Sleazy Home Improvement

Now that spring and warm weather are well underway (FINALLY!), it's officially time to pay men in tool belts exhorbitant sums of money to do the things you said you'd do as soon as you bought your house, you know, a few years back. If you're us, that means a (partial) new roof, gutters, and some yard work. And maybe we'll finally finish up the painting we started last year, and hang some art on our sad, sad walls.

But hey, I don't want to go overboard just yet. Baby steps, people! I mean, we really only painted in the first place because there was a sale at Home Depot on paint; and because we had to paint the baby's room something other than bright purple (unlike the previous homeowners, we do NOT believe that bright purple is an ideal choice for a little boy's room, unless you're going for a Purple Unicorns Rule theme or something...)

I digress. If you're wide-eyed innocents like Sean and I, you could easily fall prey to Unethical Home Improvement Guys. These men prowl your neighborhood in their enormous Ford F-7659's, twirling their Simon Legree mustaches and giggling evilly at the many schemes they have to seperate you and your hard-earned cash. Check out some of Bankrate.com's suggestions as to what you should look out for!

I was especially interested in the claim that duct cleaning is an unnecessary scam, since we were thinking of having our ducts cleaned this spring. (Whether or not that's a euphemism I'll leave up to you, dear reader. I'm too busy CLEANING MY OWN DUCTS to explore this further.)