Wonderful deck. Great use as fence. Gazebo corners? i can't quite get my mind wrapped around that one. I'll have to look around! We have bear too but the only one I've seen in the "wild" was from my car. Once on a trail we came upon a very fresh tree scratch - cool but a bit scarey, but thrilling for the 12 yo boy hiking with us! They get into peoples bird feeders but I'm a bit too in town for that. kathy

After a little research I am pretty sure what I have are paper wasps, they are a little longer and more slender than some photos of yellow jackets, and they don't really seem to be too aggressive, I tried photographing one that kept flying around and around my potted golden celebration (my rose with the most leaf damage) it was very obviously checking the undersides of leaves & it payed me no attention at all. It was kind of neat to see this in action, these bugs are obviously pretty intelligent and seem to remember finding the larvae in that area before. BUT don't get me wrong, even if this type of wasp is less aggressive than actual yellow jackets I am still terrified of these little critters. Especially after researching them and reading a few of those horror stories out there. I just hope I never happen upon these guys' nest, I don't see it anywhere on my porch or my yard, so hopefully it's in my neighbor's yard! Michaelg, when you say yellow jackets usually don't do that until October, do you mean that they usually don't show their faces until that late in the year, or that they seem to be more aggressive around that period of time?

I really don't like granite. It's too speckeldy, too pretentious, too cold, too ostentatious, too expensive. And maybe it's just me, but doesn't most of it just look like rust stains? I also researched all the other countertop choices. Throughout our homebuilding we've tried to remain focused on our twin goals, Durable and Low Maintenance. And so we've come back to granite. What I found out is that granite showrooms only have a tiny selection of slabs onsite for you to look at. And most of those are ugly speckled rust stains. BUT, when you've found a company you want to work with, they'll hook you up with the huge granite yards where you go to pick out a slab and they send it to the installer. In our case it's a two hour drive to a huge city where there are a half dozen granite yards and acres of slabs of granite to choose from. You walk around for a couple of hours dragging your husband (who really doesn't want to be there and doesn't like anything unless it's cobalt blue) and your kids (who are fighting over a piece of gravel they picked up in the parking lot) and suddenly you turn a corner and find The Perfect Slab. And you hear a heavenly chorus that swells to drown out the sound of the kids squabbling and the perky salesperson who doesn't have a clue what you're really looking for (you couldn't tell her because you weren't really sure either.) And tears of relief and joy spring to your eyes, your husband drops to his knees in shock when he hears the price, and then you're done. Then you get to choose a backsplash!

DIlly-Dally have you ever gone into court and gotten a judgment against someone? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to collect on a judgment? Remember the tenant has moved out. Before you can collect you have to find them. You have to either find a bank account or find out where they work. Then you have to file for garnishment. If it's a bank account you have to refile each time you go into the account to garnish funds. Most people just change banks leading the collector on a merry chase. If they have moved out of state you can just forget the whole thing. You may have "won" in the courtroom but all you've actually done is paid a lot of filing fees and spent a bit of time for the "paper". It's not like on Judge Judy. LOL Yes there are statutes as to how much deposit a landlord can require for a pet. Actually in California their is no "pet deposit" In California under civil code section 1950.5 "pet deposits" are considered as part of the security deposit. The landlord can only collect a security deposit with the following maximums: Unfurnished rental unit: The total amount that the landlord requires as security cannot be more than the amount of two months' rent. If you have a waterbed, the total amount allowed as security can be up to two and-a-half times the monthly rent. Furnished rental unit: The total amount that the landlord requires as security cannot be more than the amount of three months' rent. If you have a waterbed, the total amount allowed as security can be up to three-and-a-half times the monthly rent. Let me tell you. It can eat up a lot more than two months rent to repair the damage one peeing cat can do. Plus the landlord is out of the rental income during the extra time it takes to get the property ready for the next tenant.