European Reacts to 4 Ways American Homes Are an Absolute Nightmare
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
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My name is André, and as a European (Portuguese), I always strive to bring a unique perspective to the topics I tackle. All my reaction videos are crafted with a playful and entertaining twist!At least I try... 🌍
✔️ European Reacts to 4 Ways American Homes Are an Absolute Nightmare - Reaction For the First Time
That monstrosity Laurence was holding is known as a "window unit". It's placed in an open window to circulate the air.
Ah makes sense
More than merely circulating the air, it will chill the air and remove a lot of moisture.
Central Air and heat do the whole house…. When they are working! 😜
Nobody in the entire United States would say central air conditioning is more trouble than it’s worth.
Some places in the US swamp coolers work just as well but much cheaper to run
Can I hear an AMEN!?!
With central air you have two large pieces: the inside unit and an outside compressor. The cold air is carried throughout the house via vents that own up in every room. It can be expensive, especially when there’s a problem, but it’s necessary when you live where it gets really hot. You can also buy some small window units that can cool one or two rooms.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 so true. I love my Central air.
As an American, I despise HOAs.
Lawrence bought an older home, and with that comes a great deal of maintenance.
lol I have a newer home and it comes with a great deal of maintenance.
This is any home. lol
HOAs can be ridiculously restrictive. They can also be incredibly unfair and petty.
Raccoons running across your roof sounds like a herd of elephants.
My home has a full basement. It was built in 1903 and to my knowledge, there has never been a leak. It is necessary to ensure that the land next to the foundation is higher than the land a few feet away in order that water runs away from the house, rather than toward it.
There are definitely raccoons all over the US, even in urban areas. They live within very defined areas their entire lives.
Andre, that is NOT merely an Air Conditioning unit. Lawrence's home has a forced air HVAC System that combines heating and air conditioning. It is usually a large unit placed in the basement. There is NO specific room needed. Basements do not have a water problem, unless your home is in a area with poor drainage. My Parents have owned their home for forty years and have NEVER had a leak in their basement.
In homes without basements, the HVAC equipment is commonly in the garage. Air conditioning requires 2 major parts: The compressor and the evaporator. It works by having an outdoor unit with a pump that compresses the coolant gas and pumps it to the evaporator which is almost always inside wherever the equipment for circulating air is. Just as evaporation of water cools your skin, when the compressed gas expands and "evaporates" indoors (inside some sort of grill or radiator-like contraption), it gets cold and cools everything around it so that air blown over, through and around it gets cooled too. Then the expanded gas can be pumped back outside and the cycle repeated. So all-house air conditioning has these two components connected just by some pipes. In window units, it's all in the same box with the evaporator inside the rook and the compressor usually in the part hanging outside.
I live in an apartment in the basement of a house built in 1837. My apartment was originally the kitchen. I have no leaks, and no problems with flooding. The trick is to make sure the drainage from the roof and around the house is properly maintained.
Raccoons are everywhere! They may be cute, and they're very intelligent, but they make a huge mess, and they can be vicious.
HOAs are meant to maintain the property values of everybody in the neighborhood. I would NEVER buy a house in an HOA.
raccoons are , nicknamed trash panda because that's usually where you will find them once the sun goes down, near dumpsters and such, they are common everywhere in the continental US and most of Canada.
Raccoons have adapted well to living alongside humans. They live in suburban areas, not just rural areas. They're natural scavengers. They're quite smart. They also have hands (no opposable thumbs though), so they can get into most things that other animals can't. A raccoon is also capable of hunting if it isn't able to scavenge.
The do have thumbs, just not fully opposable thumbs like we do.
@@higgme1ster All right. I've heard vets just call them fingers, but w/e.
Raccoons are referred as trash bandits
A park ranger in Sonoma County, California once told me that the raccoons in that park had not only figured out how to get into the bear-proof dumpsters, but had also figured out that if they fed the mountain lions out of the dumpsters , the mountain lions would get too full to eat them. Who knows, maybe the mountain lions also figured out that the trash pandas were more useful to them alive than dead.
@@BadgersInTheAttic lol
2:20 - We don't have a room for air conditioning. We have a room for Heating, Ventilation, and optionally, Air Conditioning (often referred to as HVAC). There's a fan that circulates air through the vents of the house. That's why Americans don't "air out" their house by opening windows, like Germans. Then the furnace heats air and feeds it into the circulation fan, so it's distributed throughout the house. If you add central AC, then that also gets fed into the ducts. So, they all work together. Also, you still have to change air filters if you don't have AC, because they're for the air, not for cooling.
I live in Illinois, about 150 miles from Lawrence. Most homes have basements. They come with their own challenges. But when the tornado sirens sound, nobody says, "I wish I didn't have a basement." When I was kid, every house had clotheslines in the back yard. But they have disappeared to a large degree as clothes dryers have become more common.
Clothes lines are considered low class & an eyesore. In some places they are banned.
There are no benefits of an HOA. And you have to pay for it. Certain suburbs are run under an HOA. They tell you what you can and can't do to your own house and property. We used to live in an HOA. Now we own a home that is not. We still have city ordinances which have to be followed or we will get fined. Less restrictive. Which I really like.
My HOA is awesome.. sorry to hear about your experience...xo
My HOA cleans the HOA swimming pool, maintains common landscaping areas.
I'm sure some HOAs are fine but I haven't met a good one yet.
@GotoHere Same with ours. We live in a condo development, so an HOA is an unpleasant but necessary evil. My husband has toyed with the idea of shaking things up by getting in the board.
The only benefits would be that they insure there are no trashy yards/ unkempt lawns, junk cars, or roaming pets.
"no chance" ... when I was a kid fishing with my dad a baby raccoon fell into our boat. The mama was nowhere so we brought it home. Baby didn't have her eyes open yet. But we raised her in the house. My dad, ma, 3 older sisters and me, the gay boy. Finally my dad made an outdoor zoo type enclosure for Punkin. It had trees water fountain and barrel nest that she could hibernate in. She was one of my best friends growing up on the farm and she lived to be 16 years old. I live in New Orleans now. But if I had a chance I would get another raccoon in a minute...RIP Punkin❤
My grandmother raised a raccoon after the mother was found dead. His name was Oscar, lover him a lot of fun hecwas and lived to be about 14 yrs old.
7:20 - Basements don't have problems like Lawrence is having/describing if your outside drainage is set up properly. People tried to tell him in the comments that the gutters need to drain a distance from the house, not right at the foundation. Also, some houses need what we call a "French Drain" which is a small trench full of gravel along part of the house that channels water around the side, so it doesn't pool and seep inside. Houses on a hill usually have no problems automatically.
That's not always true. I also live in the Great Lakes area and our water table is so high that in some places any basement has to have sump pumps installed to remove flooding. If I dug a hole in my yard I could have my own private pond after a rain storm of two.
@@rtyria Yes, but those are areas where builders generally won't build a basement.
@@Trifler500 Nearly every house here has a basement. Where else are you going to go during a tornado? They just install sump pumps and you're good.
@@rtyria All right. You're still talking a significant exception to the general situation I'm talking about.
@@Trifler500 There really is no "general situation" as far as the US goes. This is why building codes are state by state (sometimes area by area within a state).
This is my feedback to Mr. Brown's video:
**Air conditioning is a life saver on a very hot day. Sometimes, a fan doesn't cut it. Central air is much better than a window unit air conditioner. The furnace for central air in my house is in the attic where no one sees it. The other part is outside. My central air has only gone down once in almost 12 years. Old Larry was just having a bad experience that most of us don't have.
**The only time we don't like rain is on a summer holiday or most weekends. My basement has never flooded but then again, I am located on a higher elevation.
**I don't have a mud room. I like squirrels. I like al creatures. We have squirrels, bunnies, and birds. We have bees here and there and we even had a bear - but I didn't see it. My neighbor let me know. The raccoons only come out at night primarily (and you can find them in most cities). They are so cute though. I have only seen raccoons at my home when I first moved here. We have coyotes around my neck of the woods but I have never seen nor heard them.
**I do not like HOA's. I can cut my own grass and shovel my own snow. If I bought my house and the land on it, I will do what I want with it - not what someone else tells me to do with it.
**We still have close lines but we currently have an inside washer and dryer.
The main purpose of basements, especially in our neck of the woods, is that the basement is our Storm Shelter in case of tornadoes! But it also comes in handy to store stuff like barely used pool tables and our food freezers!
When I was growing up in Chicago, we always had a clothesline in our backyard. We had a clothes dryer, but it didn't always work, and some clothes couldn't go in the dryer. They dried pretty quickly in the summer sun. I recently bought a clothesline for our backyard.
I"m originally from Chicago and central air is a thing but not for everyone. Most people have several AC (air conditioner) units in a house. Living in Texas now, it's a must to have central air! The units are usually in the backyard and all the ducts are in the attic. Vents are in every room. Love your channel, watch it everyday!
I'm in CA and I work in air conditioning and alot of problems can be solved just by replacing the filter. Air conditioning, air flow is key. Anything obstructed that flow will affect that whole system.
Squirrels chew electical wires. As long as they stay in trees they are cute. But when they invade your house or car wires they can cost thousands
There's drain tile underground around the house that funnels excess water into a small 'well' in the corner of the basement with a pump that carries that water up and out whenever the well fills enough to trigger the pump to turn on. Sump pump and repairing basement foundations is key.
Basements have to be regularly resealed. Ours is due. Man I'm not looking forward to that chore.
Whole house airconditioning connects to the furnace ducting - furnace on, get heat, airconditioning on, get cool air - all from the same vents. Basements usually have an unfinished "mechanical" room. The remaining area of the basement can be finished. There are materials that can be put on the basement walls, below ground, to keep the water out.
The "split" units are slowly becoming more popular in the USA. I have central AC with the air handler inside a corner of the garage and the compressor unit outside. Houses with cellars / basements usually have most of the HVAC Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) equipment there. My house has no basement.
4:30 - That "box thing" is the actual air conditioner.
Not to be pedantic, but it is essentially a condenser or evaporator. When the coolant is pumped in one direction or another, its role changes, as does that of the interior unit.
In heating mode the exterior unit collects heat as an evaporator (thus the unit cools) and transfers the heat inside to the condenser (where that unit heats up).
In cooling mode, the roles reverse. Removing heat from the home causes cooling of the interior evaporator and heating of the exterior one as the condenser.
We saw our electric bill reduce by 1/3 when we moved from electric forced air heat, to a heat pump.
@@kenf3539 A heat pump operates as you describe, but a central air conditioner does not.
I would NEVER live in a neighborhood with an HOA. You pay for it and they dictate what you can do to your house, yard, how many vehicles you can have in your driveway, etc. It supposedly keeps the neighborhood uniform and no one can make their house look extremely different than other houses; like you can't paint your house pink, etc. and they think it would ruin the looks of he neighborhood. Sometimes they will fine you if you're doing something they don't agree with.
Exterior basement walls are waterproofed. Older houses might not be. Then there are often Sump Pumps to pump out water. If you live in a flood zone or high water table, leaks may be more frequent.
The Fat Electrician has the best definition of an HOA that I've ever heard. "It's diet communism ran by a tribunal of elder Karens."
In Florida, we have Central Heat and Air. The large fan is on the outside of our house. The intake and coils are inside. We set the temperature and it either cools or heats our entire house and keeps it at the right temp all year. (AC is more important here than heat. I think our heat came on twice last winter) He allowed his 'coils' to get dirty by not changing his filter every month. Not all Americans have basements. The Florida water table is too high. If we try to dig a basement we end up with a swimming pool instead. Kansas and other midwest states NEED a basement. Tornado warning and they head below ground.
My neighborhood is not part of an HOA. The neighborhood is neat and pretty. All the lawns are mowed regularly. Each house has their own way to landscape and they all look just fine. Our town has an ordinance about piling junk on your property for environmental reasons so if anyone really got carried away you could call the town hall and file a complaint. I really don't understand the benefits of an HOA. I wouldn't want it. Way too stressful and lack of freedom for me.
12:36 - Coyotes don't attack humans, but they eat a lot of pets. :( They hunt in packs, so one or two will chase your pet right to where several others are waiting in the bushes.
I used to believe that and only recently found out that's not true. Maybe it's a new thing, I'm 65. But yes, coyotes really will attack babies and small children. Attacks are becoming more frequent.
Extremely rare though are fatal attacks, I can only find two examples.
I'm in Austin and saw a family of four cruising the neighborhood, a nice neighborhood too. I don't know why that matters, lol. Probably better for them actually. Anyway they were just going house to house looking for stuff, dad was very large. Raccoon, possum, dog, probably all the same to them. This was after midnight, first time I'd seen any.
@@georgemetz7277 Oh, well yes, I would certainly agree they will attack babies and on occasion small children, if they're out at night. A lot of things will eat an abandoned baby if it's just lying on the ground by itself though, not just coyotes.
Raccoons everywhere. I saw one with its butt in the air sticking out of a storm drain. Wild turkeys, opossums and moles are quite numerous as well. I’m in central Minnesota.
we have one that keeps getting stuck in our building's garbage container, every couple of days somebody has to come out with a plank and let him out lol
We did have water problems in our basement, but basements are a must have if you live in a state that gets tornadoes.
Basements have their problems but if you get tornadoes it's prime real estate (meaning you want one).
Here even in town you get nature...lol. Raccons, Squirels, and the occasional animal who has wandered in (including but not limited to coyotes, bears, deer), I live in town and have a wooded area across from me and have deer regularly in my yard and wandering in the road. For a decade we had a raccon that showed up every night and knocked on the door to get fed, he ate right next to the neighborhood cats. He just wandered up one day and knocked on our door and in similar fashion just stopped a decade or so later, my guess is he passed, we miss him. We have had bears in town as well, usually black bears who are not as aggressive and honestly are usually just looking for food, and yes we have people that come get them and put them back where they belong.
I live in the middle of a major city and I see squirrels, rabbits, fox, ducks, geese, opossum, racoons, turkeys, turkey buzzards, eagles, hawks, seagulls, and many many kinds of smaller birds regularly.
Underground is the best place to be during a tornado 🙂
The furnace is in the house, usually in a basement. The air conditioning unit is outside but runs thru the furnace
Illinois is in tornado alley, the basement serves as a storm shelter... HOA's are the worst... I've heard horror stories of HOA's taking people's homes over fines for leaving your garage door open, or your trash cans left on the curb past a certain hour, or your own car parked in your driveway instead of the garage... They are gangsters taking "protection" money... My daughter pays $350 a month membership dues for them to tell her what she can and cannot do with her own property... Including gardening...
I’ll boss her around for $250 and save her money lol
Racoons got into a friends house,chewed through wires and it resulted in a huge fire. Luckily noone got hurt but it's been over a year and they are still waiting for reconstruction to finish so they can move back in.
I hate raccoons! They will tear your attic up and they are vicious little shits!
My house was built in the 50’s for my in-laws…it was 3 bedrooms, 1 bath living room, dining room and kitchen with a big side porch, the year after I married their son they built a huge room where the side porch was… they put central a/c in the house…but they didn’t have central heating…
The heater/ac unit is not usually in a dedicated “room”. It’s usually just a small closet or in the basement (if you have one).
I live in a community of condominiums. These almost always have homeowners associations. You have to pay a fee every month. These "fees" pay for the upkeep of the complex. Pool. Snow removal. Grass cutting. And overall maintenance of the complex. It also has many rules as to what you can and can't do - most when it comes to the outside of your place. This way you don't have different colors in different units, and it all looks uniform.
Most homes that aren't sitting in a high underground water table have a basement (like on the coast). We have a sump pump in our basement which runs when we get a LOT of rain, and it keeps the water away from our foundation.
We don’t all have the AC inside, it depends on climate. In California the AC unit is outside. Also, basements are also not universal in the US. In some areas they don’t exist because of high water tables or earthquakes. They’re good in the Midwest where they have tornadoes though.
My 32 year old house has never had a leak in the basement - they are well build and precautions are made to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Improvements have been made over the years to prevent this.
The unit for central air has a closet in which it goes. It’s called a utility closet. If it’s an older home where the unit has been added after the house is older are many times in the basement or attic of the house. There is a unit that is outside the house which is basically what makes everything work inside.
The air is conditioned, cooled wherever the unit is, but vents move the cooled air thru the house more or less efficiently. Some rooms always are warmer or cooler than others.
If you can find a home with a walkout basement, it's less like a dungeon, but water is an ongoing problem.
In a lot of states you wouldn’t want to use outdoor clothes lines because of rain, strong wind storms, wildfire smoke, snow, freezing temperatures, etc.
To be fair, when you have a furnace installed, they tell you how to maintain it. It's just that Lawrence isn't the one who bought it. :)
There’s books or manuals that come with those systems. If there’s no manual, he should have called an expert to inspect it when he bought the house. He should have known about the filter long before now. Or whenever he made that video. Or maybe they just bought a house that’s too big for them to handle??
@@TexasRose50 idk... I can see Americans who lived in an apartment all of their lives buying a house and having the same problem. He certainly should call an expert to check it, service it, and instruct him on maintenance, but I wouldn't necessarily say he should have automatically known that.
We live in the mountains of North Carolina, and we have a veritable zoo crossing our yard at various times. Deer love to eat the flowers and some of our vegetables during growing season and they drive our dogs crazy when they show up. Raccoons have periodically shown up to raid our trash cans, squirrels wreak havoc on our bird feeders, rabbits are in the yard daily, bears have crossed the yard numerous times also driving the dogs mad. The govt. has reportedly reintroduced coyotes and wolves to our area but so far we haven't had the pleasure of their company. YET. love the mountains!!
HOA: houses to avoid. When I was house hunting, anything with an HOA was avoided.
Racoons are very very very cute. They are also extremely curious and capable of getting into places you might not want them to get into. Raccoons range goes from Northern Canada all the way down to Central America.
Raccoons are in most states. Their front paws are like a human hand a bit and can get into a lot of things and do damage. We had one that was so big and so bold that he would get into our trash and when we tried to scare him away he did NOTHING but stare and then keep rummaging. Ugh.
Southern California here. Yes we have raccoons, opossums, and especially coyotes. Not to mention rattlesnakes, bees (we currently have 2 hives that we need to get rid of!!), squirrels, rabbits, gophers, and on and on. Nature at its best.
raccoons are fearless. a few years ago i saw a stray cat in my backyard so i started leaving out food for it. the cat was gone in days, but a raccoon found the food and would stop by nightly. if i turned on the backyard light, it would sometimes come right up to the glass sliding door. this was in oregon, but i think they're in every state.
Hi Andre, I've been watching your videos for several months, and finally subscribed today. I am one of the people that at first thought that your accent was Russian. I did a little research and found that it is relatively common for a Portuguese accent to be confused with a Russian accent. I never knew that! Raccoons are really cute, and can be a pain in the butt. I see them in my back yard occasionally (and feed them scraps because they are so cute), but they can be seen on trash night running down the street sniffing at the trash cans, and then breaking into the ones that smell the best. They can make a real mess as they dig through your trash can looking for a free meal. HOAs (sometimes known as POAs (for Property Owners Association)) can sometimes be a bit too restrictive, but the reason they exist (at least in my part of the world) is to keep your neighborhood beautiful. They require that lawns be kept manicured, that land scaping be within guidelines, and that outdoor house colors are within a certain set of colors. If you don't like restrictions like this in exchange for a more beautiful neighborhood, then by all means you can purchase your home in an area that is not governed by HOA rules. There are definitely trade-offs with HOAs. For instance, I'm not allowed to use blue and yellow floodlights to light the front of my house at night in support of Ukraine. However I have a guarantee that my neighbor won't paint their house some crazy shade of fuchsia, and my other neighbor won't let their lawn get 12 inches tall before they cut it. Everything in life is a compromise. Learn to go with the flow and enjoy the good parts... Keep up the good work, my friend.
I live in the Midwest, Chicago. Yes raccoons can take the lids of the garbage bins and rummage through them and dump trash out. We have it all in Illinois, we have raccoons, possums, coyotes, squirrels, rabbits , deers, pigeons, various birds and I can go on. They are rarely scared by humans and they are out both night and day.
the main benefit of HOAs is they work to maintain property values in the community. They can also be helpful in dealing with neighbors causing problems for the community
About a decade and a half ago, we were closing on the purchase of a home in Vancouver, BC. In the final inspection leaks were found in several parts of the basement walls. The estimated repair was going to be ~$60K. On top of the $890K home price, we backed out. In hindsight, we should have bought it anyway now that the home is selling for $4.6mill. :-(
There are various different types of HVAC(heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) units used in America. All in all they're extremely low maintenance and very robust systems. You basically just change the filter every other year or so depending. If your system is really old then yeah, it'll have issues pop up occasionally. But in general they last a very long time and are very low maintenance.
Our HVAC has a large unit outside and it is attached to the smaller unit in a small unused side attic on the second floor. All our ductwork is in the attic. We don’t have a basement so everything is in the attic. We don’t miss the space.
Most air conditioners in house with a forced air system have a compressor unit outside (disposing of heat to the outside) and cooling coils in a unit on the inside. Typically the cooling coils are incorporated into the furnace unit, so that during the winter heat is generated in the furnace, during the summer the cooling coils generate the cool, and a single fan moves either hot or cold air through the house. Sometimes the unit outside is not just an air conditioner that dumps heat outside, but is a heat pump that also gathers heat from the outside for the winter, using those same coils.
I’ve only ever lived in the same HOA (minus when I lived in Japan) and I don’t even notice it. I get access to tons of things. I also think it’s one of the largest in the US (Highlands Ranch).
My house now has central air. It's a 1965 house and back then no central air. The air conditioner is one that is outside and goes through the venting of the house. New builds have a.c. in the basement.
Ahhhh!!! I can’t believe they didn’t check the filter before now 😱 you’re supposed to check and change at least 2x/yr depending on the type of filter. My landlord used to always give me new filters to insert when I was renting.
His set up is very similar to mine (I also live in the midwest).
But in the south or other areas without a basement, they usually put that stuff in a closet.
My basement has flooded more than once so it’s definitely problematic at times 😅.
It’s also fun to give nuts to the squirrels but they can definitely get crazy 😜 😂
I’m in coastal Southern California and we have possums, hawks,raccoons, coyotes that also hunt small pets! And…we, personally, don’t have HOAs…and never would!
I live in Ohio(midwest?northeast?). I would not live in a home without a basement due to tornado's. Used to clothes line in every back yard, now only Amish(even in February)hang their laundry out.I live in the country and we have all kinds of wild life. People build cages for the garbage cans to keep out the critters. I once hit a coyote with my car, Car was in the body shop for over a week.
Racoons are EVERYWHERE. Funny story. My grandad once got so annoyed by one, he set a trap and intended to kill it, but when he caught it, he was so soft-hearted he couldn't bring himself to hurt it. He ended up feeding that racoon like a pet in that cage for two weeks before my dad had time to come out and collect it. Dad drove it to a remote area to humanely release, but when he opened the cage, the racoon had gotten so comfortable being in it and getting regular meals, it didn't want to leave. He ended up having to shake the cage upside down to force it out and said it gave him a really dirty look over it's shoulder as it finally walked away. :D
Also, HOAs are awful. If you buy a home in an HOA area, you have to pay dues on top of your mortgage (for life!). If you break any of their rules (and some of the rules are just outright ridiculous), you are fined. Those fines are enforceable and can lead to your house being foreclosed upon, even if your mortgage is paid off, if you don't pay either the fines or your dues. People who like them say it keeps the property values up, but that relies on the idea that someone will want to buy a property that is in an HOA so they may retain value, but they're a tough sell. There's really no true benefit to being in one (although some have a community pool/clubhouse/outdoor maintenance in public areas/etc.). I would never buy one.
Central Air Conditioners don't need a whole room to be stored. it only needs space, usually in the basement, or a crawlspace.
Racoons are everywhere and they're very strong and smart. They can pull apart almost any trash container unless it's solid steel and locked up.
We had exactly the same problem in one corner of our basement and after a lot of trial and error figured out the the down spout from the roof let its water out right next to that corner . I put an extension on the drain pipe which took the water away from the house and problem solved .We have had squirrels , starlings , raccoons , and posuums all take up residence in our attic and one point over the years .
The ductwork and air handler are indoors (in basement, crawl space or attic) while the condenser is outside.
The problem with 🐿️ s in our tiwn, is ppl that come to work here feed them. They've become desensitized to ppl.
Still skunks are worse. The jump out of bushes or from under the porch causing me to walk around the block to the alley to go in the back door.
HOAs can cost anywhere from $15 to $300 or more per month! Often the trade off for the rules is that the HOA takes care of trash pick up and snow removal on the street. It also prevents people from trashing their house or yard, and neighbors can file a complaint if someone is really causing issues in the neighborhood. There are often public pools, community centers, tennis/basketball courts and playgrounds, which residents of that Hoa have access to in return for paying their dues. The fancier the amenities though, often the stricter the rules. I like mine. $15 a month but we have access to the amenities from the next HOA over and we don’t have to pay their expensive fee.
Racoons are nocturnal. If you see one during the day it may be rabid. They're very smart. We used to have 2 that would open our trash barrels. One would hold the lid open wild the other pulled out the scraps.
I live in Southern New Jersey and, as I was making dinner a young buck (male deer) was grazing outside my kitchen window. I also have a family of ground hogs that live under my shed, with numerous squirrels and birds in my yard. At night, we do have raccoons, skunks and opossums that frequent the yard. So, you do have to be careful when getting out of your car after dark. Raccoons, though cute, are vicious and have a tendency to carry rabies. Skunks won’t bite, but they may spray you with an awful stink! Beware! 😂😂
According to PBS, "[t] he raccoon is native to North America and can be found throughout the United States, except for parts of the Rocky Mountains, and southwestern states like Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. It can also be found in parts of Canada, Mexico and the northern-most regions of South America." They are the most adorable but destructive four-footed vandals homeowners have to deal with regularly.
Never seen a dedicated indoor area for HVAC.
We had raccoons in our yard in the Virginia Beach, Virginia area. We also had squirrels in our attic! My neighbor called me over one day and pointed out a huge hole in the side of my house at the level of the attic! Somehow a squirrel got into our attack and ate a large hole from the inside to the outside, right through the outer siding of our home! They moved their squirrel family into our attic! It cost about $3000.00 to repair!!
Laurence's basement looks very old. Basements in newer homes have moisture barriers, insulation, dehumidifiers, etc., especially if they are finished basements.
Raccoons are found in many places. I can only speak for Michigan and we have them even in the city. They are very smart.
Our air conditioner set up is similar to Laurence's, but the air conditioner is outside like he showed. Our furnace and air conditioner use the same metal ducts to spread either heated or cooled air throughout the house, so the filter is used for both, catches dust, cat hair or whatever.
Our house has never had water leak into the basement, but many of our neighbors do. They use a sump pump that is located where the water would run and puts it outside.
It’s like a refrigerator. Sometimes it needs more maintenance than usual but you change the filter every three months and keep going.
Basements are typically in older houses up north. We don't really have them in the south as much.
😂 I'm laughing at how Lawrence described it being 75 degrees out when his A/C failed..... Its 110 here today. Having the A/C fail when its this hot is an actual nightmare.
😂😂😂
HOAs are a governing body that oversees a particular community. Each home owner is a member and can vote on who will be in charge of day to day running of the HOA, how the HOA will spend its money, and what rules will be passed. Most often, it exists in condo buildings and townhouse communities where there is communal property. They would be in charge of maintaining the exterior of the building, elevators, hallways, grounds, etc. They might create and maintain/pay for community amenities like a gym, party room, pool, doorman, movie theater, etc. Everyone chips in and pays a certain amount, usually based on the percentage of the overall property that you own, toward these community expenses, and attends monthly meetings where community needs and issues are addressed and voted on. In Chicago, for example, these fees can run anywhere from $200 to $2000+ a month, depending on the age of the building, state of repair, state of the HOA's finances, amenities on offer, etc. They are generally regarded as a necessary evil.
HOAs for stand-alone houses are less common but may be created if the community has a particular want or need that the majority are willing to pay for. For example, my dad lives in a community that is way outside of city bounds, and therefore not eligible for city funding for their roads. Every homeowner pays $200 a year toward maintaining the roads in the community.
Then you have the "gated communities" that really give HOAs a bad name. They sometimes have their own security guards that roam the property and guard the gated entrance, and loads of rules that are meant to guard property values. Often, these rules are designed to keep out anybody they consider "riff-raff." Thus, you have a lot of rules like, "These are the 5 approved exterior paint colors," because it's easier than coming back after the fact and saying, "No, Autumn, you can't paint your house pink and purple, you weirdo free-thinker," or, "No clotheslines. They...uh...block the view. Yeah, the view, that's why. It's totally not because only poor people, immigrants, and hippies hang-dry their clothes." They're the sort of places Pete Seeger was singing about in "Little Boxes" (written by Malvina Reynolds).
There are two main parts to an AC you will have the blower which circulates the are in the basement or a closet, then you have an outdoor unit which takes hot air out then cools the air coming in. In dry desert areas the systems are a little different and contain a unit to humidify the air.
HOAs are generally part of planned communities... an enclave of homes designed around public areas, like parks, playgrounds, etc. These neighborhoods pay a monthly fee to the HOA for maintenance of common areas-- these are the park grounds, playgrounds and sometimes sidewalks and streets. They have a list of rules members have to follow, ostensibly to maintain "the look" of the neighborhood and to help keep real estate prices high. Besides clotheslines, rules can include parking, when trash can be taken out, approved paint colors, approved plantings, even how often you need to mow your grass.
Raccoons are in the bear family and can be quite vicious if cornered. We have raccoon, deer, rabbit and coyote where I live.
Bears are in the Ursidae family. Racoons are in the Procyonidae family, along with ringtails, coatis, kinkajous, olingos etc. Bears and racoons are no more closely related with each other than they are with wolves, otters, seal lions, or walruses.
I have central air, no you don’t have a special room for the unit. It’s located outside and uses the same ductwork your furnace uses. Ours gets an annual maintenance and check up by the HVAC company. Furnaces can be located in the basement if you have one, in a dedicated closet in houses without basements or even in the attic if you have one. I live in a neighborhood with an HOA but they’re pretty low key. They contract with a landscaping company to maintain the entrances, the parks, our development has four, and their play equipment. They do a drive through once a month if they see something that needs attention they send a courtesy notice and depending on the issue you have between a month to,six months to correct the problem. Our dues are only $38.00/month. However I have previously lived in a neighborhood with a hellish HOA.
You call a service in every year before the season starts & get it checked out. They will tell you if it is in good condition or not.
Central air has duct work in the walls of every room and the air compressor in the garden.
LOL, 75 degrees and he thought it was toasty. Try living in Texas when the temperature is 100+ degrees and the ac goes out. That's when it gets toasty, my friend. Raccoons are really cute, but they are a carrier of rabies, so they should never be messed with. My town does not have garbage cans on the streets. We have heavy duty dumpsters in our alleys that are shared by 3 or 4 households and get dumped once or twice a week.
I laughed out loud at that! I have been to Texas, lived in Florida, SC, and NC most of my life. I hate the heat, in those states I'm uncomfortable when it's 70+ which is pretty near year round lol but I went to Chicago last June, it was high 60s to mid 70s and I was FREEZING! There's no humidity and so much wind! And the sun ... You can't feel it on your skin. It was so strange! I had a jean jacket on and was shivering walking around. And now in the last couple months I moved to the mountains in Virginia, and to my surprise it's similar to the weather in Chicago. We've barely used the AC, only if it's above 80. It's just so cool and breezy we can open our windows and enjoy the weather. And like I said in the hot states I'm hot and sweating at 70. In cold places 75 is a dream! I've actually not sweat from the weather once and we've been here since April.
I work in HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning). It’s one of the more complex trades. Remember to change your air filters people!
Basements are solid if they are well constructed. But there is the issue that basements of homes of a certain age, were required to have egress windows (basically a window that one can escape from in the event of a fire). Usually this is completely fine, but in the event that you have a torrential down pore, it can cause some flooding. I know someone who recently just had this happen. ND has gotten a LOT of rain in the last couple weeks. It was so bad that I-94 had a lake wash it out with probably 1-2 ft of water. And my city has been in an active flood warning for 2 weeks.
There's 5 or 6 different ways to do ac or heat. Central is ducts back to a unit which is also your heat. If you have a basement or attic it might be in a room but it's no different than a furnace, boiler or water heater in other countries where it's somewhere.
Mini splits aka heat pumps like you describe are also common. Sometimes they pair with the central unit or several smaller central units which is common when adding to an existing house.
Then there's a variety of window, in wall and portable units when your in a situation where adding central is cost prohibited or impossible like a rental property, apartment, etc.
Raccoons are very smart.. so they know how to get into garbage for sure. When we lived in Kansas we had to build a garbage can cage and put heavy brings on top of them. In WI we has something in the garage.. they had knawed a hole thru the wall in the corner.. keep in mind it's freezing for 5 months of the year, so It's common to have animals get into basements and attac.
Raccoons are found throughout most of the United States, including urban and suburban areas, forests and woodlands, wetlands and riparian zones, and agricultural areas. They are highly adaptable and can thrive in a wide range of environments.
With heat and AC, there are now "mini split" heat and AC units.
If you live where there can be a tornado you'll deal with a couple leaks if it can save your life lol