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Bedbugs and traveling responsibly

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:52:33 -0800

How to responsibly stay at a hotel for a night when I think my home has bedbugs? So, I'm going to visit family this weekend. I don't want to stay with them because I have gotten a few suspicious itchy bumps recently, picked up the mattress and am sure I saw a bedbug. I'm living in NYC in an area where many of the buildings have recently had problems with the bugs (though I'm under the impression most or all of NYC has problems with them right now). I'm not staying at a hotel to avoid my own home or anything like that. I just don't want my lovely family to have to go through what it sounds like can be an agonizing process of extermination.

I want to spare my family. So, I'm planning to stay at a hotel.

I also don't want hapless travelers after me to get bedbugs if I happen to bring one or two along for the ride, and I don't want the hotel to have to deal with the bedbugs either. Family comes first for me, but I want to be responsible to others as well.

1) What can I do myself to minimize the chance of spreading bedbugs to the hotel?

2) Should I notify hotel management? How, and when?

I wouldn't want the hotel somehow suing me for bringing bedbugs down upon them, should they get one from my luggage. I'm going to Syracuse, if it matters, and I don't know how understanding a hotel there would be since I don't know if they are as pervasive a problem up there as down here. It will probably be a place like a Hampton Inn or Fairfield, if how upscale the place is might affect how they will react or how I should broach the topic. I want to believe that I have a minor infestation and that I killed any bugs I did have yesterday when I sprayed the hell out of my mattress, frame, and moldings, but I also know that bedbug sufferers sometimes are in denial about it, so I realize that while I don't want to think I could bring bedbugs with me, I might. Hence the concern about being responsible about it and doing the right thing, while having the necessity stay somewhere upstate for a night.

Thanks for any advice.

Motar Dust on my neighbor's house

retro88 — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:40:55 -0800

My chimney was in need of repair so i am having part of it re-built/ new caps and re-tuck pointed. The contractors created a lot of dust grinding out the old motor joints. Some of the dust landed on our neighbor's house and she is complaining about the damage it has caused to her in progress paint job. We are working on a solution, but who is responsible for this? What legal responsibility do i have if she discovers permanent damage in the future? Would the contractors be held responsible after I have paid them? Here is the re-cap:
-Neighbor is painting a newly sided house herself. It is currently partly primed and partly unfinished wood.
-day 1: contractor talks to neighbor about potential dust problem. Talked about postponing work for a month, but neighbor thinks dust on finished paint job would be worse. Both contractor and neighbor put up tarps around work area and on side of house to prevent any problems.
-day 2: Dust generation is more than neighbor expected and ends up getting on house anyway. Contractor works out a solution to pay to pressure wash neighbor’s house to remove dust. Also complaining about good painting days lost due to dust.
-day 3: pressure washer shows up, neighbor "did not see eye to eye" with pressure washer so sent him away. neighbor felt pressure washer did not have an adequate solution to cleaning unfinished wood. I talked with neighbor and she is currently trying to find a different pressure washer that can do the job.

This is where i stand right now. I am confident that we can come to a solution. (I don't think it would be hard to clean mortar dust off a house) and the contractor currently is ok with paying for the solution. I am worried that neighbor might want reimbursement for the partial paint job, or claim there is permanent damage. What can i do more than talking with the neighbor to prevent any legal responsibility in the future? I haven't paid the contractor yet, should i wait till the problem is resolved before I do?

Beginning investor, seeking basic opinions and links for more research & self-teaching!

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:20:06 -0800

Total beginner to investing and finance, researching how to start investing maybe $2K each year, mostly in socially responsible mutual funds -- and how a young, healthy person should balance retirement investment with other kinds of investments. (I'm coming from a low-income background, so I haven't watched people invest or had people talk to me about it -- I'm very open to criticism if you see me missing important points.)

Quick background: U.S. citizen, female, almost 30, no medical issues at all (yet) and hoping to live 50+ more years. No existing investments now, and hopefully never a 401K (editorial/creative freelancer and totally in love with my work -- so I'm saving for "old age / medical care" rather than "sudden end of salary"). I have a simple standard of living (for an American) and want to live simply my whole life. I don't want kids. I have an emergency-fund in an account that earns close to 5% interest but is totally liquid. Other than that I have no savings or assets to speak of, but I'm debt-free. I'm hoping to spare maybe 2K/year, from now on, to invest.

So far, my research suggests I should have a Roth IRA. I want most of my Roth contributions to go in a socially responsible mutual fund (let's accept for this thread that I've done enough research to decide that "responsible" is more important to me than "highest interest regardless of sources"... if you're interested in debates on responsible investing, see here and here; chart of responsible funds and their relative performance here). So I'll need an account in a brokerage where I can do everything by myself online (possibly Scottrade or Ameritrade -- opinions?).

Once I have this account, can I also just buy individual stocks from any companies I like? Will it be clear in my account how to designate each new contribution as either part of my Roth IRA or part of a shorter-term investment? And actually, is it important to balance my Roth contributions with other shorter-term investments, or should all my $$ go into my Roth (since I could withdraw my original contributions from it in an emergency)? For stocks, are there databases where you can search stocks by, say, a combo such as industry type + price for one share + different performance indexes? Maybe even with flags (either self-applied or third-party) for "green"/"responsible"/etc.?

Thanks for any and all answers and/or suggestions re. where I should go to teach myself more!

Socially Responsible Investing?

pissfactory — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:33:49 -0800

Tips or suggestions on socially responsible funds/investing? Is it possible to approxmate the returns from standard funds? Web links? By socially responsible I mean companies that strive to do the right thing by the environemnt and their employees, not necessarily companies that don't invest in alcohol and such. I'm looking for funds, not investing companies as I have the mechanisms in place to invest already. Age: 25. I'm currently invested in American Fund's growth and income funds. My funds are limited, so that is an issue.