed one in her room the past few nights. These things are almost ROUS-sized (rodents of unusual size for anyone under the age of 35). Apparently one was on the ceiling, dropped and was flung across her room by her ceiling fan 🤣 I can’t laugh about it in front of her, and honestly am glad it didn’t happen to me.

Are there effective roach traps for these dumb bugs and their stupid size?

Would an exterminator have effective bug-deterrent treatment that wouldn’t impact other small critters around our home (like bees or birds)?

Since the now-infamous station swap was, by most peoples’ judgment, a poor choice that robbed Sherry of a win, I thought *I KNOW we can come up with WAY better challenges.* So let’s hear them!

My suggestion: Fans send a photo of their own home-made dishes for the chefs to choose from and refine into $$$ dishes.

Over 40 years of friendship just ended because my childhood best friend completely imploded his life. Drinking, drugs, infidelity, you name it. Texted me out of the blue saying he had been to rehab, divorced his wife, and was moving states to be with a new partner. The fact that he never even reached out when he started on this downward spiral already tells me he was no longer invested in our friendship. We have seen each other through some REAL shit, mind you. There was no reason for him to hide this from me and I might have guided him to at least avoid hurting anyone else while trying to work through the mess in his head.

His wife and I have been close for their entire relationship of over 20 years. He went radio silent after dropping that bombshell of a text so I reached out to her. She filled me in on everything he did; too many disturbing details to list here. When things started to get really bad she didn’t want to tell me because she thought it was a bad funk he’d eventually snap out of. And she didn’t want our friendship to be impacted.

I now know that I apparently never knew him AT ALL. He’s managed to keep this disgusting, sinister side under wraps all these years. Something cracked, and he could no longer keep up the facade. Now he’s literally blowing up his marriage and all the mutual friendships made along the way. Whatever the rehab was for, we don’t think it worked.

I'm no stranger to Al-Anon, this is just my first time sharing in this community. My Qs are: My dad (deceased), my mom (recovering), my brother (addiction + NPD), my sister (addiction + depression), and now, most recently, my life-long friend.

What stings the most right now about just finding out about my friend's patterns of addiction, depression, and infidelity, is that he was the one who was there for me every time another one of my family members was in crisis mode.

He witnessed firsthand the emotional torment of wishing I could have found a way to keep my dad's drinking from killing him, and was the first person I called when my dad died. I shared all of the challenges and frustrations of helping my mom through rehab, as it became evident there were deeply-ingrained behavior patterns that sobriety alone was never going to resolve. He heard about all the pain and damage my brother caused that resulted in his marriage ending and losing custody of his kids. And he knows about the falling out I had with my sister, largely resulting from her outbursts that happened when she drank excessively ignoring the warning labels on her multiple medications.

My childhood friend has probably seen me cry more than my own husband of almost 20 years. Despite that, he went and blew up his own life, and I'm finding out about all the pain he caused along the way.

I'm tired. But I'm also grateful when I hit a point in my life when I needed a wake-up call. It's easy to retreat to the same bad habits to cope with the pain that their bad habits caused me. I've been through several rounds of therapy at different phases of my life and each time came away learning something new about myself and to recognize and acknowledge my triggers to better cope.

It's just so sad right now to be at an age where I'm starting to see what happens when people plow through life with unresolved issues. I know my friends' family was/is also incredibly challenging. And I think there is so so much he never dealt with, and we're seeing the result of that now. 20-something me is in there screaming "we've got to DO SOMETHING!" but 40-something me is saying "No, we've been here before. They are the only ones who can really help themselves, and they have to want to."

All I can do is to reassert my boundaries and protect my peace.

Apparently there has been an issue with restricted bathroom access, in that the bathrooms are frequently locked. Is this not some kind of health code or ADA violation? Especially if the closest bathroom is not available in the event someone really needs to use it?

Not to mention class time lost if someone needs to go, but has to go to another floor or building find an unlocked bathroom, or wait for someone with a key.