Well, first thing you want to do is check the soil moisture daily and hand water as necessary..remembering that over watering is worse than underwatering. Water the soil, not the plants..especially the roses and after you have trimmed off the leaves and collected up the dropped leaves from the soil (and disposed). Go back to that high-end nursery and give them your complaint and get their advice. They are local and know how to establish plantings in your area. Honestly, the prices you paid for plants and labor seem in line with costs here in Charlotte area. The dripline components seem high priced but small companies tend to do that. Usually, labor to plant is equal to the cost of the plant. That's been my experience over the past 50 years of gardening. And, I have never been satisfied with the quality of labor provided from any commercial landscaper. I usually wind up pulling and repotting all the plant material and mulch (I hate mulch) and resetting them myself after loosening the soil better. The harder job of clearing out lawn areas to establish the beds has been done by the laborers and now you get to personalize the job. As for that mexican petunia..don't worry. They are tremendously hardy. I've divided and root pruned the remains intending to move it ..never got around to doing it and with it half out of the ground it resettled in that position to bloom happily. They have alot of fibrous,cord-like roots and you can divide them anytime so long as it goes into a spot with lots of sun and decent drainage. Those loropetalums are likely to get huge and know that you need to trim them at least once a year, if not twice in your area. They may broaden to overrun your beds so keep that in mind. I have the big ones, one on a trellis and a row of the fastigate form which I've decided is a hoax..just a regular form trimmed and trained to upright growth. You can get control of your situation and personalize with some of your own labor but I wouldn't get too upset about the knockouts. They are easily replaced. Take lots of photographs so you can work from those to visualize what you want in color and form. In the meantime, you can tuck in some large red geraniums in lieu of the knockouts for the instant gratification of color you seek. Just be sure to clear out the dropped,blackspotted leaves as you pull out the knockouts. Come back and keep us informed with description or photos. We'd love to see what you've accomplished and I love to applaud others efforts to overcome a bad situation. You can do it, we know you can and you don't have to do it all at once (in this heat). As I said, tuck in some heatloving annual/semi perennials to your zone like geraniums and enjoy the sparkle of color.

Strictly speaking from my perspective as a landlord: And what do they look for in a application? Stability. Not frequent movers/bailers. Ability to pay (and responsibility for) debts incurred. Are they going to do a background sheck, a credit check? Depends. Some don't do any checks. But housing conditions tend to be reflected in that (lower quality). Some do only credit checks. Some do credit and order full background check. I do credit check, call references, and check local court dockets or dockets from counties of prior residence if available online. (I'm looking mostly for evictions.) I also check sex offender registries. So although I don't order formal background checks, there are several ways to access info that's enough to paint a pretty good picture of an applicant. A tip re: references. Don't put a friend down as prior landlord. It's so easy to trace a prior address (which shows up on your credit report), track down the owner through tax records (almost always online nowadays) and contact owner. Too many applicants were offering cell #'s with friends playing landlord. I stopped that by insisting on landline phone #'s only, so that I can use a reverse directory and make sure phone # matches address of owner that I've confirmed via property tax records. In a nutshell: don't lie, you'll hang yourself. I have a misdemeanor charge from last year that I already paid and a couple of traffic tickets that are unpaid, but that's about it for my rap sheet. Misdemeanor criminal or traffic? If it's traffic I don't pay too much attention to moving violations. All depends on what it's for. Credit's another story. When I was 18 I got a credit card, and I only spent my money on three things, all of them under $20. Because that went unpaid for so long (I was living in that first apartment and only had money for rent and food) I now owe hundreds of dollars. Get those paid off, asap. Even if you pay interest and a little toward the initial charge. It will not disappear. I also owe $40 to a video store Not to be critical, but I've seen those occasionally and immediately mentally reject the applicant. Why? If a person can't be responsible enough to rent a movie and pay for it, they probably will have the same attitude toward rent. Get that charge paid off first! It's the smallest and it looks really bad. and over $700 to my old community college (I dropped out and asked my parents to use the tax return they received for claiming me to pay it off, but it "magically" didn't happen). Tuition deductions reduce their adjusted gross income on their tax return. It doesn't mean they get reimbursed that whole $700. So just because you incurred a school debt and didn't pay it does not make them obliged to give up their deduction to pay toward your debt. If it was agreed you pay for school, and you dropped out, tuition is still your responsibility. So debt-wise, all told you owe about $1,000? If you can't manage to pay it off in a year (about $83/month) then shoot for two years max ($40/month). You might have to sacrifice something (iTunes, internet, cell, those cute shoes at the mall, fast food, Starbuck's, etc.), but you're just getting your foothold in life and you've gotten off on the wrong track, to the point it's impacting your ability to get a decent roof over your head. Two years seems like an eternity when you're 19, but someday you'll look back and it will have gone by in a whirl. Frankly, from a landlord's perspective, you're a pretty risky tenant at this stage. History of racking up silly debt (video store), bailing out on school and not paying tuition (lack of self discipline, not paying what you owe) and letting a couple $20 charges add up to hundreds (irresponsible). Not trying to slam you, just laying it out. There are a lot of 19 year olds who don't have this kind of activity on their credit. But I've seen 19 year olds with much worse. My point: you are not too far gone. Back peddle now. Make it a priority. You're so young, don't let this become the pattern of your life. It will have far reaching and negative consequences. I feel bad that you are being booted out suddenly with little choices. I find that cold. Thirty days would be much more humane. (And you might find, from a legal standpoint, that you can show established residency at Matt's mom's house, and legally she can't just put you out on the street with such little notice. But I'm not a lawyer.) So first things first. Get a decent job. Or two decent part-time jobs if necessary. You're probably going to need help for a bit, which means as much as you like it where you're at, you might need family/friends to help get you back on your feet. Then go out and explore your options. Because as it stands, you've boxed yourself into a corner with few options. Higher education will open doors. Whether university, community, or 1 year business school. In today's world, it takes more to make it. Not everyone is cut out for schooling though, and I understand that. But if there's anything that interests you, for your own sake, get that education! Whether it be a bachelor's degree or a cosmetology license or a skilled trade. Something that will get in you in the door to a steady job with benefits. You might find (as many people do) at some point you will be heading back to school because what you have now is not enough to make a life for yourself. I'd encourage you to do that now, before you are tied down with the bigger responsibilities that come with age. Second, get those debts paid off. Top priority. If you applied for one of my houses today, you'd be declined. Too much on your credit that reflect small items allowed to balloon. Those should have been addressed. However: if you applied in a year or two, told me your story, and your credit reflected that you were indeed making regular payments to satisfy your outstanding debts, to me that shows maturity and willingness to be responsible for your own actions. I have given many adults a 'break' who screwed up much worse than you when young, but had a subsequent record of getting back on the right track. Turned out to be good, reliable tenants.

We also thought that sounded high, thats why we got a total of four estimates and they were all in the same ball park.We went with the one that our homeowner's insurance recommended. We have not paid them yet. Can they put a mechanics lien on our house? They also have some carpet repairs upstairs to do and they want to do it on Tuesday. I'm thinking I should probably hold off until they straighten this up, if they can. The area of texture they did looks like a horrible splotchy mess of rougher texture that looks nothing like the rest of our ceiling. Does anyone know what process needs to be done to make it look right? Does anyone know why the area of texture would look so splotchy. You can see roller brush marks. I tried another coat of paint in a small section and it did nothing. Should the whole ceiling be skimmed or can texture go over old texture and still look right? If they try to fix it and it still looks bad can we only pay for the actual drywall repair itself and find someone else to retexture and paint? Thanks Lisa

OMG - what a horrible job cutting the tile. Looks like he used nippers to clip the tile or his snap cutter's cutting wheel is still the original one from the 80's. "...How and where did you hire the handyman claiming to be a tile setter, was price the deciding factor?..." - Tundra I think this is a fair question myself. If you are budgeting a job that is priced buy the square foot, some times the added skilled work is ommited. A skilled installer like myself or Tundra come with proper tools and experience. Check out Tundra's photos online and you can see he is a tile ninja.... I think a diamond Riffling File and some time might fix it but best to replace the cut tile with new better cut tile. Placing cut tile in the field of view is tricky unless the installer uses care and proper tools to make it look nice. And really the Dal Tile Home Depot stock is not really Top Shelf product anyway. Could be the tools where good but the glazing crap.