WARNING: Not for the faint of heart. Ugly mess ahead. :( Found some of my pix...hope to give examples , maybe helping you determine pest. First, one of my Crassula (stacked type). I had NO clue anything was wrong with it till the top fell off it when I picked up the pot. The borer had gone thru the stem all the way down the plant! You can see the tiny worm in the pinch of my tweezers & all the perforated leaves (once perforated by stem, now eaten through by borer)!! Click pix for larger views: Now...onto another time, with a different plant...a small Kalanchoe 'Fantastic', that I finally found & bought. First found down near base of leaves looked weird. Two weeks later, come to find giant holes eaten through! Several leaves fell off, having been eaten at the base. I found the borer (worm) & evicted it. Happy to say the plant is (slowly) recovering. Now for my Epi...my sister gave me cuttings...I stuck in a pot & forgot about. I did see some snail damage early, but it wasn't too bad. Then a new stock grew (red one) & it got attacked by the snails. A bud started growing. I was excited about that. Short-lived, it died. I forgot about it once again. Snails had a feast! I'm a bad Mama! One bright note...last pic...a new nub is showing. Maybe have another chance ~new stem!

I installed a Kwik-set battery operated keypad deadbolt on our detached garage entry door. We loved the convenience of the keypad and could easily change the combination if needed. Over the winter it started not being able to retract the deadbolt without us entering the code twice, effectively giving it two chances. And now it has stopped retracting altogether, although the deadbolt will still lock. It acts as though it does not recognize a couple of the keys anymore. It has fresh batteries so I believe it is defective and need to return it or get it covered under warranty. It is not yet 7 months old. I plan to install one going into my home as we work through our remodel, because of the convenience. But keep a key with you anyway, for when it may fail. Hope that helps. Sandy

First thing's first- you have insurance on your house, right? Your belongings can be replaced- a family member you cannot. I just bought my first house, which was built in '73. It too has two exterior doors that had the keyed lock on it. Due to being a fire saftey hazard (and a new city code violation), I changed out the locks. So each door has one dead bolt, and the knobs have the little turn buttons. One thing that I did differently on the changeout was to install the jam striker plates with screws long enough to go into the actual framing joist (I used 3" screws), not just the door dam facial board. Theives these days are just kicking in the doors for access as it's not that hard to break out the half inch thick facial board. It's a lot harder to break out the framing joist. On a side note, if you can find a security system sticker to put in the window...

Bad news. The Armstrong Vivero Best Interlock Vinyl flooring that was installed in my house it is defective and has the peaking issue (elevation on the short ends and also 1-2 mm of separation. I was told by Armstrong Customer Service that they solved that issue and since Septmember las year was good, also the retailer where I bought it from told me it was good. I live in NY and house I just installed it's in NC so I wasn't able to check floor before installation and my installer didn't check or notice it. I paid about $6500 for flooring plus $750 for uderlaying paper plus $3500 for installation, so lost about $11000 thousand on hard earned money. My wife and I are very upset and sad that were ripped off with a defective product and we don't know what to do, we don't have money to hire a Lawyer and were planning to move in in a month. I am calling and emailing Armstrong today hoping they pay somebody to remove their defective flooring, installed a non defective one or the glue one along with new quarter round. We are desperate and any advise will be appreciatted. I hope the person that had the peaking problem reads this and says what happened to his defective floor problem and how he solved. Thank you. My email is jsmexusa@gmail.com in case you want to email me.