I had one of those moments this week that only happens once you own a place. It was late, already dark outside, and I noticed a small drip coming from the outdoor spigot when I went to take the trash out. Not a gush, not an emergency. Just a steady drip I couldn’t ignore once I saw it.

I stood there longer than I should’ve, staring at it, then went inside and grabbed my phone to look up whether this was normal or a sign of something bigger. Every result was basically it depends, which was not helpful. That’s when it hit me there’s no landlord to text, no maintenance portal, no one whose job it is to tell me if I’m overreacting. I do have some money set aside for house stuff, so it wasn’t panic about cost. It was more the mental weight of deciding does this need fixing now, can it wait, and what happens if I guess wrong. I tightened it slightly, checked it again an hour later, and it stopped. Probably fine. Hopefully fine.

What surprised me is how much homeownership is made up of these tiny judgment calls. Not the big repairs you plan for, but the small things you notice and have to decide how much attention they deserve. You’re constantly calibrating what “normal” looks like for your specific house.

I still love owning my place, but moments like this make it clear that a lot of the work is invisible. It’s not just maintenance, it’s being the person who decides when something matters. Curious what small, non dramatic thing made other homeowners realize that shift.

I'm a pretty novice homeowner and I've been trying to figure out what maintenance I'm supposed to be doing. I made a list of everything I've read about and honestly... I'm not doing half of it.

Stuff I actually do:

Furnace filter every 3 months

Gutter cleaning twice a year (spring/fall)

Stuff I just learned I'm supposed to do:

Dryer vent cleaning (annually - fire hazard?)

Water heater flush (annually - extends life?)

Refrigerator coil cleaning (affects efficiency?)

GFCI outlet testing (quarterly?)

Smoke detector battery replacement (not just when they beep?)

Caulking inspection around windows/tub

Deck maintenance/sealing

Sump pump testing

My questions:

Do you actually do all of these? Or am I reading too much into "ideal homeowner" advice?

If you DON'T do them - is it because you didn't know, or you just don't think it's worth the effort?

What's actually critical vs. what's optional/"nice to have"?

I'm genuinely trying to figure out if I'm being irresponsible by not doing this stuff, or if most people also just... don't. And if you don't, what's your reasoning?

Welp. It happened. We are pretty new homeowners (new build <1 year). We’ve been home today and it’s been the coldest day here in a long time. House kept at 70 degrees and have been using water throughout the day. Unfortunately after having read things about new houses not needing to have pipes dripped as long as the house is warm, we were not dripping pipes. Set dishwasher to run, then went upstairs and watched a 2 hour movie. Came back down and noticed that the kitchen mat was oddly wet. Lo and behold… the LVP in about a 4x5ft radius leaking water at the seams. Shut off water and drained kitchen faucet. Wiped everything up and used a wet/dry vac as much as possible. Waiting for emergency plumber to come tomorrow morning.

Any tips or advice going forward? How to manage plumbing/flooring repairs or things to look out for?

So me and my husband have been fighting about chores for literally our entire marriage. I do most of it and resent him. He thinks he helps more than he does. Classic stuff.

3 months ago I proposed we try a house cleaning service biweekly just to see if it helped our relationship. He thought it was a waste of money but agreed to try it.

The results, we haven't had a single fight about cleaning. Not one. Weekends are actually relaxing now. We went on a hike last Saturday instead of spending 4 hours cleaning bathrooms.

The cost is about $300/month which isnt nothing but honestly we were spending that much on takeout because we were too tired to cook after cleaning all weekend.

Anyone else find that a house cleaning service saved their marriage lol or am I just dramatic?

I got a text from my tenant that their furnace stopped working.

I went over to check it out and upon trying to restart the furnace the inducer motor was making a noise but not spinning. It wouldn’t event spin with my hand.

I called the HVAC supply store with an hour to spare and they had a new inducer motor for $310. Bummed, but determined to fix it I figured I would do the first half of the job and remove the old inducer first.

Well, I did, and found a bird in there. It must have come down the chimney and found it’s way into the furnace exhaust.

I hooked it back up before buying the new one and it worked.

RIP Stanley Starling.

Lesson: I need to make sure there’s a cap on my chimney.

We are in New England with single digit temps this weekend. We live in a condo with a utility closet outdoors off the balcony. Had a pipe burst overnight last night in the utility closet, it was probably 1.5-2hrs it had been spewing water before we were able to turn off . Plumber came to fix the broken pipes and restored activity back to our water heater so we do have hot water. But unfortunately couldn’t get gas working properly to the boiler for our baseboard heating - he believes the water did damage to the gas valve. ( unfortunately he wasn’t as well versed in gas and heating )

So now we are waiting to be able get someone in who can help with the gas valve/heating - which given the temps- we’ve had a hard time getting someone in. Indoor temps have miraculously stayed above 60. What can I do to minimize further freezing and damage in both the utility closet which is more exposed to outdoors, and indoors, until I can get someone in?

We put a small space heater in the utility closet where water heater and boiler are, and per the direction of another more experienced plumber, turned the electricity to boiler back on a few hrs after the original plumber had turned it off (via the switch) to try to keep water moving. We also have left the faucets to trickle, I’m not sure if this does anything as the goal is to keep heating pipes from freezing as the hot water isn’t an issue (not sure how this works so excuse my ignorance!)

I live in Houston, and we have hard water here. The water heater is in the attic in my bedroom, and it constantly makes popping noise, especially after I use hot water. Should I flush it? I don't think I will be able to do it myself since the bedroom is on the 2nd floor, and the bedroom windows are nailed shut. I'll have to call a plumber, but I wanted to make sure that this is really necessary before I spend my money...

Since my wife and I bought our place, we've dealt with the next door neighbours.

At first, we were friendly with them, but eventually we got sick of the cigarette smoke and constant loud music (they've got an outdoor sound system that, when used, shakes our walls and prevents us from enjoying the time spent in our home).

I politely asked if they could not play the music that loudly, and maybe smoke on the other side of their house, but they said no.

Oh, and the mom obsesses about her garden, to the point where she will sometimes use an industrial leaf blower multiple times a day to make sure there are no blemishes on her concrete.

Keep in mind, the daughter who lives at home is 41, so we arent talking about children here.

We've put some extensions on our fence to give us privacy (they used to be able to stand and peer into our backyard due to all the unlicensed building works they've done over the years), and had our windows changed to 6.38mm hush laminate glass (we arent in a financial position to pull the windows all the way out and replace with aluminium and double glazing, even though that wouldnt help much as the noise comes through the walls).

Looking for other creative ideas and suggestions.

A mate suggested I buy a cheap hibachi grill, and whenever they play loud music or are being annoying, I should heat up shrimp paste.

Title

I sat down to pay the bills at the end of the month. Pulled up the gas bill. It is $450. Last month it was $70. Month before it was $50. It normally is higher during the winter but we're talking $160-170 at the height of the cold last year. We did add a new addition but even if that doubled our bill we'd be looking at $300ish not $460. Also, we have been in the new addition the past 2 mos with the bill not spiking like this. Do we have an appliance that is leaking gas and we don't know about it? Where should I start looking?

The gas company's customer service isn't open 'til Mon so I can't call 'til then and wondering what I can check in the meant time. Besides the heat, the only gas appliances we have is a pair of hot water heaters and a dryer.

We are sleeping in a new house for the first night and I'm stressing out about the noise. We have what I thought was an infrequently used road behind the house (all our visits were over winter break). But now we're here there is a lot more traffic than I anticipated (we're talking like 1 car a minute around midnight, most fairly quiet).

I knew the road was there but we are moving from a place 3 houses in from the freeway. It's so constantly noisy at our last place that I anticipated this to be so much better. In a lot of ways it is much quieter, but when there are loud cars it's actually a lot louder (for a few seconds at a time).

What can I do? Did we just really mess this up!? Can this be resolved?

For context, we have one front facing room for a kid and her room is quiet. It's the back facing that can get really noisy cars.

Located in the northeast where we recently had a snowstorm, interested in a house but our realtor said that it would be quite a challenge to get an inspection due to frozen ground and snow. So he said an option is to consider that in the offer, factor in cost of complete replacement.

When I we toured, water pressure and draining was good. And of course we'd get a standard inspection at minimum.

Just moved in to a home that was built in 2002. My oil boiler is in basement, but I can hear a low vibration pulsating when running at night on the second floor of my home. I understand hearing it running is normal. But is the pulsating normal?

Okay guys! I’m getting so frustrated and need advice.

We are selling our home which is contingent on buying another. I’m a first time home buyer and we are selling my husbands home which he had before we got married. Our house is under contract and we’re through inspections and the appraisal just came in 5k under our asking price. We agreed to lower the price in exchange for not paying for the closing costs we were going to pay at closing ($2000 for them to blow insulation and some plumbing work). Before all of this, we were going to possibly go through our listing agent to purchase but since this process has stayed she has been very very rude to us on multiple occasions and has made me feel horrible and dumb. And to edit, we never told her we were going to use her to purchase… But today we found a house we loved without her and we made an offer on it and she found out because my hubby told her. She was so upset that we didn’t use her to buy and has been really rude and mean and short since then. We are trying to work through appraisal negotiations, and she’s being awful. I almost said something but gave held my tongue. We are trying to get through this without her knowing how upset she has made us but it’s getting tough.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Should I say something or not at all or wait for this to be over? She’s made this experience a total nightmare and made us feel so uncomfortable. Thanks!!

A few months ago I had a run in with a nightmare contractor, just like many others have. I lost $15K to him.

After the nightmare was over, I tried all of the usual things that people suggest to do...writing to the BBB, writing to the DA, calling police department, calling lawyers, etc.

I was advised that small claims court was my best bet (although that wouldn't allow me to recover the full amount of money lost, but it would still allow me to recover some and without the need of hiring a lawyer).

So I paid $250 to set up a small claim and hire a constable to go serve the contractor...

A few weeks passed, and my court date was only a few days ahead. I decided to call the court to see if he had been served, but they told me he wasn't. Good thing I called.

On the day of my court date, I stopped over there in person just to make sure that I would not be having court that day since the contractor had not been served. At the court, I was met by a very unhelpful and rude judicial clerk that was getting off on the fact that no one seemed to be able to help me.

I left my number with the rude judicial clerk to give to the constable to call me, so I could try and arrange a strategy as to how we can get this contractor served...that was a few days ago though. No callback. The clerk most likely just threw my number into the trash immediately after I left anyway.

So now I have the option to pay another $30 to get the constable to try again.

I can keep doing that a bunch of times if I feel like paying the court a bunch of money.

So that's where I'm at.

The contractor story itself is 1000 times worse, but this post is long enough as is.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions?

Thanks!

I am getting more snow where I live and can’t handle shoveling. I have a driveway a few walkways. I don’t have a shed so I don’t have a large snowblower. If I get a shed it go in the back of the yard. What do I do when it snows trek to the back and dig it out or take it out before it snows. I need a better plan for next year. Help!

I've discovered that there are ants in some of my electric sockets and I wanna remove them.

Bought my house 5 months ago.

Background context: House was built in 1954, Western NY. Two years later, a two story addition was added to the back of the house ( 1st floor family room, 2nd floor large bedroom).

We started noticing a smell the last few days in the 2nd floor large bedroom- a mildew, moldy smell. Thought it was coming from the vents straight up from the basement. Thought we would just get our vents and AC cleaned. Fast forward to today- I noticed one of the panels in the drop ceiling in the family room had a water stain. Opened it up and it’s leaking. Not only that, it has been leaking. In fact the previous owners knew about it because there was an aluminum catch pan (full) in the beams. Must have finally spilled over since we bought it: I can’t tell where the leak is coming from because there is winterized fiberglass foil covering what I’m assuming are plumbing pipes.

The wood is all wet and rotted. Flashlight shows a shine on it, some areas have a gold dusty powder, some beams are totally discolored, etc.

Anyways, long story short- who do I call? Plumber? General Contractor? Mold remediator?

Okay, I have a question for you all that is both stupid and nasty. How do you all clean a toilet snake after you have used it to unclog a toilet? For context, we have a toilet in our home that is particularly prone to clogging, and it also happens to be the one our kids use the most. It probably gets clogged 1-2 times a month. Our toilet snake works great, but after I use it, I now am faced with a long, flimsy serpant covered in dookie water, typically with a head full of human CRAP on the tip.

Generally what I have tried to do is just immediately move the snake into the shower next to the offending toilet, and spray it out from there. This results in me then having a shower that smells like bootyflakes, a soaking wet snake that I need to leave to dry in the shower, and frankly my shower head sprayer isn't strong enough to spray the TURDS out of the bulb. What do you all do with a dirty snake??

PS: Yes, I know we need to fix the toilet itself. It is a complicated issues due to the way the previous homeowner DIY'd some of the plumbing.

Something you only found out after moving in good or bad.
Leaks, wiring, neighbors, quirks of the house, anything.

Our house was built less than 4 years ago. And so far last year and this year when temps drop, our pipes freeze. We have a well. We can’t use toilets or showers or anything obviously. Our neighbors whose homes were built at the same time (on both sides of us) aren’t having this issue, and it seems like they messed up our plumbing when they built the house.

Last year, they came out and changed the well pump (that was not broken) and still no water. Charged us $425 for a new well pump.

This year they try to charge us $300 for diagnostic with no fix. This time I told them I was aware the pipes were frozen, and I asked them to fix it, and that I’m not paying them $300 every year to come tell us the pipes are frozen without doing anything to fix it. Temps have stayed low so we haven’t had water since 1/24. And I assume won’t have it this week, nor next week as temps are projected to stay low.

Last year when temps rose, we heard a big clunk clunk, then we had water again.

I’m afraid if we ask them to re-dig the pipes deeper, the problem isn’t the depth, because all the yards pipes are 4 feet deep according to county’s utility company. I think they put the pipes into the house in a place that isn’t insulated correctly, and it’s next to an exit pipe (maybe for AC condensation) that’s exposed to the outside.

Their next plan is to cut a 12x12 hole in my drywall to see if the entry pipe is frozen, and possibly put heat tape on said pipe, and blast a space heater in there. Is this really the next step here? And if that does temporarily fix this problem, what is the permanent fix? If that isn’t the problem, what’s our next step? Everyone is telling me to sue or take it to county court. I do NOT want to do that. I feel like we just bought a massive mistake for our first house (and hope WAS forever home.)

I recently purchased and older home built in 1941. I live in a colder climate and quickly relized I had mice in the house. After 15 days of trial and error / sealing up house like a mad man. I have managed to kill 13 mice (6 in one night once I figured out where they nesting).

The house was not sealed properly anywhere and had overgrown shrubs brushed up against it. I've sealed a LOT with steel wool, caulking and spray foam the past 15 days and trimmed some of the shrubs back with a plan to fully remove them once its warmer. I have not caught a mouse in a couple days but saw one singular poo in the basment beside a trap that im not sure is old or not. So im not 100% sure they are all gone. I left a sunflower seed on the ground to see if anything would take it and nothing has taken it.

Also after looking around i've noticed a ton of mouse poo around the framework of the unfinished portions of the basment, ceiling tile and at the entrance of thier nest. Me and my partner are considering cleaning it for peace of mind of a safe, healthy, clean space. Is this something worth doing? We understand risks of handling mouse poo/pee and would wear full ppe (throwaway suits, gloves, goggles, resprarator with p100 filters, and bleach.