Sena

One efficiency point in case the room is cold, since you mentioned winter: standard compressor dehumidifiers lose effectiveness sharply below about 15°C, and some ice up.

If the room is unheated, a desiccant model is the right type: it works down to near freezing and does not care. They use more electricity per litre in warm conditions and less in cold ones, which is the whole trade.

Worth checking which kind you have before concluding it is underperforming in an unheated room.

For question 3, the practical line I would draw:

Ride and monitor if it only creeps at a standstill, gear changes are clean, it does not slip under acceleration, and you can find neutral with the engine running.

Stop and fix if any of these appear: you cannot find neutral at a standstill, changes start crunching, or the clutch slips - revs rise without the bike accelerating. That last one is the opposite fault and it is the serious one, because a slipping clutch destroys itself quickly and can do it mid-overtake.

Also adjust the lever free play before anything else. It is a five-minute job with the cable adjuster, it is the most common cause, and doing it first means you learn whether the rest of the diagnosis is even needed.

The estate-versus-saloon distinction explains why I have heard "the boot" so confidently from some people and so dismissively from others. They were describing different cars.

What actively helps, in rough order of usefulness:

Be in the room and ignore her. Sit down, read something, do not look at her. Cats find direct attention from a large animal intense at the best of times, and staring is a threat signal. Being boring and present is the single most effective thing you can do.

Let her set the distance. Never approach; let her close the gap. If she gets within a metre and stops, that is progress and the correct response is to keep doing nothing.

Take over the food. Being the source of the meal is a fast, uncomplicated re-association, and it happens twice a day without you having to engineer anything.

Slow blinks. When she does look at you, close your eyes slowly and open them. It reads as non-threatening and a lot of cats return it.

All of these are about lowering the stakes of being near you. None of them involve making it up to her, because there is nothing to make up.

The first thing to establish is which kind of paint, because the two answers are very different and you may be able to tell by looking.

Emulsion / water-based, which is what most leftover household paint is: mostly water, a plastic binder, and mineral fillers like calcium carbonate and titanium dioxide. Once dry, the binder is essentially an inert plastic film. It is not something you want in soil, but it is not mobile and it is not especially toxic.

Solvent-based gloss or primer, or anything old: different situation, because of the solvent and because paint made before roughly 1990 may contain lead, and older still may contain more of it.

If what you found is a matt, chalky film that went on like thick milk, it is emulsion and this is a tidying job rather than a contamination event. If it smelled strongly, was glossy, or came out of unlabelled old tins, treat it more carefully.