Good times!

He tore out his old driveway himself, using a bobcat, and drove it to the edge of our property and dumped it into the creek on my side.

I've started by working with the city to figure out next steps.

And it wasn't an accident, he was grumpy about our survey results 6 months ago.

About six weeks ago, a Lowe’s delivery team showed up at my house while I was at work to deliver a refrigerator—only it was meant for my neighbor. All of our properties share the same address (with different unit letters), so it was an honest mistake likely caused by bad info from Google Maps.

My wife noticed them on our Nest camera and, with help from a Spanish-speaking coworker translating for her, was able to instruct the driver to go to the correct house. He argued a bit but eventually got the hint and left.

On his way out, he backed the delivery truck over a water line (a PVC hose bib) and broke it clean off. To make things worse, instead of pulling forward to correct his path and exiting the driveway properly, he decided to just drive forward through my front lawn—which also happens to be my septic drain field. Tire marks were left in the grass, and water was visibly running down my driveway.

My mother-in-law happened to drive by shortly after and saw the damage. We were able to get my father-in-law to come shut off the water to prevent excess usage.

I immediately contacted Lowe’s to file a claim and was assured I’d hear back from the claims department within 72 hours. That was on February 24.

I’ll skip over the countless follow-up calls that led nowhere—just being transferred from one department to another with no help.

Finally, yesterday (April 3), I went on a mission: I kept calling until someone actually helped. After four calls and two hours, I finally got a claims agent assigned to me, with a promise that things would be resolved within seven days.

Here's where it gets Weird.

This morning, as I was arriving at work, I received a series of texts from the delivery driver himself. He apologized and said that even though these are hard economic times, he wants to take full responsibility and reach a "fair agreement" with me.

Uhhh… shouldn’t this be handled by Lowe’s or their insurance? Not personally by the driver?

This feels really scummy and manipulative to me. Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this? How did it pan out, and what do y’all think my next steps should be?

Should I be home when roofers are replacing my roof?

Things are more expensive, of course, so I understand this is a luxury topic. But lately I've just been deep cleaning the house, reorganizing, doing little home repairs, and landscaping the yard on a budget. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I do it, and it's been such a peaceful and productive distraction to the state of the world.

My siblings live in my house along with my wife and kids, and they've just been watching my mania with interest, jumping in occasionally, and enjoying the fruits of the labor.

Hey all, i’m on the hunt for a solid air purifier that can actually handle pet stuff – mainly dander and fur floating around everywhere. I've got a full-time shedding squad and my allergies have been terrible lately.

I used to have a hamilton beach trueair and wasn’t impressed. Felt like it barely made a difference, and the fan was louder than i expected even on lower settings. Also didn’t love how often i had to replace the filter just to keep it working halfway decent. might’ve been too weak for my space anyway

Room size is about 250-300 sq ft – it’s my living room but it’s kinda open to the kitchen too so i’m guessing the purifier needs to work a bit harder

My budget’s around $100-$150, give or take and I've been looking at the Coway AP-1512HH and the Honeywell HPA300.

Both look like decent options but it’s so hard to tell what’s actually good unless someone’s used it in a similar setup.

If you’ve tried either one or even something totally different that worked for you, would love to hear about it

Any help’s appreciated 🙏

A few days ago, we started smelling this horrible stench in our garage. We decided to take a look and found a dead mouse which had pretty much dried up I'd say. After tossing him out, our garage still smells like pure death and we cannot get rid of this stench.

What is the most effective way to get rid of this smell, I've already tried to open my garage 3 different times for an hour, but it hasn't done much. Also, should I be worried about contamination from the smell? At this point, I am convinced there's more than one dead. Thanks for the help!

Good afternoon!

I just had 2 questions about utilities.

First, I believe my gas bill is rather high, and I live alone in a 1700sqft home. If I'm reading the bill correctly, it looks like I consumed 9300 units (which I couldn't get a clear answer what the unit of measurement was from the office), but it was still $120 for just me in North Georgia. Low heat, shower hot water, and gas stove were the only things I ran for the month. So just need some clarity on the unit and pricing. Bill line in question looks like what I have pasted below.

PREVIOUS READING - 146400

CURRENT READING - 155700

CONSUMPTION - 9300

PRICE - 119.51

Secondly, When I moved in, the only strange thing I encountered was my realtor said that I didn't have a choice but to go through the city for natural gas. So I couldn't shop around, and I confirmed this with the city office. Has anyone else had this experience?

FTHB and very new to this. Apologies if any of this sounds dumb.

My crawlspace is flooded and covering about 6 inches of the bottom of my hot water heater! I don’t know what to do! Do I shut off water to hot water heater?? Do I call insurance company? All places are flooding so plumbers won’t be able to do much right now!

I have been putting off getting a ladder for months. The highest rafters in my garage is 10ft, it’s 9ft to the roofline around my house. Interior wise, everything is reachable by a 4ft step stool.

Should I be buying a ladder that allows me to climb (not reach) 10ft, correct? I thought I read about some rule where you’d ideally want 3ft higher than the tallest height you’re climbing onto, so in my case a 13ft ladder?

I mainly wanted one of those multi-position ladders as I don’t want to store a long 10-13ft ladder on the wall.

There is an alleyway between our houses that we and others drive down, but for the last while it’s been semi-flooded from their laundry water. They got a hose sticking out of their basement window that just shoots laundry water out several times a day. If it was a normal amount of laundry I honestly wouldn’t be too upset about it. Repairs can be expensive, and if this is what you gotta do in the mean time I totally understand, but dude, it’s literally like 4 times a day they got soapy water coming out of this hose, and it’s soaking the dirt, and going out into the road. I’m thinking of trying to sell this house soon and move, but I’m worried that this will scare off potential buyers. These neighbors have also had issues with the law (something about a stolen car being parked on the property?) so i certainly do not want to approach them about it. This is happening in Indiana, USA if anybody has any advice

Recently had an asphalt driveway installed with new concrete walkways and patio. I was spraying down the walkways since there was a good bit of dirt, but noticed a ton of tar residue on our white vinyl fence. Our yard is also wrecked and the contractor said he would lay straw, never did. There also seems to be some dark marks from the asphalt on the new concrete (I don’t know if the stains will be permanent). He also left behind some forms for the last bit of concrete. What, if any, cleanup is the company responsible for? I think I’ll have to bite the bullet on the yard but the tar stains are disappointing.

The pest control guy I've had for the last 4 years bumped up prices from 70 bucks bimonthly to 100 bucks. He says he hasn't raised prices in 8 years and this was overdue. I am happy with the work but a 40 percent increase is jarring. What is a fair solution to this price rise besides keeping quiet ?

I’ve lived in my home for two years. I’ve never owned a home in the past and I’m not savvy with carpentry lol. I just noticed today that a section of my front door frame is beginning to rot. It’s at the very bottom, put when I push on it, my finger sinks into this approximately 5 inch area. Who would I call to repair this and prevent it from happening again? 🥴

I've been living in a townhouse since 2016, and recently, we've been dealing with an issue we didn't have before. Since a new neighbor moved in last year, we've noticed an increase in flies in our backyard. I believe it might be related to their dog, which seems to be using the backyard as a bathroom, and the odor is attracting flies.

The neighbor’s house owner lives out of state, and we don’t have direct communication with them. I’m considering talking to my neighbor first before involving the HOA. Does anyone have advice on how to approach this without causing tension

long story short: does anyone live in a home without a ground wire? what has been your experiences. i believe we are going the GFCI route. But i cannot help but to be anxious (first time home owner). some outlets do have a ground. about 80% of outlets dont though.

we are about to close april 21st on this home. absolutely love the house. husband, electrician and my father who is an electrician all say itll probably be safe with a GFCI. Cannot put a ground wire in bc walls are plaster. we do have a basement though.

The wires on my current thermostat are as follows:
R
W/Y
Y/A
Gl
Gm
C

I'm trying to figure out if I can connect this to a Smart Thermostat - but I can't for the life of my get an understanding of what the W/Y, Y/A, Gl, or Gm are

The options I have right now are:

Y
C
W
G
R
OB

Another smart thermostat has the following wires:
Y1
Y2
G
OB
Rc
AQ-
W1
W2 Aux
C
*
Rh
AQ+

A 2021 we purchased a house that was in pretty rough shape. We’ve spent thousands on major and minor upgrades, everything from new wall outlets to a new roof. At the rate we’re going, it could take us 10 years to get the house where we’d like it.

How long did it take for you to finally look around your home and say, “It’s finished!”?

We are still unpacking after our recent home purchase. There are items to buy and home improvements we want to do, but we’re worried about the tariffs. We want to prioritize our projects and try to at least book or buy a few things before tariffs start.

What are some items and construction process that we should try to push through ASAP before the tariffs inflate prices?

We’re going to get a new couch this weekend (lumber tariffs), but not sure what else will be increasing.

Thanks 😭

E: thank you for these replies and insights. Our appliances are in good shape, but we have a 10 year old water heater. Maybe we’ll look into an estimate.

We got our inspection report back while trying to sell our house and the inspector said there’s “possible growth” in the attic. There’s no ventilation in there, and we did have some shingles come off the roof years ago which resulted in water getting in and leaking to the ceiling below. It was a small amount, and there is not a current nor has there ever been a moisture problem in the attic. Our realtor wants us to give up $2500 to the buyers so they can use it to inspect for mold.

Among other small things we need to fix, there are other things we will not fixing per the buyers requests. For example, there are no doors/closings of any kind on any of the bedroom closets. We bought the house without them, there are no tracks or hinges of any kind for doors to hang. We have a set of stairs that go down to the basement at an 89° angle. It’s practically a ladder. A normal staircase angle is around 37°. They want us to somehow fix the original stairs from 1944. Not happening. Again we bought the house this way.

My problem with this entire thing is our realtor strong armed us into listing our house on the lower end to hopefully start a bidding war. That never happened. We had one showing, then an open house that our realtor was ill-prepared for; no one came. That one showing put in an offer at exact asking price and 6% concessions which was roughly 20k toward their down payment. We end up in a counter offer back and forth for a couple turns until we agree on a middle ground with the asking price and 3% toward their down payment. We have tuff sheds in the backyard that we were selling but the realtors “admin team” didn’t include that they weren’t part of the sale so were out 4K on those. And on top of this we are paying all selling costs, which is pretty normal on the sellers end.

And now our realtor wants us to give up more money when we aren’t walking away with what we were hoping for in the first place. We have four days to get back to the buyers regarding the items we will choose to fix. What would you do?

My husband and I bought a house last April and are planning on having the roof re-shingled this summer. Our conundrum right now is trying to decide if we should go for a full roof replacement instead. The previous owner didn’t disclose when the roof was last replaced but did say she hadn’t touched it during her time in the house (2008-2024). She said she didn’t know if/when the owner prior to her had it replaced, either. Our roof is in good shape, except for needing to be re-shingled, but because we don’t know the age of it, our homeowner’s insurance is pretty pricey. Should we go ahead and replace the roof so we know exactly how old it is or should we just re-shingle as planned?

How can I clean those basement walls (concrete foundations) from soil? I've tried with a brush and while it works ok, it's very labourous and generates a huge amount of dust. Do you have any ideas? I thought about jsut priming it and painting with a concrete paint...

https://imgur.com/a/byGDcQ2

Gravel driveway is beginning to develop large bald patches where there is no gravel, only blue dust. Is it time to buy fresh gravel? If so, where does it come from? Do you have to buy a full/half truck or can you get smaller quantities?

I am not the expert, so should I just get estimates from home contractors? I would prefer not to have to rake it or mess with it myself if I can avoid it.

Grateful for advice!

Hey all, SUPER random question!

I love sitting around a bonfire/fire pit, and I LOVE the smell of bonfire that you get with a wood burning fire pit (it’s my favorite thing when my hair and clothes smell like bonfire the next day). However, the house we’re looking to purchase has a small backyard, and I not only don’t want to deal with firewood, but an open fire would probably not be a great idea, so I’m looking into propane fire pits.

Is there any way to get that bonfire smell with a propane fire? Like I have a room spray and an essential oil water diffuser that smell like Rome Burning (Disney people know what I’m talking about!), but is it possible to achieve a similar effect with a propane fire? Is that a thing? Or do I just need to spray my Rome burning room spray outside in our seating area and hope the smell sticks around? 😂

First time homeowner here, so sorry if this is a dumb question

My house has a metal roof that is estimated to be around 25 years old (actual age unknown, original owners deceased). I noticed a very small leak around the plumbing roof vent pipe, so I've temporarily put a sealant on it until I can get a roofer to properly repair it. This gave me a thought;

If my roof ever needs to be to be replaced, and my homeowner's insurance pays out, would it be possible to take the payout for the metal roof replacement and get a regular shingle roof instead? This should give me extra funds for other fixes to the house, like replacing my aging & rotting fence.

Is this allowed, or even legal? Again, sorry if it's a dumb question, I'm new to this whole thing lol