Hi everyone. I have a problem similar to Ty's, but until I got here and read this thread, I didn't know I'd done anything wrong. I was in fact roaming around the site trying to figure out what to do about the aphids on my honeysuckle, and why a small, thorny, rose?-bush was yellowing insanely. I came to this thread just to make sure I hadn't done anything Ty did, but I think I have. I'm a total Newbie (just signed up last night), I'm doing this alone with no actual from-scratch gardening experience except sowing seeds indoors, and a bit of pruning under my belt. My house plants are all quite healthy, and I've been known to be a recovery center for the ailing plants of friends and family members. Tackling an entire garden seemed slightly insane to me, but I thought it would be a rewarding challenge. I'm going to start a new thread with my specific issues, but I thought it best to begin here since this is where my panic began. I live in zip 11354/11357. What was once a lush lawn of kentucky blue, cared for by my parents and their hired landscapers, became overrun with weeds and zero grass over the 2 years since they moved to another home. They planned on selling this house quickly, so we weren't putting any money or time into landscaping here, but things have changed and now I'm trying to make it beautiful and my own, as I will probably be here for a few more years. I have virtually no garden tools (I know you'll yell at me for this) but I put down some weed-killer with a hose, then borrowed a garden claw from a family friend, and have spent the last 3 weeks tearing up the ground and manually pulling out roots of weeds, digging deep into the dirt with my hands to get as much root out as possible. I finally finished the area I'd like to use as a lawn, but have noticed little green sprouts popping up in the areas I'd tackled weeks ago. Do I go over it again with weedkiller? I've not planted anything new as I only finished tearing up the area last night. I will attempt to post pics of my before and after. There are far more issues happening around the yard right now, but I'll stick to this to keep it relevant to this post. Before mid-way through: current: HELPPPPPP

OMG! I am laughing so hard, I can't breathe and am coughing! I can't even read all of the comments. Having 3 dogs,one who loves to upchuck everything, anywhere, I can empathize. But I must say wait til you have a dead frog in your drier! I did, couldn't figure out where the smell was, kept rewashing stinky clothes. Then I got out my flashlight and stuck in the lint trap was this poor flattened frog. I don't know how he got in there unless my son, at that time around 6, had it in a pocket. What a stench. I think I used a few boxes of fabric softner sheets before it finally smelled okay. I hope you wiped the chunks up before you ran the machine!

I lost my Dad nearly 30 years ago when I was 19 and newly married. It was devastating. My mom was similar to yours and had to be sedated to attend the funeral. We had to plan it all, etc. She moved in with us for a while, but was still working and eventually we got her to get her own apartment after being stranded on the farm for five days during a blizzard with no power or water. Could your Mom apply for Social Security survivor's benefits? And possibly apply for subsidized Senior Housing? That's what my mom eventually did. She only made $375 a month and they took about $125 for rent and utilities. Consider one thing, you promised your dad you would take care of the dog. Sometimes the best way to take care of pets is to let them be adopted into a home that can best take care of their needs. I had a similar situation with Mom. She was in the nursing home dying from cancer and asked me to care for her little dog. Mom had been living with her boyfriend who I think was her one true love in life. Anyway, we had Peanuts for two weeks and the poor little thing wouldn't eat or sleep. She was miserable. Grieving the loss of "her" mom even though we brought her to visit at the nursing home. When the boyfriend was able to drive the 2 hours to come down to visit, the dog just about turned herself inside out with joy. I told him to take her home where she belonged, she knew what she wanted. Les was worried that Mom would be mad or worried, but we talked it over and she agreed that Peanuts had to go back home. Mom passed away a week or so later. Peanuts lived another 10 years, very happily. I am sorry for the shock of losing your darling Dad. It is such a painful time. So hard for your Mom since she was so dependent on him.

Our listing agent is also a dual, but she does it a little different. She will stay with us while the buyer would go to her husband who is also licensed. I don't have a problem with this because she is the main bread winner of the family, and I've seen her in action. This is her bread & butter and she seems to know she will get more business with a happy customer then an unhappy seller. I'm pretty easy going but if need be, will stick up for us if I had to. We killed the last deal back in 1999 because the realtor we had then did not have our best interests. He was willing to lose the deal over $1,500.00. When I look back at it now, there were things he could have done on our behalf to make the deal go through. Im not quite sure why you felt the need to say this when he was asking about dual agency? The bottom line is, YOU decide what offers you will accept. As a dual agent, your agent has to maintain a fiduciary relationship with both sides. He cannot tell the buyer your bottom line, (which he probably doesnt even know) and he cannot tell you the buyers max (which he probably doesnt know either). You have nothing to lose. If you don't like the offer, you turn it down. If you don't offer dual agency, you have just limited one more place your offer could come from. I don't understand what I have in bold. When we listed with our agent, we told her what we wanted to walk away with. Since we are using her to buy, she knows how much we want to spend. So in our case, and probably a lot of others, yes, our agent knows our bottom line; doesn't make sense for her not to. Same as if we are buying, if I'm putting an offer in on a house, I've already discussed with her when we walked through what I thought about the price. She knows I come home and zillow, so I know what someone paid for it. Yes, knowing what someone pays for something usually doesn't matter, a house sells for what someone thinks it's worth; but in one case, I looked at a house for $355,000 (IIRC); the house was poorly laid out (I've mentioned it before in other posts) - I came home & Zillowed to find the owner only had it a year and paid $20,000 more then what he was asking as he's had to lower the price a few times. After I walked it, they ended up taking it off of the market. To me, the house wasn't even worth what he was asking. Had I not seen the zillow, he would have been really insulted at my offer if I did like it.