Maintenance expenses of the house

This last weekend I had a leak in my other house and I had to rush to check it out myself. Thankfully I was able to find my handyman in time and he told me that it was not that of a big deal after checking where the leak was coming from and I was relieved that it was not a major expense; otherwise it would have been bad. You know that my house is almost 100 years or so old and constant maintenance is the key to keep it up to shape. And that is what I want to state in this article. Maintaining a house where you live is equally hard but at least you are living in it and you can delay it as much as possible because the only people complaining about the problem is you and your family. If you can do without it for a while, you try to do it until it becomes an emergency and you don’t have any choice. But if you have a rental property, then you are unable to ignore even minor inconveniences since you are getting paid by your tenants to live there and they have every right to demand that things should be fixed on time. If you are lucky enough, they would not bother you too much and only major events will trigger some urgent phone call to you but there may be some tenants who might call you often. Finding a good and what I call non bother able tenant is the key to having a rental property. Your tenant can be a key to whether you make some money on your property or just bleed cash till you sell the house in disgust.

The crazy drought in the Western United States-2

The states where people settled were built for a lot fewer population then they have now. Sun is nice to have but if there is no rain for a long period of time, where is the water they are going to bring from. The more people move there for the sun and low taxes, the more pressure will be on the water supply and all the lush lawns and swimming pools that they enjoy will have to be packed in. People have to cut back on gardening and washing cars and taking long showers because that is the new reality in the Western States. You know without water, life does not exist and there needs to be a serious discussion about how to utilize this finite source not only in the U.S. but all around the world. But since I am talking about the U.S., I will stick to what I am talking about here. Water has been taken for granted in the Western U.S. for a long time now but since the frequency of droughts are occurring increasingly, the whole agricultural industry in California and the relentless increase in population and housing industry is either have be checked or strict conservation measures with heavy penalties should be in place so that everybody has a fighting chance for getting their water. You can see the long term solutions elsewhere on my blog but the way of the west have to be changed drastically if they want to enjoy their lifestyle and this will involve how much water they will and can use.

The crazy drought in the Western United States

I have written about the droughts that have been happening in the U.S. for a long time and this time the drought that is happening in the Western United States have been particularly scary. And this is the third year they are enduring it and not only in California but also Nevada and New Mexico have not gotten enough rain. In California, the snow that they so much rely upon in the northern parts of the country have been 12 percent (according to some estimates) of the normal snow that they are getting and in some places they have not even gotten any rain for more than a month. Although they are used to this drought conditions which happens once in a while but now it is becoming more frequent and they are not sure how they can handle this drought which is now affecting millions of people in several states. I have been to California, specifically Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim, Santa Monica and San Francisco and it is indeed a beautiful state with beaches and good weather, but to move there permanently is not in my any agenda. The main problem is the drought. I know people will say that it can happen at any time and at any place and I have endured it on the East Coast too but we eventually get the rain or snow somehow and people are leaving the northeast to go to southern states where the sun is plenty and land is plenty and taxes are low but the strain on water supply is no one talking about.

The violence in Nigeria

As if there is not enough violence in the world, we have this ongoing violence in Nigeria for a long time now. As you know Nigeria is the largest country in Africa with the second biggest economy due to oil production. But its population has a toxic mix of several ethnic communities and also equally divided into Muslim and Christian religions. And because of this, there has always been violence sometimes on a grand scale but mostly on a smaller one. But with the introduction of an extremist group called "Boko Haram" roughly translated into western education is forbidden, the violence has reached to high levels. It has attacked not only government forces but people within its own Muslim religion whom they think are not "Islamists enough" (whatever that means) and despite all the counter offensive against them by government forces, they keep on hitting back on soft targets like schools or villages not entirely secured. Although this extremist group thankfully have not extended their scope and violence beyond Nigeria and there are no reports out there suggesting that they have swear their allegiance to Al-Qaeda. But this can quickly change as Al-Qaeda seeks a foothold in the African Largest country and the Nigerian extremist group gaining international exposure through their allegiance to Al-Qaeda. My father was offered long time ago to head a bank branch in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, but I told him to reject that transfer since I had read already about the violence happening there. Not to put a country in a negative light but the truth is violence keeps on rising in that country and unless the government reigns in the violence, it will just escalate and become internationalized.