When you have pets or a lot of plants, or just generally want to make sure that there's someone there watching your things, you might call upon a house sitter. Usually this person will gladly take the chance to live in your place, even just to have a “staycation” away from their normal living arrangements. More recently, there have even been people chaining together these types of arrangements in order to live rent free for a period of time.

In the summer comes the dreaded heat—the kind of heat where you don't even want to step outside without fear of profusely sweating. No one likes that uncomfortable feeling, which is exactly why these parents chose to go and visit their son to escape the heat in their hometown. Their city was experiencing the kind of heat wave where, if you were lucky enough to have air conditioning, it could barely keep up. So, they chose to visit their son, where the temperatures were 15 to 20 degrees cooler.…

Are you planning on hiring a professional for some work around your home? Then you better read up!

Apparently, this entitled neighbor has never heard of the teachings of Sir Isaac Newton…

Rural landownership can cost a pretty penny when unnatural water features fall into disrepair

It's hard to take an HOA policy seriously when there are glaring loopholes within the so-called “strict policy.” Here, we have a pair of new homeowners

It's not always fair to blame parents for the actions of their children, people are psychologically complex and each child is different and wildly unpredictable in their own way. Even the best of intentions and good parenting doesn't always yield the best results, plus—well, mistakes are just part of growing up and even adults are all still just learning as we go. Still, if you work with kids and meet the parents of a problem child, it becomes immediately clear when the problem is the parents.…

Buying or selling a house is a pretty stressful experience, there's a lot on the line and a whole lot of things need to line up for everything to fall into place. Plus, there's plenty of opportunities for someone to screw you over from the realtor to the seller/buyer themselves, so it's pretty easy to be on edge and understandable, at least, to want to control every aspect of the situation. Still, as with anything in life and especially in stressful situations and negotiations, approaching thin…

Assigned and paid for parking spaces are one of those things that will drive even the most sane and level headed among us to the brink—and we're not claiming to be even the most sane and level headed. The fierce competition that emerges for the limited parking spaces—with high costs associated—is intense driving tenants to extraordinary lengths. This exacerbated by the fact that apartment complexes with inbuilt garages never have enough spaces for each unit in the building often meaning that th…

There are few first-world problems that will drive you as intensely mad as low water pressure. For those of us longing for a hot shower after a long day, there's nothing worse than stepping into the steam-filled room and being met with the pitiful trickle of water that isn't even sufficiently powered to blast the shampoo out of your hair. You've probably encountered this at accommodation while traveling. There's nothing like splashing out for a BnB or hotel suite only to realize that the shower…

Surprise, surprise—nobody wants to do professional work for nickels and pennies.

Your property is, well, yours—and that's kind of the whole point of owning it. Invite as many or as few people over as you like—heck, put up barbed wire fencing around the entire thing (HOA permitting) and never speak to anyone again if that's your thing. You can say and do as you please with it, within legal bounds… just don't go doing any mining under your suburban house without knowing what you're doing or the proper permits. But, as it turns out, your property—and specifically your backyard…

Is it smart or unethical to use squatter and tenant rights against squatters?

It's not a given by any stretch that you'll get along with your neighbor; after all, there's no basis for selection other than that you lived or were interested in living in the same area—and happened to buy property adjacent to each other. Then you spend every day next to that person, sometimes keenly and overly aware of their comings and goings. So, it's no surprise when personalities clash between neighbors who share nothing in common other than the adjacent boundary of their properties. Som…

Why does everything wiggle?

When you're looking to buy property you're classically given advice by your older relatives that you should go around the neighborhood knocking on doors and asking people who live there what they think of the area. While sound advice it comes from an era long past where community was a staple part of everyday life. Nowadays you can go years without ever meeting the people living across the street so you probably don't care what they think of the area and, besides, who is honestly going to tell…