HomeKeepr Blog

Several of the biggest fire hazards in your home all live in your kitchen. The oven, the stovetop, your toaster… when you think of all of the heat sources your kitchen contains, it’s almost a wonder that it doesn’t burst into flames on the regular. Joking aside, the kitchen is usually a pretty safe place so long as you keep an eye on things. That doesn’t mean that you should ignore fire safety rules when in the kitchen, of course - knowing how to handle a kitchen fire can mean the difference between a scare and a tragedy.

There are few things that homeowners dread more than mold in the house. You’ve likely heard horror stories about people living with mold infestations that made them seriously ill. Is this just hype, or is there a real danger to having mold in your home? More importantly, what can you do if you find mold growing somewhere in the house?

If you own a rental property, you know how important it is to have the right tenant. Good renters will take care of the property as though it were their own, leaving it as close to how they moved in as possible. Bad renters, on the other hand, make it obvious that they don’t care, since it’s not actually their house; it can take a significant amount of time and money to get your property back to rentable condition after they move out. Wouldn’t it be great if you could only rent to the first group and avoid the second group entirely?

Whether you’re hanging a picture or mounting a television, anything that goes on your wall needs something to anchor it in place. If there’s a stud in the wall that you can attach it to then you’re fine; you’ve got well-supported wood to drive a screw into which will hold whatever you’re mounting in place. If you can’t find a stud where you need one, though, you could have a problem. That’s where drywall anchors come in.

When the next bowl of chili explodes all over the inside of the microwave or you finally give in to the inch thick layer of pizza burn off inside your oven, this page of advice for cleaning household appliances will be right here waiting for you.

Awww, springtime. It’s a great time to go through the closets and find anything you’re not using. But what do you do with all that junk that’s no longer in your trunk? For lots of homeowners, the choice is clear: it’s garage sale time. Or it’s yard sale time. A garage is not a prerequisite for the sale part.

One of the best parts of owning your own home is that you can do pretty much whatever you want when it comes to hanging things on the wall. No landlord will charge you $5 per hole you poke through the sheetrock. It’s kind of nice. You can let your creative side have a heyday with a hammer and a bunch of nails.

It’s officially spring again, everybody and their great aunt Erma are abuzz with cleaning and organizing advice. We’re not sheep at HomeKeepr, but we figured it was important to throw our voice into the ether, just in case you needed a different perspective. After all, we’re a little less Good Housekeeping and a little more Family Handyman.

Spring is here and that means it’s time to… well, it’s time to appeal your property taxes. Not everyone needs to do this, obviously, but there are plenty of people who should. Do you feel like your most recent tax assessment was pretty high? Alternatively, is your tax record (you can usually find these online through your county assessor's office) stuffed with wrong information that could be affecting your tax bill?