Habitat for Humanity of Summit County will be opening up a new store at 1020 Canton Road in Springfield which is set to open in mid-November. THe store will sell gently used building materials, appliances, and household items and will benefit everyone in the community including contractors, businesses, landlords, and do-it-yourslefers. Consumers save an average of 50-90% off retail prices! Items can also be donated and used as a tax deduction. We love that proceeds go to a good cause and that items are saved from landfills.

Or are we already there?

According to a recent article on the Washington Times website, “This year’s housing bust is shaping up to be one of historic proportions. Sales and construction have sunk to levels not seen since the 1990 savings and loan crisis, while foreclosures and price drops are the largest since the Great Depression — and expected to get worse next year.” The article predicts millions more foreclosures and over one trillion dollars (yes trillion) in mortgages reset within the next two years. So what caused this dilemma? “John Stumpf, president of Wells Fargo & Co., the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender and a survivor of the housing busts of the 20th century, blames today’s crisis on unscrupulous lending practices, which joined in a toxic mix with outright greed and extraordinarily low interest rates to send house prices soaring 90 percent between 2000 and 2006. When the bubble burst, house prices collapsed by 5 percent to 20 percent in cities nationwide.”

Greed definitely played a huge role in the extreme number of foreclosures. Rachel saw this first hand when she worked for years at a mortgage company and knew of other offices whose brokers would intentionally sell adjustable rate mortgages so that borrowers would have to refinance a few years down the road. That way the broker could charge them more fees. Can we say predatory lending? Her office did the right thing and locked homeowners into fixed rates at historic lows that they could afford. If only more lenders did the right thing.

Lenders are now giving their lending practices a makeover by re-popularizing the 30 year fixed loan. You can read more about the crooked lending process and the governments role in this economic decline in this article, part one of the Washington Time’s series.

Benjamin Moore introduced a new interior paint line in 2007 called Aura. The promise is truer colors with a washable finish. Touch-ups blend invisibly into the existing paint because of ColorLock technology, which embeds the pigments. The surface resists water, stains, and fading. The paint is low VOC and quick drying. The price is about $54.95 a gallon. An exterior version may become available within the next year.

Yesterday we told you about the great chalk product, the WallMarker. Well here is another great use for chalk. Putting a few pieces of chalk in cheesecloth and storing it with your silver will slow the tarnishing. Bet you wish you would have known that before you stored your fine china and silver last year! Try this trick this year and then next year when pull out the good stuff you will spend less time polishing silver and more time enjoying the season.

WallMarker, an arrow shaped piece of chalk, makes picture hanging easier. How? The adhesive side sticks to the back of the frame. You then press the picture against the wall where it will be hung, and wall-ah! You have a chalk mark pointing to where you will hammer in the nail or hook.

WallMarkers are reusable and come in a pack of two, a blue for light walls and a yellow for darker walls. The price is right at just $2.99 plus a small amount of shipping and handling. Order them here, I did!

“In the United States, 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees go to producing plastic and paper bags each year.”

Time to vent! I refuse to throw away plastic bags and I just won’t use paper grocery bags. Now I have bags of bags of bags, especially during this shopping season. The collection is getting out of control but there is an answer! No, I am not going to break down and throw them in the trash. (Speaking of break down, it takes plastic bags as much as 1,000 years to break down in landfill and 450 in water.) I plan on taking my bags to a local recycling bin (as seen in many Medina, OH parking lots) or to the local Giant Eagle grocery store which also has a bag-recycling bin. I will also stash a folded-up fabric shopping bag in my purse. Maybe this will relieve me from the funny looks I get when I reuse or refuse a bag at the store! 

Furthermore, I will now give preference to retailers that sell reusable shopping bags, like Giant Eagle. When I am not at a green store, I tend to apologize to clerks about my proactiveness, but why should I? I think I am hip and ahead of the crowd, kind of like the city of San Francisco who recently banned plastic grocery bags. You can read more about that in this past post by Sharon.

My friend’s think I’m crazy, but I know I am just more educated and aware about the issue. Now you are too.

More facts on plastic bags and their unfriendly impact on the earth:

• Plastic bags don’t biodegrade because their components do not biodegrade (especially oil). They actually break down into smaller toxic bits which become consumable contaminants for animals, even humans.
• Other than oil, plastic bags contain metals like chromium and copper. Exposure leads to diseases.
• Oil is expensive! Can avoiding plastic bags lower gas prices? Yes, if more people change their ways! 12 million barrels of oil, remember?
• My fave environmentally friendly, earth-loving, life-changing website ever - IdealBite - is chock full of facts like the one at the beginning of this article.