Hello all, I have been having the same issues. Let me recount my story for you. I planted zucchini eight ball squash, yellow crooked neck squash, and butternut squash. They were all doing awesome and producing a lot of fruit. Then the snails arrived. They were eating all my fruit so I bought some natria slug and snail killer. Worked like a charm. I was watering the plant for 10 minutes 2 times a day, in the morning and in the evening. This brought out the white mold on the leaves. I tried using a milk and water mixture to spray the leaves as well as cutting off all the infected leaves. This kind of worked, but I have been battling it for 2 months, but not seriously trying. I cut the watering back to 1 time a day in the morning for 10 minutes. Recently I have switched it to 3 times a week for 10 minutes. But what I have noticed is that the new leaves yellow and quickly turn brown and die. What would be causing this? I have checked for vine borers by slitting open some leaf stems but I found nothing. Here are some more pictures. Whole garden New green leaves, yellow on the outside and dead leaves around the plant Lemon cucumber plants. Started out great and now leaves started yellowing and just now they are starting to brown Heres is a little bug hat I've seen around my plants...it looks like a discolored lady bug. Anything to worry about? Thanks! This post was edited by paperslammer on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 11:27

We turned our cats from 90% inside, 10% outside to 100% outside while we sold. They moved into the garage and had free access to the yard from leaving the garage door a jar. De-Cat-Odoring the house was very smart. We'd also moved out of another house where we had a dog, but left the dog at the empty house, stopping by every day to feed, water and play with her. She had a fenced yard there and we were figuring out what invisible fence to use at the next place. Well some smart buyer or agent called Animal Services, told them the pet was abandoned and didn't have food. Both completely untrue. The AS Officer told me when he checked on the animal, the house was empty and couldn't find any food or water. I asked if he looked in the screened in porch with the dog door on it? How else would the dog and her food be protected from weather? His response was, "Oh". Lucky for us, she just picked up a foul odor and no parasites. Bottom line, if you leave your cats or dogs out during showings, expect them to be let out of your house.

Around here it is pretty much SOP that the seller leave the house and staying was never presented as an option by the agents. However, I have been very stubborn about either my agent or someone from their office always being IN the house, not standing around outside (or even sitting back at the office!) letting the buyer and their agent cruise my house, because I am just SO very trusting of people. :-) It's definitely obnoxious when there's a no-show but I just tried to schedule doing errands and such so that it wasn't totally wasted time. Since it's summer I have had to leave our Nordic-breed dog crated in the bedroom where the window AC is, which has probably been a turnoff for some people but that's just too bad. To take him with me I would have to drive around for two hours which is a ridiculous expenditure of gasoline - I would not be able to go grocery shopping or to the library, because only a real scumbag leaves a dog in a car on a hot day. I did have to chuckle about the "10 minute walk through" though. The only time we've ever had a 10 minute showing as either seller or buyer is when we or the buyer didn't like the house from the moment of getting out of the car and just went through the house to be polite. Most of the "good showings" were an hour or more, and we've had a handful of two-hour-plus ones - including today's, our first with the new agent. We only had two second showings and both people put in offers. Maybe it works differently in other areas or when people are relocating long distances and have to look at fifty houses in a three-day weekend - we only had a couple of relos. It's really just as inconvenient for me to have to go out for 20 minutes as it is for two hours (since the hassle factor of showings is more the cleaning and weeding and dealing with the dog, which I would have to do no matter what, than putting on semi-presentable clothes and getting in the car). As for "getting the details straight", that's one thing that has been pleasing us about our new agent - I've filled out endless forms and written down tons of stuff, she has totally grilled me to make sure she had her info right. Some buyers are simply very detail oriented and want to know everything about what they're looking to purchase, especially if they're not the sorts who want to jump right in and tear everything up right off. She also had no embarrassment about calling us on her cell during the showing today to double-check a couple of things. We toured some FSBOs and found it a little bit sad how often the owners "put their foot in it" and said things they really oughtn't have said. I also got very uncomfortable at times because I felt like I couldn't speak honestly with DH without the owner overhearing and getting their feelings hurt - they're speaking proudly of the kitchen they painstakingly remodeled in 1978 and we're both thinking about how it needs to be gutted and completely reconfigured but can't discuss how we would do it and how much it would cost (and therefore how much it would affect the price we would offer) without freaking out the owner.

The appraisal is FINALLY in...9,000 above our agreed upon price! Woo-Hoo! I was so relieved. My realtor said this should put a smile on the buyer's face and a zipper on his lip. We shall see. And, yes, we had set dates for inspection, appraisal, etc., and he ALWAYS goes past the dates by waiting until the day before the due date to schedule it and then it buys him another week or so and then he had his inspections split in two sessions. The news about the appraisal came in very late today so I hope this makes him (and my realtor) realize we are not going to do anything other than what is actually considered a contractual requirement to get this deal accomplished and if we need to start over we will. I hope he straightens up and doesn't do like I think many of us agree is possible and continue to be demanding even past the closing/final walk through. I guess I would just walk away from it and start over. I think I'm going to take the weekend off and just enjoy the appraisal news and not worry about anything else. Thanks again for all you guys and your advice/stories. They help more than you know!! I share each one with my husband. It's been just great!