Whether you’re dutifully attending open houses looking for your next home, or have lived in the same one for decades, you should always be on the lookout for water damage. That’s because it’s more than an eyesore: Water damage is a sign of a larger problem.
Mattresses don’t come cheap, so it’s in your best interest to take care of them. In addition to covering them with a mattress protector and removing dirt and dust by vacuuming them regularly, it also means quickly cleaning up spills before they turn into stains. Here’s how to do that.
You’re in the shower shampooing your hair, and suddenly you catch a whiff of something unpleasant. Something that smells like sewage. Your first instinct is that it’s coming from the toilet. That might be true, but it could also be coming from your shower drain. Here are a few examples of what could be behind the…
Whether you’re into classic, well-manicured American suburban landscape design, or favor a more natural look featuring native shrubs, you probably have some type of foundation plant around the perimeter of your house (or at least the parts visible from the street).
In addition to using less energy, part of the appeal of tankless hot water heaters is that they take up less space than traditional models. So, unless you have a sprawling basement where storage space isn’t an issue, your hot water heater with a tank is occupying valuable real estate.
If your home was constructed out of wood, its structural integrity depends on the natural material remaining intact and sturdy. So if you happen to notice that wood in your walls, floors, or support beams is losing its shape, changing color, crumbling, or looks like it’s beginning to collapse, it’s important to take…
I love my Roomba, and I hate my Roomba. The endearing little beeps and boops, the hypnotic but inexplicable path it takes across my floor, the possibility of training woodland animals to ride it across the floor…there’s a lot to like. But, three years into its use, I have some bones to pick. Here are all the things…
Webcams, especially the ones built-into computers, haven’t always been that great. The priority was convenience, not necessarily quality, when it came to powering video calls on your mobile machine. But times have changed: Not only can you buy high-quality webcams to connect to your computer, but some now ship with…
Email is old. In its earliest incarnation, email dates back to 1965—a time when computers were the size of elephants and only a small number of nerds had regular access to them—and the kind of email we recognize today dates back to the early 1970s.
We didn’t need the cinematic corporate bipoic Air to remind us of the indelible mark Michael Jordan has made not just on basketball, but on the shoe game. The birth of the Air Jordans in 1985 meant big things for the company, but it also blew the starting whistle on an entire culture built around sneakers. Kicks…
The concept of an omelette is enticing and simple: Wrap tasty stuff in an egg blanket. In practice, however, it can be so frustratingly hard to get “right” that even celebrity chef judges will quiz other professionals on if they can make a perfect French-style omelette or not. No one’s day (or career) should ride on…
I’m going to admit upfront that I’m a big Windex girl. It’s cheap, it’s always available, and it’s easy to spray on everything from mirrors (normal!) to tabletops (nor normal!) for a quick rubdown. It turns out, though, that you’re really not supposed to use the specialty glass cleaner for everything, as it can cause…
Cookies are the perfect treat, and each one is valuable to society. And yet, I’ve recently unwittingly stumbled upon an outstanding way to improve almost any cookie. To experience an otherworldly crunch phenomenon, simply wrap your drop cookies in phyllo dough.
The food distributor Lipari Foods has issued a voluntary recall after a specific lot of Lipari Branded Ground Cumin Tubs was found to potentially have been contaminated with Salmonella and was distributed to 16 states. Salmonella can cause serious or fatal infections to young children, elderly people, or those with a…
Every time you interact with ChatGPT, you’re actually training it to be better. It takes your conversations and uses that experience to make future conversations more useful and accurate for everyone. That’s a good thing for both ChatGPT, as well as anyone who wants to see their chats with the bot improve overtime. As…
We live in a divided world, but one thing most people can agree on right now is that the cost of housing is way too high. Home prices have slipped a bit, but home prices, mortgage rates, and rents remain sky-high in a lot of places, and a lot of people—especially younger folks—are despairing of ever owning a home.…
As tick populations grow (thanks, climate change) and tickborne diseases like Lyme become more widespread, tick checks have become routine for a lot of us. But do you really know what it means to “check yourself for ticks”? Chances are, you’re missing some important parts of the process.
I love breading. I find the crispness of good breading can make otherwise mundane weeknight dishes a little elevated. A lightly breaded trout filet, a pork chop with a crispy side, a chicken breast with a little crunch.
I get produce paralysis. Despite the world of salads being so incredibly diverse, somehow I’ll make the same one week after week, even if I’m bored of it. But after flipping through an old salad cookbook listing ingredients with no measurements, I remembered that recipes ain’t the boss of me. You can create a whole…
Life doesn’t always go your way. This is one of the hardest and most universal lessons we learn as we move out of toddlerhood and into childhood and later adulthood. While it’s normal for a small child to throw a tantrum when they don’t get what they want when they want it, as kids get bigger, the ability to tolerate…
Ever since it came out, Google Authenticator has been a popular choice for generating two-factor authentication codes on the fly. The service is reliable and secure, but has always had one glaring issue: the inability to sync authentication codes between devices, leaving you at risk of losing access to all of your 2FA…
Last Wednesday, I was trudging up a hill barely able to breathe. Something was constricting my chest, and I wasn’t sure whether to blame a too-tight sports bra, the heart rate monitor I had wedged underneath it, my spring allergies, or my asthma acting up. (In hindsight: probably all four.) That wasn’t my only source…
Spend too much time in certain social media circles, and you may get the impression that a magnesium supplement is a wonder pill that can cure just about any ailment. One supplement that can fix your sleep, get rid of your headaches, or act as a natural anxiety relief aid. Unsurprisingly, many of these claims are…
There’s a lot of hype for chewy brownies, fudgy, and even the cakey type, but what about wet brownies, huh? (Still working on the name.) It’s more like chocolate pudding meets devil’s food cake, and I guarantee if there isn’t a cult following for this simple, decadent brownie pudding, there will be soon. Other than…
Your phone and social media love to remind you what you were doing on this day a year ago, or five. It’s a good way to marvel at how things have changed, and how your kids have grown. It can also tell you useful things about your gardens of yesteryear: When the tulips opened, where your peonies popped, or when the…
The internet is losing its mind over using your drill in your garden. In short, you put a really long drill bit on and create holes to drop your bulbs into. But it gets even better: They make drill bits specifically for this—they’re called augers—and they’re even better than regular drill bit and you can do a lot more…
Cruciferous vegetables, like the Brussels sprout, are hearty, bitter, and tough. Roasting them in a hot oven is an excellent hands-off way to imbue them with flavor and soften them up without losing that distinctive chew. Typically, roasting Brussels sprouts involves halving them, and placing them cut-side down to…
Many teachers aren’t happy about the AI revolution, and it’s tough to blame them: ChatGPT has proven you can feed AI a prompt, say for a high school essay, and the AI can spit out a result in seconds. Of course, that essay might be riddled with errors, but, hey, the homework’s done. So, when AI checkers advertise…
We’re all struggling to keep our spaces clean, and at the same time, living in smaller spaces with rooms that pull double duty. The tables in your house are functional in ways that go beyond being the place you put the tableware: Most serve as staging spaces for projects, too. The problem is, they’re also largely…
Mrs. Davis is a genre-bending new take on artificial intelligence: Here is a TV series in which an action hero nun takes on an AI with dream of world domination. (If this is the first you’re hearing of it, well, it’s on Peacock, so.)
The show kinda pits faith against technology, though it’s not nearly that pedantic. …
Around here, we love pool noodles. What makes them so special and versatile is the padding they offer and the delicate hole down their center—both of which are key to their functionality in your planters this summer, too.
My fridge cannot possibly contain the organizational hopes and dreams I have as a home cook and hoarder of Better Than Bouillon. But the winter is long (and I had a lot of pickles), so I found myself ordering bins, bins, and more bins as close to the specs of my fridge as possible. Out came the mustards and the eggs,…
Viruses and funguses are among the worst gardening concerns, and we’re often to blame. I spoke with Meg Cowden, fearless leader of The Modern Garden Guild and author of Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat about how she manages disease in her garden.
In daylight, my garden is a beacon of color and texture, but when the sun sets, the yard becomes a black hole. Delivery drivers struggle to see the house numbers or find the footpath, and I hold my phone flashlight awkwardly to avoid tripping as I take out the trash. Sure, lighting would help, but I didn’t have in-…
With warmer weather and longer, sunnier days on the horizon, now is the time to get your yard ready for summer hangouts. If your yard doesn’t have many trees, consider adding shade—both to make the heat more manageable and provide protection from the elements.
It can happen innocently enough. One child is a determined rule-follower, the other is a risk-taker. The oldest is a leader, the youngest is a clown, and the middle child is insecure. You slyly refer to one as a “princess” and the other as a “daredevil.” Before you know it, the stereotypes and labels have stuck,…
One struggle shared by just about every adult is buying clothes. It comes in different forms. Some folks are very fashion-forward but struggle with their clothing budget; others developed a personal style during four inebriated years of high school and have no clue how to actually dress as an adult. But whatever your…
Short-term rental platforms are here to stay—and when you think of short-term renting, you think of Airbnb. But there are a growing number of reasons to avoid Airbnb like the plague. Aside from rising prices and poor customer service, Airbnb has been accused of destroying neighborhoods and not respecting your privacy…
Curtains can go a long way toward making a room feel homier, while helping to regulate the amount of natural light coming in. But given that they’re long pieces of fabric hanging in the same place for months, or in some cases, years at a time, they tend to collect dust.
Mother’s Day can be a particularly tough holiday for some people, for a variety of different reasons. But if your family does celebrate, and wants to spend at least part of the day at a large home improvement chain store, you could get some free flowers out of it. Here’s what to know.
Even if you’re one of the lucky few who truly love their job, you probably don’t want your identity to be defined solely by what you currently do for a living. Jobs and careers change, but there are some core skills and characteristics that you utilize—or at least have in your possession—regardless of what you do to…
With the exception of a few pungent cheeses, mold isn’t something you want anywhere in or on your home. It tends to be the sign of a larger structural or ventilation problem, and not only is it often accompanied by that damp, musty smell, it’s also not great for our health.
With buying an existing home being financially out of reach for so many, some people are considering going a different route: Purchasing land and constructing a new house. But when you factor in the cost of the property, labor, and materials—which have also gone up in price, thanks to supply chain issues and…
As children, most people were taught to memorize certain dialogue in order to be considered polite in everyday situations. Along with saying “please,” “thank you,” and “nice to meet you,” we were instructed to ask someone how they’re doing—either immediately after, or as part of an initial greeting like “hello” or…
Thanks to a recent tweet by the FBI, you may have recently encountered the term “juice jacking” somewhere on the internet. Juice jacking refers to the act of infecting unsuspecting devices with malware through a public charging port like the ones you might see at the airport. While there aren’t any stats on how…
More than two years after we first heard about the “Benadryl Challenge” on TikTok, it is unfortunately back in the news—this time because of the death a 13-year-old Ohio boy who overdosed after taking more than a dozen Benadryl pills as part of the challenge. His friends recorded him attempting the challenge until his…
AI is great at summarizing text, which can save you a lot of time you would’ve spent reading. But we can do better: Rather than receive a simple summary of any given text, what if we could chat with the AI about it, answering specific questions and diving deeper into the material? It just so happens we have such a…
Do you ever feel like crap when your period starts, or perhaps in the week or so before your period? Social media has dubbed this the “period flu,” and places like TikTok are full of tips about why it happens and how to deal with it. Unfortunately, a lot of those posts are full of misinformation, so let’s straighten…
The crows started it. I noticed that they often played in the puddle that formed in a rock garden next door when it rained. I like the crows; they’ve rewarded my frequent conversation attempts with keeping my roof moss and twig free, and when they’re feeling really social, they bring me dead things.
Occasionally, I’ll flee the warm embrace of Pacific Northwest rain to visit friends in the desert and hang poolside (and be a boastful dick about it on Instagram). Most people are about the sights when they visit another town–the vistas, the museums, the restaurants—and then there are those annoying people who go…