Yes, you're right. It's awful. Please don't go there. Shorter waits for me.

Posted by: JAE at September 10, 2009 12:29 AM in response to Closing Bell: Pizza and the Mob

How can someone conjecture on the relationship between housing prices and unemployment? It's a bubble. That's like forecasting internet stock prices in 2000 by looking at gas prices.

Posted by: JAE at July 21, 2009 2:44 PM in response to Jonathan Miller: No Market Bottom Yet

You've certainly earned it. Hope you have great weather.

Posted by: JAE at May 21, 2009 4:17 PM in response to Closing Bell: Amalfi Coast, Here We Come

Is there a way to look at the pics on that Gowanus house? Corcoran covered it with that big sold sign.

Posted by: JAE at April 28, 2009 5:51 PM in response to Last Week's Biggest Sales

I hope you're not buying that 600K greenish house on that block with the slanted floors. I looked at that place and even the broker representing the house told me not to buy it.

Posted by: JAE at February 20, 2009 1:00 PM in response to Advice on Moving to Greenwood?

If you like condos, get a condo. Don't listen to other people. For the most part, Brownstoner folks just like places with history and character over new and shiny.

Posted by: JAE at January 15, 2009 1:27 PM in response to Bklyn-Friendly New Development?

I say get over the chemical thing and go with combat gel. Every three months i put a dab on magazine subscription cards, slide them under couches and dressers. Works like a charm.

Posted by: JAE at October 19, 2008 11:22 PM in response to i'm so sick of these roaches

Kyoto is amazing.

Posted by: JAE at October 14, 2008 2:00 PM in response to Streetlevel: We the Free on Smith Street

I have lived with large roaches(waterbugs) and mice for my five years in brooklyn. Not sure how to avoid moving into a place with them. I think even condos can have them. Being over a restaurant or near construction is bad. The poison gel in a tube you can buy anywhere works very well on roaches. Just refresh it every few months and it should kill any families or stop a newly arrived roach from starting one. Mice are trickier, they can be "trap shy". Meaning they know to stay away from the snap traps. Glue traps work but are seriously cruel. i only use them if i know i will immediately see them in it and kill them quickly. Plug any holes with steel wool and don't leave food out(obviously). You may not want to hear this, but the longer you live with them, the less it startles you or creeps you out.

Posted by: JAE at October 8, 2008 12:32 PM in response to Clean apt recommendation in Prospect Heights/Crown Heights

Hello all. I just discovered this site today, when I did a search for how to get rid of roaches living/breeding... (gross!) in my laptop. I live in Phoenix, but plan to move back to Maine by August. We will be flying, and leaving almost everything behind... EXCEPT my laptop, of course. I don't want to move any roaches with us!
I've lived in an Apt. here for about 4 years. About 1-1/2 years ago, a neighbor on one side of me abandoned her apt., and even left two dogs there to live with their own feces, etc., until I called for help for the dogs, when it seemed they might have been left there alone. Then I got a look at the place, and it was a total filthy disaster. But we still had few if any roaches. It was when the managers cleaned that apt. ... then all of their roaches came over here. TWO kinds, even!!!
During that time, I had an overnight caretaker for my son, who has a disabillity. So I had a pair of eyes to watch and report to me in the morning what was going on with the roaches at night, while I was sleeping. She first started working for us just about the time the neighbors left. She saw, when she first arrived, that we had hardly any roaches. She witnessed with me, how (after the discovery of the abandoned dogs/apt.,) we quickly had more and more roaches within a few days. Then after the apt. was cleaned, WOW... our apt. was infested! So I searched and searched via the internet, and found a recipe for "Heloise's Famous Roach Paste". It is an attractant (much like "Combat" and other such poisons, they eat, carry back to their nests, and then they are all supposed to die.)
So, I mixed up a batch of this boric acid-based stuff, and followed the directions in the recipe: "Place a glob of this paste everywhere you see roaches". So I did. At this time, roaches came out at night, in the kitchen, bathroom and living room; but there were none in either of the bedrooms - where I keep and use my laptop. I put globs of this stuff under the kitchen table, around the stove, refrigerator, around where the garbage container is, behind the couches, between the ceiling and top of the wall in the LR, where it seemed they were nesting... EVERWHERE I had seen them. It didn't occur to me at the time that, as an attractant first, then a killer, they would seem to get much worse before they started to diminish. I had just imagined them eating the stuff and dying - away from me, with their relatives, away somewhere hidden, in their nests - never to be seen again. Well, that is not exactly what happened. Within a day or so after I globbed this stuff all over the place, they all came OUT of their comfy nests, to get to the stuff... I really put a lot of it out - and even in a few places I just didn't want to see them EVER!!! For a good week or two they came out in droves to dine on the buffet I'd conveniently laid out for them. The kitchen and LR floors crawled with them at night... (my poor dear caretaker!)
Finally they started to become more and more sparse, and every day we witnessed fewer and fewer of them crawling around, and more and more dead/dying ones.
For several months, I didn't see many at all. I went to my neighbors' (on the other side) about 6 months ago. Her teenage son was making ramin noodles. Roaches were crawling up and down the walls around the stove, and everywhere I looked. It was around dusk, and rather dim. ...
The creepy little freakers are back again, with a vengence. My place is not dirty, but has become a lot more cluttered since back when my story started, about 1-1/2 years ago. It turns out, they don't just love to eat and drink, but simply LIVE among clutter. I have many books and many cluttered paper in my room. I keep seeing babies coming out of my computer... day and night. I am terrified to lay out any trap/bait again, because I cannot stand the idea of them coming out of their hiding places in my BEDROOM, on my bed, walls, etc., while I'm sleeping... even if this would only be short-term, until they started dying. Luckily, I will be moving in a couple of months, but I DO NOT want to bring them with me. I read once about puting a laptop in the freezer to kill them, but I forgot the details, and it doesn't seem to be posted anymore. Does anyone know how FOR SURE to get them out of all the tiny little spaces in my laptop?
Good luck to all who find themselves in this horrific situation.

Posted by: picklesnbeer at May 24, 2009 4:31 PM in response to i'm so sick of these roaches

Don't know, but sounds horrible. Our roach problem subsided somewhat when we got a new upstairs neighbor who lets in the exterminator and now it's not so bad. Hope you live happily roach free in Maine.

Posted by: mopar at May 25, 2009 11:44 PM in response to i'm so sick of these roaches