A Little Help With The Home Owning, Please!!

It’s true that being a homeowner is not all about buying selling and arranging mortgages. Once those things are squared away and your mortgage payments are automatically being debited from your chequing account, the real work begins! There’s gutters and furnaces to worry about, carpet stains after pets, parties, children or all of the above. There’s appliances that decide to stop working on washday Mondays or right after Christmas dinner for 17 and shower drains that need snaking. Sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming and it’s good to remember that there is help out there! You probably already know a good plumber or carpet cleaner, but here’s a few unique services you may not have thought of to assist you with your home owning!

1) Bin Services – Need to do a dump run but don’t have a truck? With services like xxxxx you can either have a dumpster delivered to your driveway for as long as you need it or you can actually have workers come into your home and pluck whatever you need taken away right from where it sits. To save a bit of money, you can pile it all on your curb on a designated day and it will magically disappear by the time you are home from work. And don’t worry about the eco-friendliness – these companies sort your junk and recycle when possible.

310-Dump
Anything To The Dump
Dumpster Rentals

2) Pooper Scoopers – a friend of mine is a busy working mom. Her husband frequently works out of town and her kids are at that age where they have many interests outside of the home. They have a lovely dog who brings a world of joy to their family but cleaning his kennel became one of those chores that secured her ticket to Crazy Town. Enter POOOH Bsuters, the pooper scooper with angel wings. This service cost her a very reasonable $8 a week and not only do they clean the kennel but they bring her pup healthy treats, play with him and provide her with an informative newsletter every month with great pet tips and services. POOOH Busters is a Calgary based company but there are several services just them in Edmonton:

Doody Hunters
No Time For Poop
Acme Pooper Scoopers

3) CMHC’s Home Maintenance Schedule – I’ve made mention of this before but I do believe it bears mentioning again. This is golden stuff , folks. I mean, we all know what needs to be done in a general sense but there is something very satisfying about seeing it all laid out in a concise list so nothing is forgotten or overlooked. A regular schedule of seasonal maintenance can put a stop to the most common – and costly- problems before they occur.

4) House Sitters & Building Contractors – I haven’t had the need for these services my self but I stumbled upon them the other day and thought they sounded quite useful. The first is Canadian House Sitters.com ,a service that connects house sitters with those in need of the service. You can advertise to be as house sitter, say if your own home is being renovated or if you’d like to take and inexpensive vacation somewhere else in Canada. And if you’re the homeowner taking a trip, you could find a traveling retiree or a university student to watch your place, feed and exercise your pets and water your plants for much less than you’d expect.

The second site is HandyCanadian.com and it’s bi-line says it’s purpose is to “help Canadians connect with top rated contractors. The idea is that you describe your project online and get free competitive bids from local professionals with no obligation to hire. It is certainly disconcerting to attempt to pick someone out of the phonebook or from a Kijiji ad and this site appears to offer contractor reviews by it’s users, which at least helps to narrow the pack.

5) Groupon – Many of the above mentioned services pop up for a discount frequently on Groupon, making it more affordable to give these services a try. Make it even easier to keep track of deals in your area by using a site like onespout.com that brings you the best of over 50 daily deal sites – in one personalized email.