I have had both concrete and liner ponds over the last 25 years. I'm just a pond nut and not involved in either the sale or construction of ponds so have no bias in any direction. Concrete is much more expensive than liner, however, if built correctly it is more permanent. If you plan to live where you are for 25 or 30 years that may be important to you. I'm not sure where you can get a concrete pond built for 25 to 30% more than a liner, especially given the specs that you must use. As for concrete adding value to a home, that's depends on where you live. Here in the midwest part of the US pools and ponds,whether concrete or liner, will not add to or detract from your homes value. Most real estate agents will tell you it's better without them. If you live in the deep south or southwest it may be different. Also in the more temperate climate where the ground freezes and thaws concrete is susceptible to heaving and cracking. Liners on the other hand are susceptible to high ground water and being pushed up as well. In my 25 years with ponds I have never had a problem with any kind of animal or rodent causing damage to my liners. It is true that some burrowing animals may build a nest close to your liner and could cause damage, I've just not had that problem. I have had animals get into the pond and scratch at the sides trying to get out but none have caused a leak. Most pond builders provide a stepped or layered design (plant shelf) and that has made it easy for animals to get out of the pond without damage. My dogs love to play in the pond and have never caused a problem with the liner. Pumps and skimmers and the like don't make any difference at all whether you have concrete or liner. Cheap pumps are cheap pumps and will fail no matter what installation you use them on. Good stuff will do the job on either type installation. I don't recommend using a "sump pump" on a pond. They are not designed for continuous operation and that's why they fail. Get a good pump designed for the purpose for which you are buying it. Today's market has very good pumps designed for in water or out of water situations. Both have pro's and con's. Do your homework and decide accordingly. My advise is to listen to those who own ponds and their experiences and not to those in the business. Those in the business, no matter which business it is, will always have a bias. Those who have to live with the the results of their decisions will provide the most meaningful advise, and as with anything, there will always be those who have had a bad experience with a good thing and those who have a good experience with a bad thing. No matter which way you decide to go I wish you the best of luck. Let us know what you decide.

OK, well two weeks late on rent is not horrible. I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. But I wouldn't get comfortable with it either. If you can come up with the full rent plus late fee, it's far better to get things juggled around so that you're back on track & rent is always on time again. And saving yourself that late fee, depending on how much it is, would pay part or all of a phone or water bill, buy a tank of gas, etc. Those late fees add up so you're actually paying higher rent. It probably sounds like goofy advice, but if push comes to shove, pay a smaller bill late one month (but only one month) so you can get back on track. Like the phone or water bill. They won't shut your water or phone off if only one month late. Keep a roof over your heads first, let all else come second. Then when back on track it would put you in a better negotiating position. As for the trash recepticles. There's 4 cans and 1 recycling bin. The LL said it's everyone's job to take it down to the curb and up again. The more I read the less I like about this situation and here's why (and it's just my impression, please don't take it as gospel). First, you've got a genuinely disruptive situation with a neighbor upstairs and your LL tosses out threat of eviction if you two don't quit quibbling. It's just not cool to threaten to yank someone out of their house unless there are genuine, serious lease infractions that can be proved in court. I don't know for sure because I'm not there and don't see/know all the facts, but it almost sounds like bullying on his part. Get on track with your rent, continue to abide by your lease, and don't let yourself be bullied. You have rights here as well. If he says it's "everyone's" responsibility to take care of the trash - perfect. So we can also interpret that your LL never said, or wrote down, that your father is responsible for taking other unit's trash to the curb. So tell Dad to knock if off. I know it sounds trite, but this girl is running all over you guys and she knows it. Stand up for yourselves! Get together with unit #3 that also complained if you can, let them know you're taking out your garbage and nothing more. Ask if they will take out theirs, and let that girl in #2 deal with consequences of not managing her own mess. Honestly, it just comes across like your LL treating you all like kids on a playground. Yes, everyone needs to get along. But it goes a lot deeper than that. We're not talking about play time and everyone gets to go home when it's over. We're talking about the place that you eat and sleep and call home, and you've got a right to some peace and quiet. And you are not your neighbor's slave and do not have to do garbage detail for them. As for damages, We've done none nor Violated our lease.. ... Damages Done to this apt we're being fixed but then stopped. this was 3yrs ago, and he stated this summer he'd be around alot to do the repairs, but it has yet to happen. Can you be very specific about that? I get that you haven't done any damage, but what kinds of repairs are you talking about? I copied this from your first post above: As for the repair problems, The windows need to be replaced badly he's saying he'll do it but it's been 4 yrs now and nothing. The kitchen cabinets are dead and need fixing or replacing. not getting done. Bedroom door is coming apart. The bathroom tile needs to be replaced. I think it also might have mold behind the wall. I mean hell this apt has been falling apart befor we even moved in. What precisely is wrong with the windows? Old, leak, broken? What does "dead" kitchen cabinets mean? Teasing you here for a little levity, but I just don't get "dead" cabinets. ;D Bedroom door coming apart: is it split, coming off the hinges? What exactly is wrong with bathroom tile? Cracked? Allowing leaks for mold? Just plain ugly? Do you feel safe linking to photos? If you can be much more specific about exactly what kinds of issues these are, especially when you are talking about going to Board of Health, it would help. (Tho it sounds like a Code or Town Building inspector issue more than Board of Health, but without specifics it's hard to say.) I understand the economy is bad right now but he has two other places "Apparently" and he claims not to have the money. Is this possible?...This question is for you moonshadow. Is it possible not to have enough money even though, he claims to have this place and two others? Well, sure, about anything is possible. Depends on what he's doing with the $. He's human. He could be irresponsible, could have a problem and is gambling it all away. (I heard from an applicant once that they lost the house they were in because owner gambled her own + rent money away, so rental house + her own home were repossessed because she failed to pay mortgage and taxes.) Or he could be responsible and he's gotten walloped by the system. Maybe he's got properties financed and mortgage hit balloon period and payments went sky high. Or (as happened in our County) the way property taxes were assessed underwent major restructuring. Some areas of the County property taxes quadrupled. It was like a punch in the gut for everyone who owned any kind of real estate because of stupidity and local gov't saying "oops, our bad". A lot of people lost their own homes over it, and this was several years back when economy was booming. We have several properties and the taxes went so high instead of paying 2 installments per year I was paying 4, and that went on for 3 years. Still, I made sure I budgeted so I had enough to pay taxes, insurance and repairs expenses plus extra if something big happened like a roof replacement, but during that time none of it went in our pockets. There just wasn't any left. (Plus, like every LL in the County, I had to raise rents to cover that tax mess or we would have gone belly up. So renters were impacted in my area as well. Everyone suffered.) I guess what I'm saying is anything is possible. But a responsible LL will budget his $, make sure there is enough for expenses/repairs, and charge rents accordingly to cover all that. It's no secret how many properties your LL owns (it will be on record with your County and is public info, accessible online at your County's site or via Assessor or Recorder's office.) But please don't assume that if he owns multiple properties he's rolling in dough. I can assure you, I get that a lot and it just ain't necessarily so. Still, it matters with respect to the laws and what is required of him to keep your home safe and habitable, so that's what we'll stay focused on. ;-) So if you can elaborate on conditions you're living in, that would help.

Chrisk327-I think the transoms are running about $145 each x 9 is $1305 vs. going with a taller window to make up the difference at ~$28.00 upcharge each x 9 = ~$252 for a savings of ~$1050. Not a huge amount, but that is another grand that could be invested elsewhere. Chisue-To your earlier post on the interior doors-were going with the MDF doors too. Bedroom, garage entry & attic access doors will all be solid core & the rest will be hollow core. On the exterior facade- My designer's plans that I posted are the almost final set--the finals have all kinds of measurements and specs that make it hard to see the "bones" of the house for this purpose-somehow I didn't get an unmarked up copy. We did change the front door to a 6' wide double door with an arched top to coordinate with the garage--Good catch! Thankfully, we caught it too! We have the jackarches over the front windows in a arch pattern to duplicate again--we meet with the window guy Monday and I'll be asking what it would cost to make those front windows arched as well. The french doors with the arched transoms cost a fortune--been there & priced that already. The windows are a compromise. As far as the mix of styles, you will see that the inspiration house has the same--a little Georgian, a little Federalist, a little Southern, a little Greek Revival, a little French,... That's the idea I'm running with--I want the house to be unique and not necessarily follow any one period to the 'T'. A little background--When we had to downsize and come up with plan B, we had a very hard time finding a house we liked & believe me we looked at probably every houseplan site, designer/architect site, houseplan books/magazines every night for hours on end (literally) for a year and a half. We ended up going to a designer with some ideas that we gathered while looking at homes online & in area neighborhoods. He was on the right track somewhat when he presented the rough drawings to us, but still a long way off. SummerfieldDesigns here on the forum is the one who actually came up with the facade and helped a great deal with the floorplan based on our needs & desires. Something must've clicked between us communication wise, because Summerfield hit it out of the park on the first try. I am forever in his/her debt--(Thank you so much, Summerfield!!!). We feel this design captures the essence & style of the inspiration house (and what drew us to it) but in a single story package. That was what was missing with our designer's facades. Here's Summerfield's color rendering which has the arched door:

I love sleeping porches. Wonderful wonderful things we just don't have here in the Pacific North West (it wasn't that hot). We looked at two homes in Minnesota though that I really thought had outstanding sleeping porches (both huge stone mansions so they should have LOL). I think those pictures are on the computer that is in the shop...I'll be picking it up next week. I believe that the 1914 home (called French House) was the one that had these fabulous gold glass windows on the sleeping porch...the kind of glass you would expect to see used in a stained glass. Very obscure. They opened by tipping forward from the top and could be removed entirely for the hottest part of the summer but I was told the gold glass was original because the original owner had an issue with her eyes and it was too bright with normal windows. It was a wonderful room. It just glowed. They were tall panels, maybe 24" wide or so (I'm guessing...30?" and from about 3' up the wall to nearly the top of the ten foot ceiling). The other was 1915 and it had fixed panel windows of the same (or similar size...narrow and tall) in frosted glass. The glass came from their business (we guess because it had pharmasutical (spelled terribly wrong) images etched in them). Again very pretty. Those panels swung outward or could be removed for screens in the summer. We saw a lot with plain clear glass as well but both of those rang bells when I saw your post. In yours, for the shower portion I'd consider some sort of stained or colored panel glass where your shower is (totally obscuring the shower) or you could consider walling off whatever windows are there with fake curtains in them (between the cement board and the windows) so that from the outside it would look like the windows were still there, but just closed curtains, and from the inside it could be a normal tiled shower wall. I did this in my house in alaska because we built a wall that intersected with a bank of windows. It looks like it always has from the outside. I had this done by a professional though. The window inside was sealed well against leaks. The window actually has latches on the outside to open the window with (it's on the third floor and inaccessible unless you can put a ladder in a lake and the latches aren't obvious). The latches are there so we can periodically check to be sure everything is sealed well and to access the space to recaulk inside when necessary. It does not build up condensation, and works great. We've had it for four...maybe five years this way and it's solid still. That would give your shower folks a bit more privacy (because even stained glass allows shadows) or you could use a curtain that you can pull all the way around on the inside and leave the windows be (sealed well though since they're in a shower area). Now that I've filled your brain I'll suggest one other stop. You should join the oldhouseweb . com as well as garden web. You'll find a much more active group of helpful fools who also own old homes who would LOVE to tackle your issues :) We live to tell others how to live in their homes there LOL (In a friendly way).