Living rural in the city is great – you can do it, too.

Category: Eco-Living (page 1 of 4)

When a plain house roof became a “green” metal roof

Soooooo… the shingles over my garage have been telling me for years that I need to get a new roof. When it became apparent just how scrappy they were becoming, I tried to add a downspout tube from the top egress to the garage eavestrough/downspout, so that at least the water would stay contained, but no dice; I needed a good crimp tool and cutter to make it fit. The new downspout pipe floated off the roof one rain, right onto the driveway. Bummer.

This wasn’t the first time I had to reshingle the roof; back when I bought the house, the seller’s notes stated the roof was due. I did it not the first spring, but the following. It was the biggest expense I’d ever paid at that point. I even had to spring an extra $20 (or maybe it was $40) for them to roll the little plastic leaf-exclusion nets over the eavestroughs (a rip-off, both the cursory labour needed and the devices, which the squirrels ripped down in less than a minute). But at least the roof was done, with 25-year shingles, which really means 20.

Exploring the idea of a green roof

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February’s Snowmageddon (and its removal)

I thought about writing this type of post ages ago, and then thought “no way ugh” and then last Sunday’s absolute deluge compelled me to write something. I was actually happy to have such a big storm, because the snow hasn’t been this deep in years.

The above two pics and the header might not be the last time we had snowbanks 3 feet deep (but they might). I kept these from a 2012 post I’ve since deleted, when I blurbed about a big storm. We must have had one more big-snow winter since then, but it really is that rare.

Here’s what this year’s storms (two in the space of a week) left on everybody’s doorstep:

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Fritted, decorated windows preventing bird crashes: Weird no more

I thought I’d already talked too much here about bird strike prevention, but I recently reviewed what I had, no, I haven’t, really. It’s show-and-tell time!

It’s especially time, because I’ve exhorted people to fix their windows for ages. You still don’t see it on regular homes, but sometimes you do on new construction, with the artistic appearance of large windows on buildings.

For a number of years now, shops and even bus shelters have had a printed wrap treatment. This is where a company applies a print-decorated, perforated material (paint or plastic) to the windows so that people see images and text when they look at the building. Inside, the printing dims the daytime glare while letting the light in, providing a fine screen through which to view the outdoors. This exact treatment also happens to be visible to birds and prevents bird strikes! YAY!

One reason every day homeowners – house and condo, whether duplex or triplex-style – haven’t yet taken the same step is because 1) they still don’t know about it, 2) it’s not common, 3) it takes a little effort, which means excuses get in the way, and 4) people [used to] fear looking “weird.”

"Window wallpaper" decals
Image source unknown, of a cat lounging at a decorated window

The thing is, people now know enough about the issue, and we see these decorative windows around enough, that they’ll approve of this weird thing you do. It’s not weird anymore!

Doing the thing: bird proofing ALL my windows

So now I’ll actually show you the results of these extra steps you need to take (and then your neighbour will take, and then the office building ought to to take, and all developers town councils need to take). Because I’m the weirdo who shows people what works (and says so, if it doesn’t).

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Ending my decade as an AirBnB host

In 2012 — around the same time as this blog got underway — I started being an AirBnB host.

Here I was at the time, a full-grown adult, having to have roommates to meet the housing expenses. And roommates in Montreal were seriously a crapshoot when the rents were still relatively cheap (it may be a little better, now that they’re not). The only adults who didn’t opt to live alone were those who couldn’t afford to live alone, or who wanted a ready-to-use place where responsibilities were assumed by the person living there. In both cases, you get either transient or difficult roommates. And as you’re not allowed to get first-and-last-month’s rent or a security deposit (I know, right? Seriously, a terrible law), you have no indemnification against the worst roommates. There’s your incentive to live alone.

Without a supporting culture that roommates are base-level responsible and considerate, over twenty years of cohabiting, I’ve had a lot of crappy roommates. I’m not talking of slightly different lifestyles and incompatible concepts of cleanliness. Those frustrations are fairly common. It’s more like, “Here’s are a situation in which you can maximize the chaos! you don’t owe anyone ANYthing!”

Roommates who did stuff like “borrow,” lose, and break things they didn’t replace or repair; who had friends mooching off the common space and supplies and utility bills; who ran up bills without paying them; who never did the housework; who left before their lease was up without sufficient notice or covering the rent; who left by installing a stranger [in my home!] who ended up skipping out anyway. And then there are some who made things impossible with their behaviour, so that they simply had to go. Holy mackerel, do I have stories! A bad rental/roommate culture will tend to proliferate those.

I really needed to stop having roommates without having to sell the house. I still had a significant mortgage, as well as all the other “rent is due” expenses (insurance, property taxes, utilities, etc.). The first mortgage I’d had was at 4.75%. The bank officer who set it up screwed me over by not setting up the line of credit as home-equity, so it was a consumer line of credit at 7%! (When you first get a mortgage, insist that you get a HELOC. If you leave it to later to convert it to a HELOC, the bank penalizes you by making you qualify all over again—and conditions may not be so favourable as when you first qualify.) So off to work I went, but also…

AirBnB to the rescue

After hearing about that last terrible roommate, a friend told me about AirBnB. I’d already been doing CouchSurfing, letting travellers stay here for a day or two as a pay-it-back for having done so myself. It was a lot of fun. Not perfect, because people are weird, but people are mostly good, especially short-term while travelling.

So AirBnB made perfect sense to me, to be able to have temporary guests over the portion of the year when people visit Montreal. This would offset the living expenses, and share the resources I was already using, and be a bit of a social boost. I had an extra room, even two extra rooms for whenever a family or trio of friends wanted to stay. And so that’s how I started.

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