5 Online Finds That Are Rocking My World!

The internet is awesome! Not only can you find great things like my blog on it ;) but pretty much anything else your heart desires...including tons of tips, tricks & solutions to make your life easier!

Here are my current top 5 that I think are....

5. My Deck Re-Finishing Fiasco - Now this one is Rocking My World in a BAD way...2yrs ago I proudly revealed my newly refurbished deck on my Facebook page. I had found a step by step guide on Pinterest, including what specific products to use, and when I was done, it looked amazing! To this day, it's still my most re-pinned post on that platform (you can check out all my Pinterest boards HERE). The following spring it looked like a nightmare :(

Everything Is Overpriced.

Until It's Not.

So says the super-smart, ever-inciteful Seth Godin in his most recent blog post... and which I think sums up the Spring Market we've just had, perfectly.

                                      (Image: Rhett Maxwell)

We've seen a tremendous jump in home prices in the first half of 2015, and only time will tell where we'll finish up at, come the end of the year. 

From the June/15 Bulletin of the Durham Region Association of REALTORS® (DRAR):

" The average price of a detached home in Durham

Region reached $502,079 in May 2015. In May

2014, detached homes sold for an average of

$428,914, which demonstrates a year-over-year

increase of over 17 per cent. The average price

for all home types in Durham was $449,837 last

month, an increase of 15.1 per cent compared to

the same period last year. "

The general consensus seems to be that this is the
"new normal" here in the Durham region.

We Have Garbage Police? Really?

I was driving around last week, listening to NEWSTALK 1010 & the topic was the Garbage Police we have here in the Durham Region.

And I was like...WHAT??? Our tax dollars go towards paying the salary of not 1 but 2 public sector workers whose job it is to stop so-called "scavengers" from removing items from recycling bins?

These By-Law Compliance Officers take video of the "offenses", maintain a database of these "scavengers" including pictures of them & issue fines & warnings.  

The Region's position is " Stopping scavengers from going through blue boxes ensures the Region isn’t losing money. That helps keep property taxes down...Taking items out of a blue box is also taking money out of the Region’s coffers. Items collected are sold and the money offsets collection costs.“It’s really an effort to keep taxes down,”  

You can read more in a local article published last week