a house

We live in an increasingly-divided society; on an increasingly-divided planet; competing with others for limited resources, and a limited number of jobs transforming those resources into consumable food and other products. Our social structure rewards individual effort over community effort; corporate competition over corporate cooperation; individual wealth over community wealth; and ultimately selfishness over sharing, even with regard to our common needs; so much so that many millions are in want while many thousands cannot consume their personal wealth. This increasing political and economic divisiveness in our society is rooted in a core social belief in, and preference for, discrimination against others via exclusion; which is rooted in philosophies of individual superiority and social pecking order; and which in every form promotes inequality and a house divided. Whether that core belief stems from our religions, ethnic background, race, political persuasion, or economic standing, it is our nature to divide our society into groups that promote narrow philosophies, which by their narrowness exclude others.

On the other hand there is a lot of political activism from portions of the middle and lower classes to continually try to legislate inclusiveness in our society (every form of equality), simply because the have-nots want to share in the advantages of those who have the power and resources to practice economic, political, and social exclusion. Many laws enacted to increase inclusiveness in our society often create more social tension and political division that offsets the intended desire for social cohesion, because the equality of inclusion cannot increase unless the inequality of exclusion declines. Our chief problem is that almost everyone wants personal wealth and privilege over and above being socially and economically equal to all other citizens; so equality of wealth and opportunity, for all, continually looses the battle to the individual pursuit of wealth; because too many of us strive to be included into the portion of our society that is by its economic status and perceived pecking order, the most exclusive. Individual pursuits are exclusive, not inclusive, in all areas of our society.

The pursuit of individual wealth creates an economic structure that is in the form of a pyramid, while our political structure also operates as a pyramid of legislative power (unequal power of Congress-persons and Senators), creating laws to support the exclusive nature of the economic pyramid. The longevity and law-making-power of members of Congress protects the longevity of private wealth and its economic power, and vice versa. In a pyramid, the exclusivity of a few at the top can only be supported by the forced inclusivity of many at the bottom. Periodically those at the bottom get riled and seek reform; but reforms over the past fifty years have mostly failed, while bailouts of failing private businesses and deregulation of many industries has led to a decline in wealth and real wages for most workers; fostered increases in wealth for only a few percent; resulting in massive borrowing of that wealth to pay for our annual expenses for national defense, education, medical care, and infrastructure; and guaranteeing even greater poverty in the future for most citizens. It is lamentable, if not tragic, that the social decay we are witnessing via increasing private wealth for a relative few and increasing poverty for many, and special interest politics to promote individual wealth over communal needs, is not reversible within the current framework of our Congress; because it is not against the law for private wealth, corporate wealth, and foreign wealth to purchase the power of Congress to enact laws that secure wealth to a few, at the expense of many; nor is it against the law for the private banks, which includes the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, to milk our economy for their expenses, profit, and security against failure; even if it means destroying the wealth flowing through them by devaluing our labor, our savings, and our assets, by pumping instantly created dollars into their electronic balance sheets that is unsecured by productive labor within our economy; an act that can only devalue the dollar, i.e. reduce the dollars' purchasing power.

As a society we interact with a multitude of behaviors that for the most part promote our self interests over the interests of society. In order to form a society that barely keeps us one level above savage behavior we implement and enforce laws to regulate our social interactions. Government, in all ages, is the creation of regulations and the enforcement of regulations; to abandon regulations or fail to enforce them, is to abandon government; which can only lead to exclusion, economic and political disparity, discrimination in many social areas, and ultimately social anarchy that can only be followed by political revolution. And yet deregulation is the mantra of the rich and their political minions; these people really do want no government, outside of a police state that protects their wealth and opportunities to increase it.

In order to form a government that will regulate our social activities in a fair manner we attempt to elect our legislatures and Congress in a grassroots form of Democracy; but in our society the majority of voters lose all influence over those elected because of the agendas and influence of Congressional Leaders and paid lobbyists. Lobbyists seek to thwart the creation and enforcement of laws that regulate the activities of their special interest clients. Our politicians are often bribed with campaign contributions, gifts, favors, and threats of political retaliation, to gain their support for de-regulation that benefits special interests at the expense of our communal interests. The success of special interests leads to a nation divided, and government via an oligarchy that promotes self-interest and exclusion in place of sharing and inclusion. Such a government is in declension, because it is neither inclusive nor long-term sustainable as it creates a rising tide of poverty and inequality. Increasing wealth and political power for a few can only come from increasing poverty and despair for many, until the impoverished have no more to give and everyone's future becomes uncertain.

The greatest ally of the lobbyist in preventing new laws and regulations to govern their clients is the social stagnation brought about by the increasingly diverse interests of a growing population. As a community, state, and nation increase in population, new laws that affect everyone become more difficult to pass, while new laws to support deregulation that affect or benefit a few become easier to pass; under the guise that government is too big and too intrusive; the hue and cry of special interests is to deregulate, and is ever-present in the halls of Congress. As population increases, each Congressperson and Senator either has more constituents to represent; or at the very least more constituents of other representatives to compete against; and since our personal interests become more diverse with more people in the mix, they also become more diluted in the ability to influence our representatives; allowing those representatives to pursue their own agendas of supporting special interests that will ensure their re-election. The social momentum that increases with population tends toward benefiting the politics of special interests and economic exclusion, such that the produce and profits of our economy are not divided nor taxed in a manner that maintains social equality. Special interests delay the implementation of all manner of social reform; leading to public debt, social despair, infrastructure decay, and uncertainty regarding our future internal security.

Oddly enough in these hi-tech times, as our country rises in population, our citizens are becoming more isolated from each other; making them less cohesive politically and thereby more manageable by the actions of special interests and politicians. People are using the technological advances in communication to cocoon themselves away from community relationships that require social engagement for shared interests. The majority of youth now seek vicarious life experiences from computer games that require little physical effort. The social networking that develops from this technology is one of exclusion via individual isolation, more than inclusion via group contact. Along with this increased social isolation comes the philosophy of acting only for self-interest above all other interests. Self-interest can be a builder of society when it limits itself to efforts that promote the health, wealth and wellbeing of the whole society under the social axiom that what is good for the interests of the community and nation is also good for the self-interest of each individual; but self-interest is a destroyer of society when it seeks only individual health, wealth and wellbeing, regardless of any harm or other consequences to members of that society.

Obviously we produce all that we consume. We have shown over and over in our history that we are capable of producing huge surpluses of any of our consumption requirements, but we are more often than not incapable of sharing the jobs to produce what we need, or sharing the profits made on our production and the taxation requirements to fund our communal expenses. In short, we have debt because we have social inequality that springs from economic inequality. For some inexplicable reason, it is not understood by the majority of people, that you cannot have debt, public or private, without surplus wealth; wealth that stems from, and depends on, the inequality of economic opportunity. You can only borrow from those that have a surplus over and above their needs. If there is no surplus there can be no borrowing and hence no debt. In our economy the banks are agents for the wealthy; they borrow the surplus of their wealthy clients and lend it to individuals and businesses. They manage debt, such that the expenses and profits of the banks and the increase in wealth for their clients, all comes from the wages and profits of the borrowers; more wealth accruing at the top of the pyramid. It is unfortunate for our society that banks can only increase profits by increasing the amount of debt they manage; if we reduce our overall debt in any way the banks will suffer less profits; if we eliminate debt altogether we will not have banks.

In a society that has legitimate communal expenses; taxes should be collected at rates that reflect the ability to pay relative to the amount required, so that borrowing is never a part of our social actions. Because we live in a bifurcated society, with a political system that is subservient to the economic system (the opposite of what should be, because our current system creates and supports exclusion in place of inclusion), we have limited taxes on wealth below our needs and then allowed those with surplus wealth to loan us their unneeded wealth to cover the cost of our communal needs; guaranteeing them greater future wealth to secure their futures at the expense of others; while if we had taxed their wealth we would have no debt, they would continue to live as well as they do, less some of their surplus, and society would thereby be more secure. Increasing debt does not lead to greater security for the lender, their future is as uncertain as the debtor, because it depends on the future abilities of the debtor to pay said debts. The destruction of the middle class (producing class) will be the destruction of the ability to have taxable income to pay the public debt, or even the interest due annually on that debt. Recent politics in Congress suggest that the upper class is now hell-bent on destroying, through catastrophic debt, the middle class, which is the class that by its applied labor has produced their wealth. Representatives of wealth are now seeking to reduce and limit wages for current labor, reduce pensions, and reduce the old age benefits of Social Security and Medicare. We are well on our way toward spiraling into economic suicide, because unbridled greed has everyone acting for their own individual wellbeing and no longer considering the wellbeing of the whole society. The haves are seeking to be rid of any social responsibilities to the have-nots.

Our nation has a long history of being dominated and controlled by two political parties, rather than a system where everyone running for office is an independent. Though more and more people claim that their political affiliation is independent, they still are for the most part only offered choices representing the two controlling philosophies. Those that win an election and assume to lead are not necessarily representing the majority, nor always willing to lead where the majority wants to go socially. I look at our fracturing society and remind myself of the story of a group of people wanting to cross a wilderness; they select a leader to guide them and begin their journey; they start out as one group, but soon the leader is faced with the problem that impatient younger persons have surged ahead, while older persons are lagging behind; dividing his time and leadership becomes more difficult, until the initial group becomes many smaller groups that become so separated that the leader cannot guide any of them and they all parish in the wilderness. Our society is fracturing into groups that will be ungovernable (un-leadable) as our economy fails. And our economy is certain to fail if our leaders allow our system of food, clothes, shelter, medical care, education, etc. to be so divided, limited, and subject to failure by the self-interest of wealth and debt creation, that many will have less so that a few can have more. Austerity is a relative term; the majority of our citizens already live in very austere economic conditions; if we do not share our economic wealth in an inclusive communal way, we will all share in an abundance of privation, despair, and anarchy.

Social momentum of a status quo aside; how things operate today is no guarantee that they will operate similarly tomorrow; both sudden shocks to our affairs and slow burning desires for social change can unleash powerful forces to redirect social momentum. There are serious social conflicts going on in our society, with strong forces for change pitted against strong forces to keep the status quo. It would be a fallacy to think that we will find civil solutions to bridge the increasing disparity of our social and economic philosophies. When we have an economic meltdown that leads to social chaos, it is certain that the security forces of the states (city police, state police, and sheriffs) will be unable to control crime. Hoodlums and gangs will partition our communities and highways. Mexico is currently developing and honing the armed gang and social corruption model for our social declension; there it is drugs and money; here it will be food and fuel. Though each governor will call out their contingent of National Guard troops to enforce martial law, their numbers will still be inadequate to control our communities. Similar to the last two revolutions in Russia, 1917-1919 and 1990-1992 where the military were much more a part of revolution than a protector of the old regime, we will find that the self-interest and need to fend for themselves, of each law enforcement officer and soldier, will be much more in concert with self-preservation in place of social preservation of the disparity of wealth, such that wealth and supplies will be confiscated and bartered for personal gain; our system of courts and laws will cease to function; everyone will have to defend their own life and property; and guns, ammunition, and fuel will become the chief forms of money for purchasing dwindling goods and services. If martial law is able to prevent rampant crime, gangs, and chaos, we will find that the police and soldiers will enforce a sharing of limited and possibly scarce food, cloths, shelter, medical care, etc. Such that like the scene from the film Dr. Zhivago, about the Russian revolution of 1917, where a wealthy family living in a mansion experiences that revolution by suddenly having several more impoverished families living with them; and no one has more personal wealth than others; all enforced by some form of local martial law. Our current social exclusivity of wealth and poverty will give way to inclusivity of poverty and privation, because by our unique American heritage of vigilante action and our proximity of wealth and poverty residing near each other, we are all going together or we are not going at all. Social extremes of wealth and poverty, along with unequal protection of the laws will always lead to chaos, privation, and ultimately revolution. There is no social or political equality possible in an environment of increasing economic inequality that is aggravated by increasing private and public debt.

A house divided cannot stand; a society of exclusion leading to privation cannot stand; the increasing wealth of a few and increasing debt for many is the guarantee of the eventual destruction of wealth. The current socially perverse operation of our Congress, relative to taxes, is trying to create a social and economic disparity that has failed 100% of the time in past civilizations. It is simply a matter of numbers. There are approximately 250 citizens for each law enforcement officer and National Guard soldier to control in a martial law scenario; and of each contingent of 250 citizens only a few will have great wealth; making the job of protecting those few and their wealth impossible. The only way for wealth to protect itself is to ensure that it is taxed sufficient to pay our communal bills and to provide for everyone's basic needs. Eventually we will all be living in Zhivago's mansion and sharing our productive wealth, because the alternative will be continuous robbing and killing of each other until we are no longer a nation.

A great deal of our present social and economic disparity arises because technology is continually driving us toward a society where machines will provide most of our food, clothes, construction, education, medical requirements, etc. Improving technology continually requires fewer people to operate the machines that produce our goods. We need to make division of labor changes now, similar to those made in the past; to allow us to progress toward a technology dominated society that would be much more like the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek TV show, where everyone has equal access to the same food, clothes, recreation, and medical facilities, without the need for any money; and each citizen is only ranked in that society by skills and responsibility (and not ranked by private wealth). Imagine a spaceship with thousands of people on board, living and exploring our galaxy; what reason would any commander have to promote inequality in food rations, living quarters, education, training, recreation, medical needs, etc. It would not make sense to have a portion of the crew to have no responsibilities, being lay-abouts; consuming resources and requiring others to provide services to them without contributing any useful services to the mission of that spacecraft, while jeopardizing the availability of resources for those that operate and maintain the ship. Yet here we are on spaceship Earth doing exactly that; while our leaders essentially ignore the perils to our society through the increasing disparities dividing our citizens.

Even our military, which requires a strong and rigid command structure to complete missions, is aware that it must require equality in the training, equipping and supporting of our troops. Soldiers in the field, including officers, all eat the same food, carry the same weapons and ammunition, are covered in the same body armor and other equipment, receive the same medical care for wounds. Training millions of men and women over the past decades to operate with an equality of access to goods and services does not bode well for the purpose of asking those same soldiers to defend and preserve a society that is pursuing extreme wealth disparity in every part of our society and economy, while shipping their civilian jobs overseas. Though there is disparity and discrimination in the military of higher pay and privilege for officers, this is a sore spot with many enlisted soldiers that engenders the same resentment toward officers that is experienced by the poor and middle class toward the rich, since everyone in a war zone, military and civilian, shares the equality of the threat of loosing life or limb. The failure of our society will certainly put all of us in a civil war zone in which our military structure will not be able to act to support security of wealth for some at the expense of poverty or death for others.

Our society is operating in such a convoluted manner that we are terrified of unemployment. Similar to multiple industrial revolutions in the past two hundred years (steam, telegraph, telephone, electricity, assembly lines, and satellite communications) the present digital revolution of personal computers, cell phones, internet, and robotics has increased our worker productivity a tremendous amount in the past 25 years. What we have not done in this digital revolution, to match social changes made in the previous technical advances, is to shorten the work day or work week to create more jobs. Industries were operating on 12-hour days and 6-day weeks 150 years ago; by 100 years ago this had shortened to 10-hour days and 5-day weeks; and during the great depression the work week was further shortened to 8-hour days while maintaining a 5-day work week to share the required amount of production for society amongst all of the available workers. We now need fewer people to produce all that we consume, which is a good thing; actually a very good thing; because our standard of living can only rise when we increase our productivity, which follows from more goods and services being produced with fewer hours of labor, freeing workers to be available to continually develop and make additional products that serve society and continually elevate our standard of living. We just need to share the workload to produce all that we consume without lowering the compensation for a workweek or creating a need for welfare and more unemployment compensation. Considering that our society is nearly active 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, we should make a work week no more than 35-hours; and have many businesses offer many employees a work week consisting of three 10-hour days and one 5-hour day allowing two employees to cover one 10-hour shift over a seven-day week.

Unemployment is rising in the United States, while it is falling in many other countries; US corporations are exporting high paying production jobs overseas, to lower wage costs and thereby increase profits. As long as the customer base for their products is worldwide they have no reason to preserve jobs in the US. Our banking system and corporate bond market, stock market, etc. all encourage businesses to locate production where the wage expense is lowest; China, India, soon any poorer nation. They have not discovered that as we lower our production and export, we are forced to lower our consumption and import, and loose the ability to pay the increasing debt of our borrowing for unearned consumption privileges; the credit that is being extended at this time to fund both private consumption and all levels of government consumption does not have a sufficient income base to draw on to ever pay our increasing debts; we are past the tipping point that would allow us to reduce our public debt; now we will continuously cut social services and maintenance of our infra-structure until we sink into third world status amid deadly social chaos.

At this writing (January 2011) the Federal Reserve Banks are pursuing a program to pump liquidity (spendable dollars) into our economy, hoping to cause economic expansion, and thereby increased employment and consumption; a reverse of direction after a decade of encouraging the exporting of jobs to foreign countries. The Federal Reserve Banks have lowered interest rates to near zero and still businesses are not borrowing or expanding. Wealth in our society arises from profits on sales of goods and services, and the profit of interest acquired on investments and savings. Whether it be individuals or corporations, money is not put at risk if there is no return; and since the Federal Reserve Banks have dropped interest rates to essentially zero, while promoting inflation, it is actually working against the savings of individuals and corporations such that the devaluing of the dollar devalues all savings, causing individuals and businesses to reduce their consumption and causing businesses to reduce their overhead (usually employees) to make up for the lost value of their savings and profits. The Federal Reserve Banks need to raise interest rates, which is the cause of much of the endemic annual inflation they seek anyway, so that businesses will use their savings to expand production, or loan their savings through banks, for the profit of interest income, to the business expanding marketplace. There is always unlimited demand to expand our consumption, but when businesses and individuals see their savings stagnating, along with the prospect of those savings being devalued by the gross devaluing of the dollar, they will reduce their consumption to preserve the longevity of that declining wealth.

Tax credits to encourage businesses to hire more people is the long road to increasing consumption and thereby production. Such tax credits should go toward promoting increased consumption by the middle class through increased wage wealth for the middle class and toward a real interest profit on savings. The Federal Reserve Banks should be using their printing press to support higher interest for small savers while subsidizing lower interest for borrowers; both for domestic manufacturing and retail consumption. The Federal Reserve Banks cannot create wealth and they cannot create jobs; they can only slow the loss of domestic jobs by lowering real wages through inflation, which facilitates the transfer of wealth (through debt) from those descending into poverty, to the already rich; a situation that can only be economically destructive of the producing class.

In our economy, banks have long since taken control of the flow of the majority of our productive wealth, directing its use by individuals and businesses to maximize the portion they charge to pay their expenses and profits. If the economy falters and productive wealth ceases to flow at a profitable level, then some banks must fail; and others must use their own reserves, profits, or wealth of their stockholders to be able to lower interest rates to attract more borrowers, while paying higher interest rates to depositors to increase capital and lend even more to businesses, thus expanding the productive economy. But because our banking system got themselves into such bad shape by supporting a real estate bubble; such that when it burst there were not sufficient reserves to equal the losses; the economy tanked; the flow of wealth shrank, both from government and business; leaving a scenario where many banks must fail. But since banks (private corporations) control the creation, circulation, and value of the dollar, they simply created an artificial flow of dollars through themselves; made it look like they were borrowing from taxpayers, while those same taxpayers were running a government deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and personal losses of equity in the trillions of dollars. Wealth is derived from debt and the wealth that has revived the banks in the middle of the worst recession in eighty years came from public debt; it did not come from the anemic activity of our economy.

Our house is not only divided, the divisions are deepening. The division between poverty and wealth, between debtors and debt holders, between those who need medical care and cannot afford it and those that can afford medical care even if they do not need it, between those that can afford higher education and those that cannot, between those that cannot find sustainable employment and those whose wealth allows them to never need to be productive, are all increasing and thereby leading to social conflict. Our population is not docile and will not accept the complete destruction of the middle class, or a society where the majority live in poverty so that a few can revel in wealth.

In early 2008 the real estate market was operating as if nothing was wrong long after its eventual meltdown was certain. Those that were complicit in the economic carnage (owners and operators of the banks) were preserved at public expense. What the bankers and politicians do not seem to realize is that the damage is still being assessed, the social bleeding is still occurring, and like the Titanic, which was doomed in a few seconds, but took hours to sink, we may have no future but to sink into an economic abyss, because we cannot yet fully measure the outcome of our past actions. The continuing philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street, that all is fine until it is shown to be not fine; is not a valid philosophy; all is not fine much earlier than it is discovered to be not fine. After all, the increasing debt of cities, counties, and states; increasing business and private debt; increasing student and unfunded pension debt; increasing federal debt; all comes from surplus wealth; and ultimately all of the debt is not securitized by anything that will maintain a certain and stable value. Increasing debt is increasing doom, spawned by increasing wealth gleaned from increasing poverty; they are two sides of the same coin and cannot be separated. Not to worry though, through the ignorance, conniving, and miss-guided agendas of our politicians we will eventually only have the option to live with Zhivago in a real wood or brick house, not divided by wealth, but shared for our most basic needs; and we will all be unwealthy until we discover how to establish real social equality and responsibility.

The thought of having to flip a house 24 hours per day may sound exhausting. In fact, if you had to stay up for 24 hours trying to sell your house, you would be exhausted! Lucky for you, there are several house flipping tips to learn how to be successful at flipping houses, and they won't cost you a wink of your beauty sleep. We'll discuss one of those ways in this article: flyers.

The flyer can be traced back to the 16th century when color lithographs came to life on posters. It has been working successfully ever since. Can you believe, however, that some people still don't use them effectively? Whether you are an agent, home seller, house flipper, or fixer upper investor, flyers are effective ammunition for you to use from your marketing war chest.

The basic flyer should consist of two items: house information and seller contact information. With these two items listed, you are able to sell your house at 6pm, or 6am, or anytime in between.

Imagine a jogger from the next neighborhood over is going for an early morning sweat-a-thon. He decides to go through your neighborhood (which has a better elementary school district than his) and sees your gorgeous home, beautifully displayed with its new shutters, new paint, and expertly manicured lawn. He sees a for sale sign in the front, but alas, doesn't have a cell phone in tow. Even if he did, he wouldn't want to call you or your agent at 6:15am during his workout. What does he do? He keeps jogging OR he snags a flyer out of the display box, unevenly folds it into a manageable size, puts it in the pocket of his sweat pants, and continues on jogging.

Before your alarm even considers waking you up in the morning, you've generated a solid lead for the sale of your home. Even if you miss your alarm, and sleep until 10am, you have achieved your goal of getting an inquiry on your house. All this from the comfort of your King Sized bed.

Now, the minimum contact information you should have on your flyer is the address of the home (yes, people usually look at more than one home at a time), and your contact information (phone number and email address). Another good idea would be to have a website for the house, which will give the future buyer the opportunity to take a tour of your home before calling or emailing you.

Additional ideas include having the price, school districts, number of bedrooms, number of baths and approximate square footage of the home. This allows the flyer to answer the barrage of questions that a future buyer is likely to have for you. Better they get it off the flyer than by asking you the same 10 questions over and over again.

There is even a group in my town that uses flyers to sell other houses. They put all of the houses they have on the back of the flyer: one of the best house flip tips I've seen lately.

The exact strategy you take with your flyer is not as important as making sure you always making sure you have a flyer available. Don't be one of the hundreds of agents and sellers that leaves the flyer box empty after the first 3 days on the market. People actually do take the flyers, and that is a good thing. Keep the flyer box filled with flyers. Be sure to at least get the basics on the flyer, and you will be able to sell your house 24 hours per day. You don't want to miss that early morning jogger!

Your house is most likely one of the biggest investment you might be having right now. Taking time to do research and choose the best painter for your house is very important. When it comes to painting there are many options starting from individuals to companies. It is obvious that once you want to hire a professional painter the most important thing is to get the best person for the job. In this article you will find ways on how to get the best person or company to paint your house for it to have a look that you like.

First is to ask around - If you see a house that is freshly painted and you like the look, be polite and ask the owner who or which company did the job. Sometimes the best form of advertisement is through word of mouth. Your friends, neighbors and even relatives can recommend for you somebody who they know can do a good painting job.

Sometimes you will see a painting advertisement in the backyard which is a good indication that the painter must have done a good job for the owner to allow any form of advertising. Successful mouth to mouth advertisement doesn't happen unless the painter or the company did an exceptional job. This means that you will learn more about a painter from past clients. One disgruntled past client may not be enough but if you hear same complaints from everyone then it will be time to stay clear.

If possible always ask for references - this is slightly different from asking around (neighbors, friends and relatives). This involves speaking directly to the contractor and asking her any references for past jobs. If She cannot give you a list of any references it is time to strike off the contractor from your list. Always allow a minimum of three references and make sure you follow through all the three references to confirm claims.

Check out their website -Every reputable painter or contractor must have a website and it should be the first place to drop and check what kind of services and reviews they have from past clients. Their site if professional should generally tell you the kinds of services they offer and at what rates. Their website will also tell you on how to contact them, their field of expertise and most importantly the quality of customer service.

When you choose a painter for your home, you want to be sure that it will be treated as the prized investment that it is. The following is a list of the Top 5 Common Mistakes made when choosing a painter for your home:

1. Not getting a detailed quote Many painters operate on a 'time and materials' basis, but you want to steer well away from this. Painting is one of the few home improvements that can be accurately estimated ahead of time, and having a detailed, written quote will help save you headache and conflict later.

2. Hiring the jack-of-all-trades

While your local 'do-it-all' guy may seem like he can do everything, painting requires a special commitment to detail that may not be there. This is one of the reasons you will want to choose someone who runs a business focused 100% on painting: you want an expert in his field to paint your home, not someone who can also tile bathrooms and knit afghans. When painting your Harpswell home, this is particularly true; your painter should be committed to hand-painted craftsmanship, and be able to deliver his promises.

3. Hiring the biggest company

You've heard their radio ads; you've seen their signs; you know they spend big money on marketing; but can they actually paint?? The problem with hiring large painting companies is that you become "just another number", as they can afford to lose a few unhappy customers. You also may not receive the personalized service and experience that a local company can offer. Often these larger organizations are only focused on the bottom line, meaning they may hire inexperienced (read: cheap) labourers, use lower-quality paints, or not go the extra mile to ensure you are satisfied.

4. Working with 'under the table' or 'cash only' companies

While hiring a 'man with a brush' may save you money in the short-term, the long-term risks quickly outweigh any potential savings. A few examples: if your painter does not have liability insurance, you will be hard-pressed to receive any compensation if he drops a ladder on your new truck, breaks a window, or spills paint on your living room carpet. Cash companies may not be lead-safe certified, putting you and your family at significant risk of lead-poisoning. Don't risk it! Ask to see your painter's proof of liability insurance and his up-to-date Lead Certification

5. Choosing a company based on price rather than personality

In general, painting contractor's will provide quotes within 10% of each other. Because this is not a significant margin, you would be well-served to choose your painting contractor based on the individuals you will be dealing with instead. Call your local painting company, have them come out to you and provide you with a detailed written quote, and then make your decision based on the overall experience that they can provide. Be sure your contractor can communicate clearly, and is happy to answer any questions you may have. A little bit of prep work ahead of time can save you hours of headache later!

The author has worked with over 15 different painting contractors, and has experienced first-hand the pain of choosing the wrong contractor. After making more mistakes than she cares to admits, the author is now able to share her learning with anyone looking to have their house painted in the future.

If you have a property that is vacant or unoccupied for an extended period of time, you need someone to take care of it. There are four major groups of homes that would fall into this category:

- Snowbird homes that are seasonally unoccupied
- Properties For Sale
- Inherited homes or home in probate
- Houses where the owner has moved to an assisted living facility or nursing home.

In each of these cases, a valuable asset is sitting without care. Leaks, bugs, mold, mildew, sewer gas, and other disastrous consequences can cost you thousands of dollars and eat away at the value of the property. Many owners realize there is only one answer- getting someone to watch the house. Unfortunately, many of those seeking competent, professional services will confuse the two most commonly used phrases: home watch and house sitter.

A house sitter has evolved to mean someone who stays in the house in your absence. They are not really watching anything, they are merely living in the property much the same as you would. They come and go just as you would. They may or may not run appliances, check for leaks, change filters, and other tasks you would do as part of routine home maintenance. Many house sitters do not own their own homes and are ill-suited to do anything other than give your home a 'lived-in' appearance. If all you want is someone in residence, this may be your option. But you may forfeit your rights to occupy the property in this arrangement since you sign a contract for a period of time. There are several services that offer pairing between house and sitters, but keep in mind you are giving your precious home and valuables to a stranger for long periods of time. The choice is yours.

A home watch service, on the other hand, is a business that assumes responsibility for the health and welfare of an empty property in your absence. This business does not arrange for people to live in the house, which means you can come and go as you please. Most property owners do not want strangers in their unoccupied home, and a house watch service caters to this requirement. They are licensed and insured for this trade, and have the tools and experience to identify and mitigate problems before they become a huge issue. You are far away, but their local knowledge and communication will give you peace of mind that there is someone on scene whose sole purpose is to monitor all the systems and the general condition of the house. Using extensive checklists, they spend their time on-site looking for possible trouble before it happens. Their focus is entirely on the property and your peace of mind, quite different from a house sitter.

No matter which choice fits your needs, make sure you understand the difference. If you want someone to live in your property while you are gone, you are looking for a house sitter. If, on the other hand, you prefer the home to remain unoccupied except when you want to use it, but want a professional to monitor the structure, grounds, and all the supporting systems, you want a home watch service.