I was fortunate enough to live for a short time in a neighborhood where every other family was Jewish. It was a strange and happy experience discovering the differences. We were the only family that decorated for Halloween! At Easter the neighbors children came over and asked to make Easter eggs. At Christmas, my kids were aggravated they had only one day for presents and their friends had eight days. About half of the houses showed off Christmas trees in a front window behind a menorah. Sandy

alison, my rental agreement is very bare-bones. Cover the very basics (rent, late fees, responsibility for damages, notice required) and that's about it. The only thing maybe a bit odd that's in there is I prohibit firearms to be brought on the property because I just don't want someone whose temper, drinking habits, etc I'm not intimately familiar with to have a gun in the house I live in. Right to bear arms is all fine and dandy, but not in my home. I do not under any circumstances do anything other than month-to-month, and potential roomie/tenants are aware that this is to give both of us the option to get out of the arrangement, no questions asked or reasons needed, if there is any conflict or disagreement or lifestyle incompatibilities. I also figure that since we're sharing living space, I'll find out pretty quickly if they're throwing wild parties that annoy the neighbors, or smoking in the house, or sneaking in non-housebroken pets, or other issues normal landlords might address in the lease. So, although it may be counterintuitive, I feel I need to be a lot less of a stickler about making small stuff into legally binding rules; it just doesn't seem necessary. You probably won't have quite the same level of transparency, but more so than an off-site owner. And, obviously, if there were a year's lease in place, that would be a completely different situation; you could get someone that was just intolerable but unless they're doing something in violation of the lease, you'd be stuck with them. I try to be as brutally honest as i can, both about my own lifestyle and annoying habits and what my tolerances are for others. I will not even consider anyone who doesn't want to share that kind of information about themselves; they might be very nice people, but if they aren't interested in making sure we're compatible, I think they don't have a realistic idea of roommates and it is not my job to educate them. I will not consider anyone who is in any way inconsiderate of me during the process (traffic sucks, so if someone is late to come see the house, I understand, but if they're two hours late and didn't bother to call and let me know, they're out). I don't need to live with anyone who is not going to be considerate. I do not talk to people other than the renter (parents, boyfriends, etc)... they are welcome to tag along and meet me and see the place, but I want to talk to and handle arrangements with the person I'd actually be living with, because it's the only real indication I have of how well we'll be able to deal with each other. Because of the m2m, and that I'm renting a room in a fully furnished home, and I live in a high-intern area, I tend to get a lot of short-timers; primarily grad students doing internships for 2 or 3 months. This can be annoying (they just get settled in then I have to start the process over), but they tend to be a pretty responsbile bunch, and don't generally have a lot of friends in the area wanting to hang out at my house all the time. Then again, current roomie's been with me almost 2 years, and the last one stayed for a year, so the m2m doesn't preclude people staying a while, either. Honestly, I have been very lucky and never really had a bad roommate or situation. There has been an applicant here or there that made me uncomfortable for some reason or other (so I just didn't rent to them), and I have occasionally had someone get mad at me for saying no for lifestyle/compatibility reasons (which just demonstrated to me that I was right). One thing is that unless you have local laws to the contrary is you will not be subject to federal fair housing laws, so you can reject people for pretty much any reason, and don't have to worry about articulating or documenting why to legally cover yourself. Family's teenage son gives you the willies, don't have to rent to them, where an apartment complex can't make that same choice because they can't discriminate against families.

Hi Bethesdamanman, My apologies then, Dave. I thought that I had recalled you posting on the other board that mortgage rates would stay low for years and years, and that we would never return to the high rates of years past. My error. Eeeesschhh .... well.... actually... kinda sorta, YES.... your apologies in this case are NOT warranted. Herein lies a case of "text failing where a verbal conversation *may* have worked better." I've never said rates would stay low "well... forever".... I HAVE said rates (30 FRM rates to be precise) will unlikely climb over 7% in our lifetimes. I *STILL* stand by that.... albeit, I am now offering that we are entering a territory of government-induced inflation at levels I (perhaps naively) thought the United States political system was above. If we continue down the path of dollar-dilution that we've begun accelerating along, there are only two end-game results; A) we reverse course back out of it before we self-destruct in revolution, B) we self-destruct (and the devil we do not know is always a potential problem.) *IF* we successfully reverse and dig ourselves out of the hole of trouble our most recent past and our current government administrations are hell-bent on digging us into... there are only two ways of "sopping back & vacuuming up" the diluted unbacked funny-money that has been injected out into the system; A) The Treasury collects more taxes than it provides to the government to spend, and/or, B) The Fed increases interest rates higher than its blended payout on the treasury bonds (and then some... the greater the positive income spread to the Fed, the more painful to the "fixed-income retired crowd" which is our baby-boomer bubble... who will rally with AARP-sponsored pitchforks.) Both A & B will be met with *MASSIVE* resistance from the only crowd that the poloticos *KNOW* will consistently show up to vote, and have almost unlimited spare time to write, call, email, and generally pester the daylights out of the politicians; The Seniors. SO.... I've learned to never rely on "common sense" when it comes to anticipating "government logic" (an oxymoron if there ever was one.) Obama has enlisted the original architect of option B... Paul Volcker... as a "senior economic advisor." ("Senior" may (MAY) work somewhat to our advantage here... as Gramps Volcker *MIGHT* have some age-gained sensitivity to his classmate comrade's plight.) Volcker is the one who decided to fight inflation in the 1970's by driving short-term interest rates up to the 20%'s... The late '70's and early '80's result was that Volcker recaptured (in a VERY painful way) the excess liquidity (flooding of funny money) our country created by going off the gold standard and adopting a "weak dollar" policy through the 1960's. WHAT WILL WA DC DO??????????????? I dunno.... (I know what I pray/chant/meditate they will do...) *IF* the government (both the loonie left & jackthug right) get OUT of the way of the naturally balancing markets... then my expectations and predictions stand, with virtually my 100% confidence. My fears are that the United States idea of a market-based capitalist self-righting system has been a grand and wonderful social experiment... but that the human frailties (compounded in mob psychology) are sabotaging the underlying DNA strands that made it possible to stand. My COMFORTING REALIZATION... is that despite my egoistic pride for being part of a "successful system".... even if that system turns out to be a decaying failure, INDIDIVIDUALLY I and my family, and those I guide, can still retain their own personal success and quality of life. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner

I agree with those who say an ice maker should be considered standard, especially if you are talking about anything above a cheap apartment. Since my childhood, I'v only experienced one ice maker problem and that was after a long distance move 20 years ago. They are pretty simple machines that tend to keep working. All things being equal, I'd rent a place that had an ice maker over one that didn't (big deal for me, but I'm in Texas, not Washington). I'm with breezy on a FD just being another door to open. I liked the idea of one when they came out -- DH pointed out that the door storage is not only divided, it cuts into your door opening space on both sides. If you use that tray storage, you have to open the doors super wide and then get around both doors with your hands full. You can get the same kind of tray storage in a single door and it would seem easier to use. If I saw one in a rental unit, it would seem out of place and I'd wonder if the landlord decided they didn't like it and cast it off to the rental. You prefer a single door bottom freezer. I love mine. They cost less to buy and to operate, offer a clean look and a bit of an upgrade, but not too much.