The problem with nematodes is that once the target insect is gone, the nematodes are gone. They are a parasite and they can't exist without a host. So then the fire ants come back and you have to go get more nematodes.

Fipronil over the whole yard is my suggestion. This used to be the active ingredient in Over-n-Out, but they changed it to bifenthrin, which is the same as Bug-B-Gon and some others. Bifenthrin doesn't work very well.

5/1/2016 10:45:30 PM

i get to rebuild a backflow preventer this week. if y'all have them (called an RPZ device), i suggest checking it from time to time to make sure it isn't leaking from the relief valve vent. i was under the cover on my pump house for other reasons and found it trickling from the vent. plenty of info, videos, etc. online on how to rebuild them, though.

5/1/2016 10:52:04 PM

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to look and see what the active ingredient in what I'm using is.

In other news, the garage door wouldn't close all the way, so I started looking at it and the cable jumped the pulley or spool our whatever it is one one side, so it was lowering it down crooked and causing it to get in a bind. I thought I could fix it, so I took some tension off and ended up screwing the other side up too, now it's wedged in halfway up with both cables all fucked up.

5/2/2016 11:13:57 AM

contract offer was 395k

appraisal just came back at 371k

5/3/2016 11:39:10 AM

There are a lot of problems with that these days. The high demand market is running prices up faster than there are comps to support. In some cases an appraisal can be appealed and the realtors will definitely explore that as an option, but in some cases they can not.

Are you still in a position to sell at that price? If you let the buyer walk everyone is going to ask what happened and you will lose a little momentum the second time around.

If the buyer wants to and is able they can make up the difference in cash, the lender will not loan higher than that amount and their LTV% will be based off that as well. Most buyers are not going to want to do that unless they REALLY love the property and they have the money to lose.

5/3/2016 11:46:02 AM

I'm the buyer.

5/3/2016 11:49:30 AM

Well, I see this as a positive... although with the down side that you may lose the home. I would use that leverage to get them down more, assuming you have the cash to basically float the loan above the appraisal mark.

5/3/2016 2:40:43 PM

Yeah, there's the rub. We put $5k down and won't move any more. I think we'll end up losing the house, as my realtor said there is a back-up cash offer on the house. If it's anywhere near 375k, I'm sure we won't get it.

If we don't, we are looking at Homestead for the houses, where a 2400 sqft house with 4/4 will run about 50k less than the 1900 sqft 4/2 house above.

5/3/2016 3:01:52 PM

^ $5k in earnest money?

5/3/2016 8:18:35 PM

yeah.

update: Realtor called to tell me the seller's agent was downright nasty in correspondence to him.

She said the seller would be willing to accept 378k (my original offer a month ago was 385k), but I said I wasn't willing to put anymore down to cover the difference. My realtor said they may take the 371k. Which, if they do, that's awesome. If not, we'll figure out what to do.

And we get our 5k back.

Oh, yeah. Seller's agent also claimed that we were in violation of the contract because the appraisal wasn't given to them within 15 days of contract.

Contract signed 4/11.
Appraisal given to them 5/3.
Appraisal COMPLETE 4/24.

My Realtor told her he'll fight it if it comes to it because Contract is clear that the appraisal had to be performed within 15 days.

drama drama drama

5/3/2016 9:26:25 PM

sounds like a pain

5/4/2016 8:05:57 AM

Quote :

"My Realtor told her he'll fight it if it comes to it because Contract is clear that the appraisal had to be performed within 15 days."

You have a copy of the contract right? Does it say performed or does it say given to, or both?

5/4/2016 11:15:40 AM

performed.

Update: Realtor told me they accepted the offer of 371.

Seller's agent has been bitching about the appraisal and comps to everybody and their moms.

Realtor told me seller's agent told him that the seller had a cash backup offer.

Guess she must have been lying?

Again, my original offer was for 385, and now they are accepting 371.

5/4/2016 4:46:19 PM

^thats pretty awesome

5/4/2016 8:20:52 PM

^^ I have been told that by the selling agent for every house I bought. The first house I bought, I raised my offer price by $10,000 because they said that. The next two, I held my ground and both offers were still accepted. I think it is a trick some realtors use (and it could be a cash offer for $100 by the seller's mom, who knows).

and congratulations!

[Edited on May 5, 2016 at 9:01 AM. Reason : ]

5/5/2016 9:01:04 AM

just trying to pad their commission. kudos!

5/5/2016 9:16:24 AM

It blows my mind how adversarial real estate can be. You don't get to pick your appraiser. You have no influence over the outcome. Since you are subject to financing like just about everyone else, that appraisal matters, and no one should deem you at fault if the appraisal is so far off from the agreed to price. What a bunch of fuckers.

We close on our lake house tomorrow. The seller reduced the price of the home my 50k a month before we offered. We made an offer 25k less than that (I thought for sure they weren't going to take it), but they did. The home inspection probably came up with around 4k of fixes. I asked for $1000 and was given that with no problem. Easy peesy.

5/5/2016 4:18:59 PM

nice

5/5/2016 6:32:12 PM

We closed last Friday. Everything got thrown into disarray when the deed wasn't recorded on Friday (like it was supposed to) and the seller was immovable about us moving our stuff this weekend. Got a lot of stuff moved in on Monday and started the tree work. Probably 40 or 50 trees are coming down in the next couple of days.

5/10/2016 2:32:03 PM

Everything is almost done at my new house closing is in 2 weeks

5/10/2016 4:02:44 PM

Nice

Got the "clear-to-close" notice from my bank yesterday.

20 June

5/10/2016 5:12:18 PM

Doing the big walk-through today to look for any items they missed that need to be fixed. Hopefully they already caught most of them.

5/16/2016 8:17:18 AM

power going to the shed and the external light fixture (light pole) isn't working. of course external shit isn't covered by the home warranty. FML

5/16/2016 3:19:16 PM

buy a multimeter

5/17/2016 11:49:13 AM

that's what I was thinking.

get some electrical safety gloves, too

5/17/2016 6:05:48 PM

I have a multimeter and safety gloves already. It's just going to be a bitch to trace the wires going underground to see where the issue is and it would have been nice to be covered by the warranty since i'm still in the first year of owning this bitch.

5/18/2016 2:26:31 PM

home warranties are crap imo

5/18/2016 2:51:30 PM

agreed. they offered me one ...except it wouldn't include any of the things that might reasonably break.

based on the inspection for instance, they thought the water heater might not last long so that would be explicitly stricken from my policy. i guess i won that battle since i saved money and that water heater has lasted another 7 years.

5/18/2016 2:56:59 PM

it was included at closing and it actually worked out for us since the AC unit and the washer both went out a few months later.

5/18/2016 5:27:29 PM

I, too, find home warranties to be worthless. I had one included when I bought my house. Four things broke over the course of the time that the warranty was active. NONE of it was covered by said warranty. Complete scam.

5/19/2016 10:22:35 AM

I have one paid for by the sellers. It covered a new ice maker, but didn't cover my $600 garage door repair. I'm tempted to keep it after this policy expires just for hvac though.

5/21/2016 12:40:51 AM

man...I had a dream/nightmare about my pre-closing walkthrough last night...wasn't good...I'm going to have to look at the house pictures just to make sure it wasn't the same house.

5/21/2016 12:13:05 PM

Final walkthrough and closing on the new house tomorrow. Today is gonna go by really slow very much ready to get all the move in process started so I can go ahead and mess the walls and floors up so then I can stop stressing about it so much haha

5/23/2016 8:44:48 AM

I have a problem with Blue Mud Wasps (Mud Daubers) near my kid's playhouse in the back yard. I can't find a nest anywhere, but at any given time there are at least 10 of the things flying around. I've read they aren't really aggressive and use other mud dauber nests instead of building their own, but I need to figure out a way to control them. Any thoughts?

I don't want to get one of those wasp bags because I feel like that would just attract even more to the area. I've tried some of the natural ways of controlling normal wasps (soapy water spray that discourages

It does concern me a little that it seems like they primarily eat Black Widows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_mud_dauber) so I'm wondering if I have an even worse problem than I thought?

6/1/2016 8:44:01 AM

well, looking at it from the other angle, if they're eating black widows, it's better than it could be!

to keep spiders and bugs off of my kids playground set, I mix up a batch of permethrin and spray it down. This is the same stuff they use to make clothes mosquito repellent, and is safe for human contact (derived from chrysanthemums). seems to work pretty well. don't see spider webs on it as much.

6/1/2016 9:31:32 AM

Have some birds that decided to build a nest in our second floor bathroom exhaust vent after tearing off the vent cover.

What can I use to disinfect the vent once I get the nest out? I'm not sure how far back the nest goes yet either.

6/2/2016 6:27:36 AM

I would use soap to get the crud out (or maybe oxyclean depending on the crud buildup)

Some type of all purpose cleaner with bleach to disinfect, and if you don't want to use bleach, you could use something like starsan for disinfection. Are you that worried about disinfecting it though?

6/2/2016 2:30:21 PM

also, when replacing your vent cover, put a layer of mesh (metal or plastic) so the birds can't get in

6/2/2016 4:43:23 PM

^^ Guess I was just concerned about whatever type of things they might carry. Think I may just Lysol the crap out of it and have the fan running to push it through.

^ Great idea, I've got some chicken wire I had to put on my dryer vent (had a mouse come in through it once) that I can use up there.

This exhaust fan is pretty close to the exterior, I was thinking of removing the fan from the inside and using one of the 8' vent brushes to try and push the nest/crud out from the inside. Might be easier than being up on a ladder trying to pull all of it out.

6/3/2016 12:58:50 PM

Anyone have recommendations for under cabinet lighting?

6/5/2016 5:02:51 PM

ATT did gigapower install this weekend and in the process hit the power line to my over or microwave with a drill bit. Threw the breaker came back on fine but not sure how much damage it did so they have to come out and take a look. Brand new house so gonna be pissed if they have to do anything involving the drywall or anything.

6/6/2016 3:23:17 PM

1) Any suggestions on saving my roses and trees from japanese beetle. I have a few traps out, just to attract them away from my good plants and kill the few who dare eat the lure. I also sprayed some Seven concentrate, but I don't like using that stuff. I don't like the traps since those really just attract more beetles.

2) Any recommendations for a competent electrician who may know what a damn whole house surge protector is? The two I know don't know anything about them... wtf

[Edited on June 8, 2016 at 1:24 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2016 1:22:14 PM

^ idk and idk

I have a question about utilities for non-new houses. How did you guys switch water and electricity?

6/8/2016 9:53:56 PM

Time to get the house painted. $3600. Ugh.

6/10/2016 3:34:29 PM

^^ Called utility co and said I was moving in on X day and would want started then. Power they just switched over. Water was off, they came and turned it on. Internet I just informed about a week later that I moved (they had the line on, I just moved the modem and it worked).

6/10/2016 9:09:12 PM

I was able to make the switch for electricity online. Had to call for water.

6/13/2016 4:29:22 PM

Anyone tried one of these. Pretty nice HP/$ ratio

http://www.costco.com/American-Standard-1.25-Waste-Disposer.product.100247195.html

6/13/2016 5:43:52 PM

electricity is switched, water will have to be face-to-face with city on closing day

6/13/2016 9:49:29 PM

^^no experience with that company, unless it's the same one that makes toilets, then yes, I've spent some time on their products. That is a nice price point. I say you TOFTT. Or get a wasteking. I got the 8000 series (1HP) for <$90. Though it's currently selling for $152...

6/14/2016 8:28:59 AM

looks like it is the toilet company, which I have no experience with. There's also American Standard the HVAC company, and they're rock solid.

6/14/2016 12:32:20 PM