This seems like more than one problem. First you cannot turn off using the normal method of clicking Start/Shut down. Second you seem to indicate that once online you are unable to navigate from one web site to another. That about where you are? Can you enlarge on "went in and deleted some stuff, plus, replaced some wires". Were these whole programs or merely startup entries? Which wires and why did he feel the need to replace those? $70 for a visit to a tech is not too expensive so don't feel cheated there. What operating system are you using? What browser are you using to get online? Assuming it is Internet Explorer what version? You might try installing Chrome, Firefox or Opera and see if getting around online i,proves the situation. Installing any one of these will have no affect on IE.

You know I've read the OP's statements several times and never did she say how long the dog was crated. I've gone on record as stating that I crate my dogs and i will continue to crate my dogs when I am not available to supervise them. However, 10-13 hours is entirely too long. I know many trainers and many competitors at top levels and none suggest caging up a dog all the time. The dogs I'm involved with come from field lines and positively define high energy. They would very quicly go competely bonkers if not given an appropriate outlet for their energy. If I am to be gone more than 4 hours, I make arrangements for a responsible party to take care of the dogs. Having seen personally or heard of too many "accidents" with dogs who had been completely "trustworthy" in the past, I feel it is in the best interests of the dogs to safely confine them when I am not home. I do not believe in doggy doors either and I will not come home to a dead dog or a dog in need of immediate surgery because of my own pride in my training techniques. Perhaps if it were not the hot button issue of crating, this philosophy wouldn't be under attack? For example, I train my dogs not to counter-surf. I can prepare dinner and know that the 12 course dinner I'm preparing will not disappear behind my back. I expect to still see Tom Turkey on the counter if I leave the room to answer the phone. Tom had best be unmolested when I'm done showering. However, I'm not silly enough to insist that a turkey left alone on the counter for 4 hours would just get up and walk away on its own while 4 loyal dogs lay innocently with heads resting on crossed paws. I trust my training, but dogs are dogs. They are animals and to them, 5 minutes of joyfully devouring a turkey is worth a punctured esophagus. I cannot reason with them after the fact anymore than I could reason with a 3 year old. I didn't leave my 3 year old children home alone either and no matter how much we want to think that dogs are children, they don't ever progress past the mentality of a 3 year old. Could i leave my 10 year old lab out while I'm gone? Probably. She sleeps in her crate while i'm gone and I'm )almost) sure that she would sleep on the floor while I'm gone. But I don't want to find out I was wrong at the expense of my dog's life, especially when they ENJOY their crates and LIKE being in a safe place. I was given charge over these animals - I will care for them and not leave them to their own devices. Part of my responsible dog ownership is ensuring that their minds and bodies are stimulated enough to desire rest and re-charging when I'm not available. To this end, I play with each dog individually for 30 minutes each morning - hard play equivalent to the most strenuous aerobics class. We then take an 30 minute walk and brush up on obedience skills. Breakfast is served while I shower and prepare for the day, followed by potty time and a bit more fetching. Crate time is generally from 11-1. After errands, the dogs go back out to enjoy the fresh air and relieve themselves if needed. Before starting dinner for the human family, the dogs get another 30 minute aerobic workout. They lounge inside (or out if I'm grilling) until after dinner (theirs and mine) Two are competing and they get another obedience session in the evening, followed by a family walk. Before it gets dark, I take the one dog who is competing in field trials out for some bird work. Everyone then gets to watch TV before a final pit stop and retiring to various sleeping spots. I've owned dogs for 40 years now. Always multiples and always highly trained. I've lost plenty, but it was always due to old age or disease and never to something preventable like a car accident or foreign object ingestion. This is due to careful supervision and superior training and I'd like to keep my record and my conscience clean.

Sounds like a few possibilities- if daughter/grandkids moved in recently there must be no father on a continual basis. The boy may not understand that your house is no longer 'his' home. He may have witnessed/lived with a defiant/violent/drunk male in the past where this type of behavior is all he saw. Monkey See- Monkey Do. He may be ADHD. ADD. Fetal Alcohol Sydrome Disorder child. - 91-94% of ADHD/AUTISM is later diagnosed at early school age or adolescent age as FASD. ... It IS his mother who needs to set boundaries. Grandma already raised her kids- it is not her responsibility. Is the mother an alcoholic? Drugs? Physically or mentally abused and does not have the capacity herself to guide her children. You may not know these answers yet but dig. Ask grandma over or out for a hamburger. Discuss your worries with her and she may shed some light on the situation. Or not... It is not the child's fault, as much as it puts stress on you. Be proactive- lock your garage door. Lock your home doors. Ask a legal person if YOU may put a lock on the gate. Look at your County Clerk office tax assessment/file to see who legally put up the fence- you may be surprised to find out it is really your fence. Talk to your insurance company- they will have suggestions about how you can cover yourself. Most of these things are private and the neighbor's will not know of you trying to figure out the situation. Sometimes it DOES take a village to raise a child- especially a mentally affected child. I am blessed- I too have a connecting yard because two sisters and their husbands lived side by side. Then they were widows. I was able to know/visit the sister that previously owned my house for a year, before her death a few months ago at 100 years old... Her sister is my neighbor at 90, who is a wonderful woman. Don't dispair- there is a reason you are there. Figure out why as exhausting as it is right now. Chin up!

I thought the prime suspect likely was voles, having experienced the large amount of damage they can do when I lived in more rural areas (in the woods of western MA once, during a winter with deep snow, they completely took out -- eating roots and girdling trunks up to the level of the top of the snow -- about 20' of flower border, including several shrubs, one of which was Gruss an Aachen). I am guessing you might be experiencing the apex of a vole population cycle this year, Sheila. Vole populations generally run in cycles of 3 to 4 years. During population-peak years here in the San Francisco Bay Area, you will actually see (and hear -- they squeak as they run) large numbers of voles running around even in the middle of the day and their "runs" through the grasses will be everywhere. They become so numerous that raptors and other predators will often only partially eat their catch, leaving half-eaten vole bodies lying around. The populations of white-tailed kites, whose diet is 99% vole, also go up during those years (in one of those years, my husband and I would every evening count 75+ kites flying over our house to their communal late-summer roost just north of us). The good news for you is that your vole population may well crash to next-to-nothing next year and give you a few years' break. In the meantime, traps and snakes are good. Prime vole habitat is tall thick grass, so keeping grasses short in the vicinity to the extent possible also helps.