^^^^sethoxydim will keep the torpedograss suppressed and is safe for centipede. it won't kill it, but it will keep it beat down.

7/19/2015 2:53:59 PM

yeah, that's what I've read.

I already ordered some sethoxydim. I'm going to try that first...see if I can suppress it enough for the centipede to grow back in and get well established there. Then maybe I can stop with the sethoxydim and just dig it up as it surfaces, where i'd only have small areas of centipede damaged at any one time.

If that doesn't work, then I guess I'll have to burn half the front yard to the ground with Round Up, dig up any obvious rhizomes, and then start from scratch.

[Edited on July 19, 2015 at 3:06 PM. Reason : ]

7/19/2015 3:06:18 PM

i've used Vantage to successfully kill bahia in centipede. it worked for that. the centipede was less green for a few days, but it recovered.

7/19/2015 3:28:51 PM

haha, hopefully it attacks the torpedo grass more severely than I'm expecting. My expectations are...conservative based on what I've been reading.

7/19/2015 4:57:50 PM

7/19/2015 8:39:59 PM

shit, i had never heard of torpedograss before, but after googling it, i've been fighting that shit for years, assuming it was some variety of creeping bermuda.

fuck me.

7/19/2015 10:41:05 PM

i just hand-pulled a shitload of it in the dark, after a lot of rain today.

i pulled so much that it left holes a couple feet across in spots.

7/19/2015 10:57:01 PM

Anyone had their smoke alarms go off randomly? Last week, the one in the downstairs bedroom went off during the day, but we didn't use the stove or anything and the HVAC system had no distinct smell. The other night, the one in the upstairs hallway went off around 3am, but again nothing we could smell. Our upstairs bedroom does have a window AC unit, and wondered if that might pull smoke from outside...but idk who would be up that late producing enough smoke to set our alarm off. As far as I can tell, the batteries in them are fine, but we may try and replace them anyway.

7/20/2015 10:47:11 AM

^Are they anywhere near a bathroom door? Steam from showers can sometimes mess with their sensors. It has happened to me in the past.

Quote :

"in my mind i was picturing them synchronized flying in the shape of a giant yellow jacket"

As you typed that, I was actually picturing them all in the shape of a hammer that was hitting you on the head. Then as you got the hose, they morphed into the shape of an exclamation point and flew away, .

7/20/2015 10:56:01 AM

^^ Have you ever replaced the entire smoke alarm unit before? If not, do you know how old the units are? My home is 9 years old this year and I just replaced every unit in the house earlier this year after random beeps that I knew weren't bc the batteries needing to be replaced. Sometimes the alarms just malfunction after a few years - I read life expectancy for most were between 5-8 years. Contractor grade units at Lowes were only about $30 a piece if I recall and if I can install them anyone can.

7/20/2015 2:56:42 PM

Quote :

"I'm gonna go make an offer on what I hope will be my first house today"

DEAL IS DONE...just gotta sign paperwork tomorrow

7/20/2015 6:13:48 PM

^congrats!!!!!

we're finally all moved in. closed on our old house this past Friday, so we will not have to pay two mortgages! loving the new neighborhood, everyone is so friendly!

7/21/2015 11:10:21 AM

and under contract w00t

7/21/2015 6:15:09 PM

Quote :

"^^ Have you ever replaced the entire smoke alarm unit before? If not, do you know how old the units are? My home is 9 years old this year and I just replaced every unit in the house earlier this year after random beeps that I knew weren't bc the batteries needing to be replaced. Sometimes the alarms just malfunction after a few years - I read life expectancy for most were between 5-8 years. Contractor grade units at Lowes were only about $30 a piece if I recall and if I can install them anyone can."

This. I had to replace half of mine (10 yrs old) when I bought my place. Been replacing the others since as well.

7/22/2015 11:50:31 PM

Quote :

"and under contract w00t"

Congrats! Hopefully your loan process will be less infuriating than ours was.


My woes are compounding. We were already having problems with the upstairs A/C, though I did finally get the yellow jackets killed off (I hope). Then, on Sunday, the downstairs A/C decided it didn't want to feel left out and it quit working too. Unlike the upstairs unit, it's just dead. Completely unresponsive. Home warranty will cover it but the service guy won't be here until Friday. It's been a warm few days, though at least today is tolerable with the windows open.

[Edited on July 23, 2015 at 1:43 AM. Reason : meanwhile, in Richmond...]

7/23/2015 1:40:21 AM

So my new house is a new construction...What are any typical problems that i might come across early on? It was finished in January.

7/23/2015 11:01:12 AM

So my new house is a new construction...What are any typical problems that i might come across early on? It was finished in January.

7/23/2015 11:01:12 AM

I've heard that there may be issues with the drywall curing/drying/settling that would cause cracks and nail pops.

Other than that, I have no clue. I've never lived in a new house before.

7/23/2015 12:15:54 PM

nail pops is the major one but rarely before a few months in - typically builders will fix them with a walk through ~11-12 months in but have stipulations that they will only repaint over if it's the same paint color originally used - use a flashlight against the wall to catch them (google for tips)

i think it's worthwhile to get a home inspection (like you were about to buy the house) prior to their last walk through - spend the money to have them find everything

7/23/2015 2:08:15 PM

Any recommendations for stuff to apply to the bottom of furniture (couches, chairs, etc.) to prevent sliding/scuffing of hardwood floors? I imagine there's some good DIY stuff out there and the purchase of a few area rugs should help as well, but does anyone know of any good products you have/had used? Would you also apply anything to stationary furniture pieces as well?

7/23/2015 4:05:28 PM

There's a little section in Lowe's that has a bunch of this kind of stuff (obviously something Home Depot as well). Just find the stuff that fits your furniture the best...it's all the same and works pretty well. We have stuff on pretty much every piece of furniture in my house.

7/24/2015 8:20:57 AM

Bats.
Motherfucking bats.

Neighbor alerted my wife that she had seen bats disappearing into our eaves when she was leaving for work at 6:00 AM. Same neighbor had a bat problem earlier in the summer and gave us the number of the guy she used for bat removal/sealing of access holes. We called the dude, who's coming on Monday. He told us to go outside just before sunset and find out generally where they're coming from, and count how many we see leave.

89. Eighty nine fucking bats. That's assuming we counted correctly and that none stayed behind, oh and that there aren't 89 more baby bats up there that can't yet fly. And we didn't even know they were there.

I fear this is going to get expensive, as if they've shat all over the insulation, it has to be replaced.

Anyone else dealt with a bat woe? What was the damage? (in terms of $ and of attic problems.)

7/31/2015 11:30:23 PM

well?

8/4/2015 7:44:18 PM

^^ damn. that's a lot of bats!


my tankless (gas) water heater had some sort of catastrophic failure at my house that I rent out in New Bern (had been vacant for a few months; new tenants noticed when they moved in). The replacement of the heater itself was something like $1600, and then the water going everywhere fucked up some wiring, which was a little more, and when the original one was installed, they cut all the siding to fit around it instead of mounting it over the siding, so some of that had to be replaced.

then I gave a couple hundred bucks credit to the tenants because they didn't have hot water for over a week and a half (although they were still moving in during part of that time).

All told, that probably set me back a couple thousand bucks or so. Haven't seen the final bills. I expect I could have gotten it fixed better and cheaper if I'd been there to manage the repair, but such is the nature of renting out a house far from home using a property manager.

8/4/2015 7:59:28 PM

^^^It depends. Before we got married, my wife was living in a house that had a bat colony in the attic right above her bedroom. You gotta get that shit out. Bat colonies can carry some nasty diseases that can spread throughout your house if you don't get rid of them fast enough. I don't know the exact cost, but it was high enough that her rich landlord tried some cheap ways to get them out of their first. Once that didn't work, he finally ponied up to get an expert to get them out of there. My wife has a ridiculous sense of smell, so she could always tell (as well as hear), when they were back.

That heightened sense of smell detected bats in my attic a few years later. I was quoted by a couple of guys in the $750 - $1,000 range...but that was without them coming out. The third guy I talked to basically said..."if it's a few bats and we can get them out, $300...if it's a colony and we have some issues $1,000". Luckily for us, it was only about 7 or 8 bats. The guy found out where they were coming in and put a cylindrical type cage that they could leave, but not come back in. He was suppose to leave it up there for a few days to make sure all of the bats left, then come back, take it out, and fill in the opening. Mother fucker never came back (we called several times...he made a bunch of excuses like having a kid, blah blah). So now we still have a 2-foot metal cage sticking out the corner of our house. Good news is that bats can't get back in...bad news is that its an eye-sore. It's been there for two fucking years. We're about to have an addition to the house...so those guys can take it off.

On a third note...we had a single bat in our bedroom last week. Wife heard/saw it at 5am when she was getting up for a spin class. Freaked the fuck out...I thought we had an intruder in the house. I woke up and saw it hanging on to one of the plantation shutters. We shut the door to the bedroom so it couldn't get out while I got a magazine (to hit it) and towel (to grab and hold it). Came back and the bat was nowhere to be found. I presumed that it had flown back up the chimney from which it came from. Wife was convinced that it was hiding in a crevice, just waiting to attack (despite the fact that I turned the bedroom upside down). We (well, just she) avoided the bedroom for three days (the appropriate time for a bat to die without food), and we are finally back in the master bedroom. Now all of our chimneys (not operable) are stuffed with wire-mesh and insulation.

Fucking bats.

8/5/2015 10:10:16 AM

Anyone have experience with concrete overlays on a screened in porch? We have just a basic rough concrete slab and I want to lay something over it to smooth it out a bit and not look so shitty (maybe 1/8"-1/4"). It's not a big area (9'x18' or so), debating whether to do it myself or hire someone, especially if I want to stamp it.


[Edited on August 5, 2015 at 2:15 PM. Reason : .]

8/5/2015 2:07:38 PM

Dude came out on Monday and found the spots they were getting in by, a loose/bowed fascia board along the roofline and some gaps around the gable vent (said the screen behind the vent was intact). He sealed all of the gaps except one with spray foam, and put this netting/wrap contraption over the vent, from the roofline down past the bottom edge. Same purpose as the metal cone you describe, they can go through the netting to get out (via the one remaining opening that is now behind net), but can't get a good enough hold on it to get back in without getting themselves entangled. He's going to come back Friday to remove the netting and seal the remaining gap. He told my wife it would *probably* be in the $250-$350 range, depending. If that's the whole damage, I'm okay with it.

I did ask him about health dangers from the droppings, and he told me that the main problem is a respiratory condition called (I think) histoplasmosis. However, he told me that the spores really only grow where there is moisture present with the droppings, which is not a concern in an attic under a non-leaky roof. Plus it's not particularly dangerous to healthy adults (many are carriers without ever showing symptoms as it has vectors other than bat guano), only a serious concern to infants and immunocompromised persons. Not to mention that he said it was most likely they were sheltering directly on the other side of the outside wall, so any droppings may have just as easily fallen into the wall where they would be difficult to reach. We've not detected any odor or heard them at any point, which leads me to wonder if it's a recent infestation (despite the large number present).

At any rate, I stood outside tonight and saw no bats leaving our house. It appears they have taken up residence with our next door neighbor, as I saw quite a number emerging from under his eaves. Oh well...if our gaps are sealed properly they shouldn't be back. Hopefully.

8/6/2015 12:31:02 AM

Just moved into my new house a few weeks ago, and I'm starting to feel like I'm in the Money Pit.

Dryer didn't work upon move in, so got a new one installed.

One toilet and one sink don't work.

Then the AC quit working last night, going to have the Home warranty schedule a repair guy to come.

I have ants in my kitchen, working on getting rid of them with traps currently.

Last night wife saw a roach in a bedroom. Now between that and the ants I'm likely calling an exterminator. Any chance the HOA will cover extermination?

8/6/2015 3:14:33 PM

Quote :

"Any chance the HOA will cover extermination"

Not for a detached dwelling. Probably if it's a town house.

Welcome to the joys of home ownership. It's a constant battle against entropy.

8/6/2015 4:48:56 PM

If your ants are the little tiny black ones, go get some liquid terro. They love the stuff and will swarm the places where it's applied. Let them, and keep the supply available. After a few days you'll see no more ants.
They come back eventually but it's a good short term solution and its far less toxic than many other insecticides.

8/7/2015 12:29:00 AM

Terro works great. Just put that and some roach poison out and call it a day. Get some of that $10/jug crap from Home Depot etc and spray it around the exterior your house as directed. I know it's not as good as the pro stuff, but I've had good luck with it.

Doubt HOA is gonna pay for your extermination.

8/7/2015 11:16:10 AM

House went on the market today, keeping my fingers crossed for good showings this weekend.

In the meantime, me/wife/2-month-old are shacking up with my parents. An offer would be a relief to sell the house and get to move out of my parents house.

We close on the new house in September, so I only have to hold out a month at most.

8/7/2015 11:37:19 AM

good luck! where you moving to?

8/10/2015 10:42:34 AM

moving up the road in Raleigh to the Stonehenge neighborhood. Only moving 3 miles away, but I will finally have a garage!

8/10/2015 12:06:19 PM

So, we had a leak in our pipes (that are in the slab) on a 30 year old house. The pipes are bad, and the house shifts a lot with the seasons, so we expected many more leaks to come at $$$$ each.

I had a big plumbing company do a whole-house repiping to make the whole problem go away, creating a parallel system that goes through the attic and drops down, rather than coming up from the floor. They estimated it was a 2-day job, scheduled for a Tue/Wed. They weren't close to done after Wed., so they came out Saturday and barely finished it with a 10-hour day of work with two plumbers then. We had to cancel a weekend trip to supervise the work.

Now, the inspector came out and had some issues with it, including a small leak in the wall that leads out to the main. They're coming again to fix it tonight. Then it'll be re-inspected some time this week. Then there are some odds and ends to finish up after the inspection. All of this after a promise of a two-day job, with the inspection done on the third day.

Question: how do I handle this? I haven't paid them a dime yet. They already know that I'm very unhappy with the bad original time estimate and the inadequate manpower sent to do it on time. And they know I'm not thrilled that I got a leak right after they "finished."

What's the best way to get a discount or some sort of compensation for the plans they wrecked and the bad job they did? I know they're losing money from their own bad estimate. But I don't care much about that. I'm not in the mood to fork over the same $6k that I would have if they did good work.

[Edited on August 11, 2015 at 2:38 PM. Reason : a]

8/11/2015 2:36:26 PM

It's 120 years old. What could possibly go wrong!

8/11/2015 7:33:51 PM

I like that stone

8/11/2015 8:15:42 PM

^^ Pretty house. I like the color. Can you use the upper level of the front porch or is more of a design feature to look nice? From what I can see it looks like only windows lead out onto the upper level.

8/11/2015 9:21:06 PM

^^^^ you can ask them for a discount, but as long as they finish the job completely I say pay them and be done with it. You could ask them for a warranty on their job to cover any more leaks in x time period since there has already been one leak.

8/11/2015 10:19:11 PM

^^yeh its decorative i guess. You can only get out there through a window. Maybe i'll put a door in!

8/11/2015 10:43:44 PM

upstairs heat pump is shot (it's about 16 years old, so expected).

replacement options are a Trane XL16i or a Trane XR16. Both have the same SEER and HSPF ratings. The biggest difference is the XL16i has a weather guard/noise reducing top and a 12 year warranty on the compressor vs. 10 year on the XR16. The cost is an additional $625. The noise isn't an issue for me - where our current units are located has never been "too noisy" for me. So is 2 years extra on the compressor worth an extra $625?

8/12/2015 11:25:50 AM

to me? nah.

8/12/2015 11:30:35 AM

not worth it to me either.


my upstairs heat pump unit is original to my house. 22 years old. How it's still running i dunno.

It does struggle to keep up with the heat when it's above 95, which means it's like 120+ in the attic, but still... that's damn impressive.

8/12/2015 6:05:10 PM

Our old copper coil sprung leaks... A lot. AHS contractor trying to charge $75 a pound for old refrigerant, so nearly a grand all in. New system will be around 6250 installed (it's also attic) and save a lot on energy. Rather spend the cash upgrading than prolonging the inevitable coil replacement cost. After more research, I went cheaper option w/ 10 year. Good news is the upstairs is small enough for a 2 tonner, so we'll shave another few hundred off.

Thanks for providing the comfort of confirmation bias

8/12/2015 6:19:44 PM

house is sold! 6 days on the market and we got pretty much what we were looking to get

They chose a closing in less than a month because they are moving, so hopefully I'll be able to have leverage for the inevitable due diligence negotiations. Unfortunately for my neighbors, they are a 90 year old and 70 year old couple.

8/13/2015 10:00:54 PM

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

Just as soon as I think I'm done with house shit, fucking dumbass seller can't get movers to come until September 10th. The offer was accepted on July. Fucking. 2nd. Why are you just now calling movers? Fucking old people. Supposed to close Aug 28, and now they want to move closing to September 10. Of course there is a clause in the contract that allows for undue hardship to one of the parties move closing up to 14 days as long as they are putting forth good faith effort to meet closing. By September 10 my loan lock will expire, I'll be fucking homeless because my current house is closing on the 10th, and my wife/baby will be pissed.

Great. Just fucking great.

Fuck buying and selling houses. Throw money down the drain. Fucking lenders. Fucking realtors. Fucking dumbass fuckers that don't fucking plan.

I'm done with this shit.

8/14/2015 2:44:28 PM

^i would never consider "unable to get movers" as a hardship. i'd certainly ask for some sort of consideration in this instance as its REALLY NOT a hardship. you should find a moving company willing to do it, its just going to be more expensive

[Edited on August 14, 2015 at 11:48 PM. Reason : .]

8/14/2015 11:47:00 PM

Today I learned how to replace the wax seal on a toilet. There is no reason anyone should use a standard wax seal these days, yeah the synthetic ones are a bit more money but wow they make things so much easier. Here's to no more sewage smell in my bathroom.

8/16/2015 11:30:44 AM

^^ seriously, how the f is not having movers a hardship that prevents closing. They can close on the house and move in when the movers are available.

8/16/2015 1:43:55 PM

since I was pretty angry in my rant, I'll just make sure I am clear. the seller is the one claiming hardship by not finding movers to get her shit out before I can move in. She claims she can't move her stuff out by closing, so she wants to push back closing 2 weeks which would mean I am out of my rate lock window and would get "worst case financing" from my lender. Hopefully she'll agree to a September 1st closing, otherwise I may try to find a new lender so I don't get fucked over on the rate.

[Edited on August 16, 2015 at 4:24 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2015 4:19:52 PM