OSU information for the home gardener suggests straight vinegar as the attractant in traps, along with the optional use of yellow sticky traps - but inside the cup. If you go the route with the sticky traps, be aware that hung out in the open, the insects they may 'stick' may be noticed by small birds (chickadees for example) and they can easily be caught on the traps themselves. If trapping fails to bring control, there are some suggestions in the document for pesticides appropriate for the well-informed home gardener. Here is a link that might be useful: OSU recommendations here:

OMG, those are really sad stories! RIP, as awful as yours was, it honestly is pretty darn funny now (LOL!). Mine deals with my pregnancy, as well. We had our "dream " home here in the mountains built the year of 1992-3. It was a long process and DH's staff at his clinic was there cheering us on throughout it all. We promised them we'd have a big Christmas party here once we moved in to celebrate and for them to see it in person at last. Well, I got pregnant that August right after we moved in and was still having 24/7 morning sickness in December. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was think about food, let alone cook any! But, I love Christmas and was so excited about the new house (and anxious to show everyone our baby's nursery) that I decided to go through with the party anyway. We hired our favorite restaurant to cater the sit down dinner for everyone and their spouse or S/O. I hired my neighbor's housekeeper to clean for me and figured all was good. Wrong! The housekeeper couldn't come until the day of the party. She brought her adult daughter to help her. The daughter tripped over our vacuum, breaking it, a 3-ft tall vase and put a 14" round, deep, brown dirt hole in our foyer's cream colored adobe wall. That really started my pregnancy hormones raging ;^D. Thankfully the daughter wasn't injured. It took them until just before the guests were to arrive to finish cleaning, as they were sweeping instead of vacuuming by then. More hormones going nuts! DH arrived home and started patching the hole in the wall just as the caters arrived. I was under the impression they were bringing all the food already done, but instead, they needed to cook and finish much of it here . . . with the housekeepers still cleaning around them! I was running around trying to show the caters where everything was, while hurrying DH along. 20 minutes before all the guests were due to arrive, I was still in my sweats and feeling like you-know-what . . . and then I realized that with all the chaos, I'd forgotten to set the table!!! Our 9 y/o son volunteered to set it for me while I changed for the party. Thankfully, the guests were a good 15 minutes late, giving me time to rescue the table from my 9 y/o's vision of a great dinner party table (LOL!). Our first dinner party here was a hit that evening despite all the disasters, my all-day morning sickness . . . and the fact that, although my dress was a maternity one, I'd never considered the need for pregnancy nylons. They kept slipping down over my stomach and threatening to shoot to the floor like an over-stretched rubber band throughout the evening! I think I spent the majority of the evening with one fist desperately clutching them to my belly! Lynn

I bought a condo before getting married. I bought my first condo (2bed/2bath) with the intention of getting a roommate to help with the mortgage. When we married, my husband already had a house, so I moved into the house, and we turned the condo into a rental. We had about $100 per month negative cash flow in the beginning. Many years prior to that, my then single husband bought a house in a suburb. Hated it, and bought another in the city and turned the suburban house into a rental. But, he remodeled the new house, ran out of money, rented out the house and he himself rented a small room to save money.... When he finally moved back into the newly remodeled home, he had many roommates to help with the finances. When we were first married, we built a mother in law apartment in the basement and rented that out. That helped with our expenses. We did not ask her to leave until my son was 2 years old. We then reclaimed the basement for ourselves. (You asked for stories and sacrifices...) We now have enough cash flow so not having rental income for a few months is not a big deal. This gives us the luxury of picking "good" tenants. We only pick tenants who are professionals with good jobs and stellar credit and rental record. The longest we have had vacant rental is about 3 months. We are also in an urban environment where many young professionals cannot afford to buy due to the housing price. Most houses in a suburban subdivision do not make a good rental, unless you can make the rent 1/3 or less than the monthly mortgage of buying the property. (now days, that may not be true because of the downpayment requirements have gone up for buying a home...) Like most everything else in real estate, it's location, location, location that determines the rentability, the amount of rent, the type of tenant etc. We have never needed to go to section 8 route. My condo is very close to the University and Medical school. We almost always have medical residents as tenants(currently dental student and the working spouse). We don't rent to undergrads. They have "no income" and do not qualify in our minds. Our suburban house is near many tech firms in the area, and we tend to get techies with well paying jobs living in the house. melle sacto, not only do you need to have enough money to get through prolonged vacancy, you need to be able to deal with unforseen emergencies quickly. These rentals are your investments. You don't want to do anything to devalue that investment. For example, we had a leak in a very old bathroom. We decided that it was a good time to update the bathroom rather than "patch" fix the bathroom when the tenants moved out. The tenants move out when they want to not when you have the money to fix the bathroom. Like any other business, you need to have available capital when you need it. In order to rent the property quickly, you need to make it look fresh with regular painting, yard maintenance, deep cleaning, etc etc. The most recent tenant turn over uncovered very old sliding glass doors that were not closing property due to age and settling etc. It was noticeable enough and would have detracted from the house from the potential tenants point of view. Again, we had to spend a few thousand $ to get them replaced. This is a regular part of being a landlord. We will probably get one more rental, either a duplex or a quadplex. (our next door neighbor probably has 10 houses/buildings or more) Anything larger than that, we are not willing to manage ourselves. We call trades people for just about everything that needs to be done. It is not worth doing it ourselves at this point. Initially, you will have to do everything yourselves, ie painting, yard work, cleaning, etc. If you and your husband are handy, you will spend less money versus calling someone in. Again, this is not on your schedule but the house's schedule. My brother has a dulplex that he rents out and also the house my parents willed to him. He too had to spend money when things happen. (both of our rentals needed new blower for the furnace this last winter.) We just laugh when these things happen.... Unlike calliope, I consider the risk I take with the rentals as a controlled risk. I actually think it is much less of risk than money I put in the stock market. However, a rental has little potential for huge growth as would in some stocks. To be a successful landlord, you also need to learn your market. In some markets, it is not a feasible business model. For example, I would not buy a rental in a rural area with high unemployment. But I would buy a rental in an urban environment with a large number of transient well paid professionals. Rental properties are a part of our entire portfolio along with other more and less risky things.

Reading some of the instructions on this page may help you get started - Painting a rug