See title. I definitely didn’t order this and it’s been sitting on my driveway for about 5+ hours with nobody coming looking for it. I suppose I’ll just let it sit and hope whoever ordered it comes and collects it? (Or doesn’t)

There’s no slip, receipt, paperwork or anything attached to it. Just a random bunch of lumber and some steel brackets. Advice?

I've always lived in modern apartments, and I finally bought a house new construction in a small town. But after four months, all I feel is stress and worry about everything I still need to do. I am dealing with a contractor whom I paid in full, and he never finished the work. I schedule other contractors and take time off from work, and they don’t show up. I’m just mentally exhausted. I spend about 12 hours a week pulling weeds and doing lawn work because the backyard and front is overrun with them. I feel like a fish in a fish tank, so exposed by how horrible my yard looks. I’m trying to take care of it, but it’s not going to happen overnight. I work full-time, attend college full-time, and honestly, this house feels like another full-time job. I’m grateful I managed to buy it, but I can’t help wondering at what cost—my mental health is wearing thin. I’m seriously thinking about selling and taking a loss. Can anyone share advice, encouragement, or insights if they’ve been through something similar? Thanks.

We’re new homeowners and want to reflect on how this was handled.

We decided to redo our backyard and we proactively texted our neighborhood group to let folks know. It’s pretty expansive work and we were one week into it when our neighbors expressed concerns over the state of the fence. They said they wanted something sturdier and the fence was well past its useful life.

Our contractor took a look, determined it was bulging on their side (it looked fine initially on our side, we have higher slope) and advised we get the retaining wall and fence replaced.

I text neighbors, told them we’re building it and sent pictures for them and asked them to let me know if any concerns. They didn’t mention anything beyond asking us to touch base. I offered to go see them at an agreed upon time and they ghosted but apologized. Workers continued the work because they had to keep moving as the wall/fence was holding up the rest of the process.

I repeatedly ask them to please call or text us as we’re not at home and working most days. They go radio silent and next day we receive an ask to discuss it in person and to pause work on that side of the yard.

I told workers to temporarily pause and told neighbors we would see them that day. I then get a notification from the foreman that neighbors had gone over to them and asked them to completely stop all work.

We finally meet up and explain that we are paying for this entirely, address all of their questions on materials (redwood, pressure tested beams/posts, etc) and show them videos our contractors sent us of how rotted the old retaining wall us and how there was no drainage.

They then ask if they can chime in on the final design that I sent them yesterday and I about lost it.

I definitely should’ve been more clear and explicit that we were paying for this in full ourselves but I don’t know. Just feeling exhausted

Recently bought a home and have installed our washing machine and tested it out a couple times so far with no issues. This morning I woke up and heard what sounded like the washing machine filling up with water so I went into the laundry room and found this pipe has water coming from it. I noticed the pipe there when I installed the drain hose into the hole on the left side (I took it out briefly to get a better view for the photo) but I didn’t think much of it until now. I can’t find any info by doing google searches..

What is this pipe? Why is it flowing with water and should I be concerned about flooding? Why is it blue on the open end? If it is copper corrosion, should I be concerned about pipes throughout the home?

I’ve been dealing with eczema flare ups since moving in. I have a mild allergy to high levels of copper so now I’m thinking maybe somethings going on with the pipes/water here..Trying not to spiral

Purchased a house last year with two 40 gallon Bradford white gas water heater (model number MI403S6FBN) in series installed in 12/17/2010. The house was built in 2001 so I’m guess the previous water heater only lasted 9-10 years.

so far the hot water does not have any weird smell or color.

The outside of the unit does not have a drip marks or rusting. The TRV is not going off. Everything seems to be working and fine to an untrained eye.

I live in an area with moderate water hardness (7-10 grains per gallon). Hot water usage is low since it is just my wife and I and we only use hot water to shower and run the dishwasher and washer weekly.

Is it possible for a water heater to last 20 years?

So much lint in the line it was no joke. Dryer was giving e90(I think) error on lg dryer. Wonder how previous owner dried their stuff.

Do we attempt to get it serviced or or just leave it alone until it dies?

It's in an attic where I don't think attempting to drain it ourselves would go well

Basically title - found a condensation line dripping directly onto the roof resulting in the mold seen here. More photos in comments. Is this normal? This is a new build (2025) and we are the first owners. Should I try to get a line running this water to the gutter further down the roof?

Thank you!

(For some context, I own a condo that has an HOA)

I moved in two years ago, and literally since day 1 this neighbor has been a problem. She has 2 gorgeous Aussie Shepherds but it is incredibly clear they are untrained AND bored out of their minds. They don’t get near enough stimulation. I almost never see her take her dogs with her when she leaves, and she walks them 2-3x a day in our small grass area by the pool. That’s it. Not to mention she’s incredibly rude and disrespectful towards neighbors as well. There have been multiple times I’ve woken up to her dogs barking and chasing each other outside at 2AM OFF LEASH, while she’s chasing them around trying to corral them. She also consistently lets them bark and bark and bark all hours of the day. There has been at least one instance I’ve witnessed where her dogs attacked another dog and she got pissed at the other owner and they got into a screaming match at 7AM. He called the police and animal control on her. She frequently walks them around off leash as well during the day even though they run away from her and cause trouble. I’ve also seen she has a cat that she leaves on her balcony (without protection from falling) for hours at a time at night. I know this because I can hear the cat howling to be let in and I’ve walked out to investigate to make sure the cat wasn’t in danger.

Ive spoken with another neighbor of mine who has lived here longer than me and she said she has had the cops and animal control called on her multiple times and they just… don’t do anything?? This behavior is not new. She has been reported to the HOA and they don’t care either. It’s ridiculous and she is a literal menace to all the other tenants. If police, animal control, AND the HOA won’t do anything… literally what are my options here?

My house is about 17 years old. A lot more modern than my previous house. After hundreds of years of home building, it's not unreasonable to expect modern homebuilders to build a product that doesn't suck. Sadly, that is not the case. The design of every house in my neighborhood is flawed. And I have no doubt millions of houses all over the US are similarly flawed by design.

Let's start with the HVAC. We get very hot and humid summers and winters that get down to 20F. Need to have two HVAC systems. One for each floor. The morons that designed the house thought it would be a great idea to put the HVAC systems in the crawlspace and the attic where they are exposed to 20F-140F. They didn't insulate the air handlers so the HVAC is working extra hard due to being in extreme temperatures. So my attic HVAC will run all day long when it's above 90F outside and only cool to 75F upstairs. 78F when it's 100F outside. I've added insulation to the air handlers and aluminum foil on the attic ceiling to reduce IR heat. That only improved my upstairs HVAC by 1F.

The upstairs HVAC is a heat pump that is basically useless for heat in the winter. It blows 70F cool air all day long when it's below 30F outside. Feels like running AC to heat the house and never feels warm. I stopped using the HP because two electric hot oil radiators do a better job and use less energy. HVAC techs say there is nothing wrong with the HP. That's how it works.

Now let's talk about the crawlspace. Which is just a big word for a cramped area under your house where a basement should be. The crawlspace slowly lets humid air in the house thru the floor. I have to run a dehumidifier 24/7 to remove the humidity the crawlspace lets in. On heavy rain days, the humid air gets forced in at a much faster rate. It can go from 45% humidity to 65% and 74F to 78F downstairs after a 10 minute downpour. I'm gonna DIY seal the crawlspace which is a ton of work on hands and knees. Something I should not have to do if humans cared about designing a house that functions well instead of one that maximized the builder's profit.

Electrical outlets. Whoever built this house went berzerk with electrical outlets. There are waaaay too many of them and they are located in ridiculous places. They are eyesores that don't have a purpose. I have to buy objects I don't need just to hide my outlets. The outlets are shoddy. They used cheap outlets that are failing one by one. I've had to replace four already.

Low flow faucets. Not even required by code. Very unsatisfying flow. Hot water can take 4 minutes to get hot. Got a fire place with no chimney. There is a vent behind the fireplace that exposes the entire outdoors directly into the fireplace. It had to be plugged up and decommissioned to seal the house better. The backyard deck was built with nails and is falling apart because of it. You gotta use screws.

It's a $500,000 house in a nice area. This is the kind of crap we get to buy for the biggest investment of our lives.

My house has large glass windows overlooking a gravel driveway. I don't know what I would do if something broke the glass and caused it to fall into the gravel. I can't imagine how hard it would be to pick up the shards by hand and make sure I got every piece!

What would you do in this situation? Or what steps would you take to prevent it from happening?

This wall is representative of all the walls in my living room and hallway. I'm replacing the doors with white single panel doors, the paneling and crown molding needs a fresh coat of paint, and I want to paint the baseboards and door casings white. Should all of these components be painted with the same sheen? I've always done egg shell on walls and satin or semi gloss on trim. What is normally used for paneling?

Something I didn’t appreciate until recently: there is no central system that reliably reaches you when an appliance or tool in your house gets recalled.

The CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) publishes recalls constantly - everything from dishwashers and water heaters to space heaters, power tools, and baby gear. But the manufacturer’s legal obligation is basically just to announce it publicly.

Reaching you relies on:

• Registration cards nobody fills out or mails.
• Emails sent to addresses three moves ago.
• Random news coverage you’ll probably miss.

If you bought your house from a previous owner, or bought appliances secondhand, there is literally zero path to notify you.

How to check your stuff manually (costs nothing):

1. Walk through your house and snap photos of the data plates/stickers (usually inside door frames, panels, or back covers).
2. Note down the exact Model Number and Serial Number. (Brand name alone won't work—recalls are almost always restricted to specific model/serial ranges).
3. Bookmark cpsc.gov/recalls and search your model numbers every few months.

Most people won't keep up with a manual spreadsheet long-term, but even doing an initial sweep when you move in can catch dangerous items before they cause a fire or water leak.

(Note: I ended up building a free tool to automate the daily CPSC matching for my own home, but keeping a simple spreadsheet with photos of your data plates works just as well if you stay on top of it!)

I bought a dishwasher back in May 15 2026.

Lowes installers came took the old one away i stalled new one. New dishwasher was defective and installers took it away. I sent in the cancelation paperwork. Told Lowes when they called i want a refund because of the defective dishwasher and i still wanted to cancel the order. I also called my credit card company and did a merchant dispute thru capital one mastercard. I went with a different company, a local shop for my new dishwasher. Fast forward to june of 2026 capture one contacts me asking for more evidence to prove that lowe's did not install the dishwasher. I gave them the text messages and emails of lowe's canceling on me because they did not have the installers to install the dishwasher. I also gave them the invoice and receipt from the other company that installed the dishwasher that is not related to lowe's. I did this to prove that lowe's did not install the dishwasher and I had no dishwasher. Capital, one states that is not good enough for evidence. And still wants to charge me the $239 fees and dishwasher even though I have no product from them. Lowes sent capitalone the original may receipt and they state that they did.Install a working dishwasher. With the stuff I have proving that Lowe's did not install. A working dishwasher?Is there something else I can do to remedy this in my favor?

Thanks

Hello everyone, so my parents are considering giving my wife and I their house and moving into an ADU in the back yard. We still have to build the ADU currently though. We are coming in with equity from a townhome that we are going to use to mostly fund that project. We plan on renovating the house though to fit our needs more (updated kitchen, bathroom, etc.). We live in a high cost of living area so our goal was to avoid having a high mortgage by just assuming my parent’s mortgage plus what ever loan we may need to take out to do construction. The construction will probably have to be spread out over years too since they will probably cost a decent amount. Anyone have any experience doing something like this? Was it worth it in the long run? Thanks for any advice, I appreciate it.

As the title says. I have an old house, like almost 100 years old and the kitchen is set up with the stove in the middle of an interior wall and no exhaust fan. I can't seem to find a sensible or suggested place to put the smoke detector where it isn't going off every time I make bacon or burgers. I'm not sure how to deal with this.

We are in the market to sell our starter home built in the 60's. There are quiet a few major problems with it that would cost a fortune to address and the house is on the lower end of the market.

Sale price for comps is between $225-325k, 3 bed, 2 bath, 2200 sqft.

The house itself is built like a fortress. It's an all brick ranch, solid pour foundation, 2×8 sub floor, things you don't see on modern houses.

However, the major fixes are: basement leak between slab and wall (requires sump pump install) that would be $15k + demo some finished basements walls, black mold on some of the basement walls ($3k to tear them all out and put new ones up), driveway is in bad shape (25k for a new one, it's a long driveway), roof is at the end of it's life ($15k), septic motor just burned out (we are replacing this for $2k), hole in the yard where above ground pool used to be (we are filling this in $5k).

That's what we know of before even an inspection, we would be well over $60k to really get this place in decent shape.

My question is, are some of these items expected on older homes on the cheap side of the market? Or should we do all the fixes before selling? List as-is and give credits? This entire selling process is beyond stressful and depressing in a home that has been absolutely great to us.

We recently bought a 100 year old house with a rubble foundation. We don't have leaks or free water in the basement but there is florescence and patches of dark and light. There are also gaps in places between the stones.

Since we moved in I've had health problems and I'm worried they're mold-related. Is it worth getting the foundation tested for mold? Is it possible to remediate? Should we just parge everything?

Yesterday morning I found water in my finished basement along a wall that is under the garage. It is a spot that is about 3ft x 1ft and it’s pretty damp. If there’s a leak it seems to be a slow leak. There are no appliances around. No plumbing around or above this spot. The sump pump is on the other side of the room. The ceiling and wall appear to be ok. We have not had heavy rain recently. We don’t have sprinklers, but the neighbors do. I just moved into this house last month. I’m not sure who to call to help identify where the water is coming from.

Pretty much all of my kitchen cabinets have them, but not the drawers. I got them painted last year. The cabinets are pretty new and generally look good besides this.

More examples:

https://imgur.com/a/5a6nx7u

I have rolling shades with a chain on the side in my living room, and they are partially transparent. I need it to be darker here at night because I have someone sleeping over for a few months (but it could be longer, like couple years). Do I need to replace the whole mechanism, or are there some temporary attachments that I can stick on the shades when they are pulled down to make it darker just for the night? There's a lot of light coming through at night because I live in a big city close to tall buildings.

This furnace has been a mess since I bought the house in 2019. (Sorry, I know almost zero terminology), holes are cut where the purple circles are for those pipes to enter the unit, these holes spew cold air from the Ac which then creates condensation mostly where the blue circles are. One of the blue circles is on the safety switch which will cause the unit to turn off periodically. The condensation then drips on the unit which is rusting out the unit in the red circle as well as some spots on the side. I've had my home warranty send out hvac specialists in the past for different issues, where I've asked about this. They have in turn made half assed excuses as to why it's fine, or in some cases "fixed" it by rigging it worse.

Some of the fixes:

1. Added the safety switch in what seems like a terrible spot. (That's right, there was no safety switch when I bought the house)

2. Epoxied the pvc drain pipe closed where I had been opening it up to clean it out

3. Installed that black foam in between the two purple circles when I expressed concern over the amount of condensation (he also told me that it wasn't condensation and that it was natural

I filled the holes as best I could with pipe insulation and metal tape, they are probably about 98% filled.

Any ideas on what I should do? I would like my warranty company to replace it, though I know that they will do everything that they can to avoid it.

We got a whole-home humidifier a couple years ago since i live in a high humidity area with hot summers and it's been great so far. But this week i noticed the humidity has been noticably higher upstairs. It generally hovers around 3+5% higher than what the dehumidifier is set at, but lately its been up to 10+% during the day.

Had our HVAC tech out and he said everything looks fine. He checked the drain pan in the attic too (his theory was that an issue there might explain why the problem is only upstairs) but he said that looked ok. I checked the drain pipe from the dehumifier myself as well and that too looked good.

I dont remember the humidity being this high in previous summers, but we've also had a good amount of rain lately, and the same brutal heatwave that a lot of the world is facing.

Is this just the hvac + dehumidifier doing the best it can against nature, or is there a problem im not seeing? On paper it makes sense: added rain = added humidity, and all that water is gonna evaporate upwards. But im still wondering if im missing something.