c/ask-a-neighbor

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Found my washing machine hose had a tiny crack yesterday

Water was pooling on the floor and I figured it was the seal but nope, a pin hole in the hose about a inch from the connection. It only cost me $12 for a new hose from Ace Hardware, any tips on checking for these things before they cause a flood?

3 comments

abbyg60•15h ago

Overheard a cashier at Aldi tell someone "honey it's a banana, it's literally designed to be opened from the top" and I changed my whole banana approach

I always yanked them from the stem end and bruised half the fruit, but that lady was right - pinching the top works way better. Has anyone else had a tiny food trick totally shift how you do something basic?

3 comments

wadem89•1d ago

Pro tip: watch your pockets at the Lincoln Street Market during lunch rush

Had my wallet lifted from my jacket pocket at the Lincoln Street Market last Friday between noon and 1pm while I was grabbing a sandwich, didnt even feel a thing. Anyone else had issues with pickpockets at that place or know which days are calmer?

3 comments

hayden_nelson85•3d ago

Overheard a guy at the hardware store say you don't need to treat fence posts before setting them in concrete. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

I was grabbing some lag bolts for a deck repair this morning and this young guy was telling his friend to just throw untreated pine posts straight into wet concrete. Said the concrete "seals it good enough." Man, I've pulled out rotted posts from a job in Eugene where they did exactly that. The moisture wicks right up through the concrete and rots the bottom in like 2 or 3 years. You gotta at least use pressure treated or wrap the base. Has anyone else seen this shortcut backfire bad?

3 comments

sandraflores•5d ago

Tried mending my own jeans after 3 years of tossing ripped ones

I finally sat down with a needle and thread to fix a hole in my favorite pair of Levi's last weekend, and the darn thing actually held up after a full day of wear! I always figured sewing was too hard or would look terrible, but a 10 minute YouTube video showed me a basic stitch that was way simpler than I thought. Has anyone else had luck patching up their own clothes instead of throwing them away?

4 comments

robertb47•21d ago

Ran across this stat that 70% of home fires start in the kitchen and it hit me hard

After my neighbor's grease fire last Tuesday I looked up the data on the NFPA site and found out most of those fires happen when people just leave the stove unattended for a few minutes has anyone else gotten paranoid about that.

2 comments

jamiew53•24d ago

I finally switched to a manual lawn mower after 3 summers of gas troubles

My old gas mower spent more time in the shop than cutting grass. I paid $45 for a carburetor rebuild last June and it still stalled on me after 10 minutes. So I grabbed a cheap reel mower for $80 at a garage sale and honestly it's way easier. The cut looks cleaner and I don't have to mess with oil or gas fumes. It takes me about 45 minutes for my 1/4 acre lot instead of 30 but I'm not sweating as bad. Has anyone else dumped their gas mower for a manual one?

2 comments

uma_martinez•25d ago

My 12 year old nephew pointed out I check my phone every time I'm waiting for anything

We were sitting at a red light last Saturday and he just flat out said 'you always look at your phone when you're not doing anything.' Kid was right. I've been trying to put it in the glovebox when I drive now. Anyone else had a kid call them out and change a small habit?

3 comments

joel_butler•27d ago

Pro tip: stop washing your cast iron with soap and thinking it's fine

I grill up bacon almost every Sunday and I see people online bragging about using dish soap on their cast iron. The thing is, I've been using the same 12-inch skillet for 8 years now and I only scrub with salt and a paper towel. Two months ago my buddy in Denver tried the soap method on his Lodge and now his eggs stick like crazy. If you stripped the seasoning with soap, you have to re-season it in the oven at 350 for an hour. Has anyone else noticed their pans getting worse after using detergent?

2 comments

river320•28d ago

Serious question, did anyone else learn to cook before the internet?

I was cleaning out my grandma's old recipe box last weekend and found a note she wrote in 1987 about how to tell if a cake is done by sticking a toothpick in it. It hit me that I learned almost everything about cooking from YouTube videos and blogs, not from family or cookbooks. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized how much the way we learn basic stuff has changed?

3 comments

viola_ward•1mo ago

Overheard a lady at the park say her Sunday reset takes 6 hours

I was at the playground on Tuesday and this mom was telling her friend she blocks off 6 hours every Sunday to get the house and meals ready for the week. That sounds like a full shift of work to me, not a reset. How do you all handle weekend prep without it eating up your whole day?

3 comments

jordan_webb•1mo ago

The wild stat I found on how many pounds of honey one bee makes in its whole life

I was reading an old beekeeping book my uncle left at my place, and it said one worker bee only makes about a 12th of a teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime. That blew my mind because a single jar takes so many bees working nonstop. It made me look at honey differently, like every spoonful represents thousands of miles flown by little bugs. Has anyone else stumbled on a random fact like that that just stuck with you?

3 comments

morgan_bailey93•1mo ago

TIL that putting a spoon in an open wine bottle doesn't keep it fresh

I had a half bottle of red left over from dinner last Friday, and I stuck a metal spoon in the neck like my grandma always did. Woke up Saturday morning, took a sip, and it tasted like vinegar. Apparently the spoon trick is a total myth, the cold metal does nothing to stop oxidation. Has anyone else fallen for this old wives' tale or is there actually a cheap way to keep wine good for a few days?

3 comments

harper693•1mo ago

Walked into a local diner and noticed nobody was talking to each other

I stopped at Mel's Diner on Route 9 last Saturday for breakfast. Every single person under 30 had their phone out on the table, scrolling while they ate. Has anyone else seen this shift in public spaces over the last year or two?

3 comments

mark_mitchell•1mo ago

Took me 3 years to figure out I was loading my dishwasher wrong

I always just tossed everything in however it fit and ran it. Dishes came out with spots and crud stuck on sometimes. Then my sister visited and watched me load it. She pointed out I was blocking the spray arm with a big baking sheet. Now I angle everything down and put bowls on the sides. First load after her tip came out spotless. Has anyone else had a simple household thing suddenly click after years of doing it wrong?

3 comments

the_faith•1mo ago

Stop over-filling your lawn mower oil - a neighbor's engine blew last Saturday

I saw a guy at the shop today bring in a mower that was smoking like crazy because he filled the oil way past the full mark, and the service guy said it's the #1 mistake people make that kills small engines, so has anyone else been taught wrong about how to check oil levels?

3 comments

the_eric•1mo ago

Bumped into my old neighbor Bill at the dump and he changed how I mulch

I was tossing yard waste last Saturday when Bill pointed at my bag of cypress mulch and said that stuff is terrible for the soil long term. He told me he's been using shredded leaves from his own yard for 15 years and his garden beds are healthier than ever. I never even thought about free mulch that's literally sitting in my backyard. Has anyone else switched to leaf mulch and noticed a difference in your plants?

3 comments

gibson.sarah•1mo ago

My neighbor's tip about killing weeds with vinegar backfired big time

I doused my entire front walkway with white vinegar like he said, but I did it on a sunny July afternoon and it cooked the grass right into the concrete. Has anyone else had a cheap DIY fix turn into a bigger mess than the original problem?

3 comments

reeseperez•1mo ago

Can we talk about drying your wet phone in a bag of rice vs a silica gel pack

I dropped my phone in a puddle last weekend at the park here in Austin. Panicked, threw it in a Ziploc with rice like everybody says. Left it for 24 hours. Still had moisture under the camera lens. My roommate's a computer tech and he laughed at me. Said rice is actually pretty bad because the dust gets in the ports. He gave me a couple of those silica gel packets you find in shoeboxes. Stuck the phone in a container with those for another 12 hours. Worked way better. Phone's fine now. Has anyone else tried the silica trick over rice? Or is there something even better someone's found?

3 comments

mila_harris•1mo ago

TIL I’d been hanging laundry totally wrong for years and a neighbor in Nashville set me straight

So my neighbor Carol saw me struggling with a tangled mess of shirts on my backyard line and she just laughed. Turns out I was clipping them by the shoulders instead of the bottom hem, which stretched out the fabric every time. She showed me her method and even timed it - 12 seconds per shirt vs my 45 second struggle. Anyone else have a “wait, I’ve been doing it backward this whole time” moment that a random person caught?

3 comments

ivan_mason•1mo ago

PSA: Hand washing dishes vs using the dishwasher on a lazy Sunday

I spent two hours scrubbing pots after a big Sunday dinner last month, then my buddy told me his dishwasher has a heavy-duty cycle. That machine got off burnt cheese in 45 minutes with zero elbow grease. Has anyone else switched to the dishwasher for the tough stuff?

3 comments

veraj53•1mo ago

Found out my oven runs 25 degrees hot from a simple test

I got tired of burnt cookies and grabbed a $6 oven thermometer at the grocery store last weekend. Turns out my oven hits 375 when I set it to 350, so everything was cooking faster than recipes said. I checked it three times with different racks to be sure. Now I just set the temp 25 lower and my baked goods come out perfect every time. Has anyone else checked their oven temp with a cheap thermometer?

3 comments

robinson.hannah•1mo ago

A cashier at a diner in Tulsa handed me my change wrong last week and now I always count it back twice

She shorted me $2 by counting the bills backwards and I almost walked out without noticing, has this happened to anyone else at a busy register?

3 comments

alice_hart•1mo ago

My neighbor said I was watering my lawn wrong, turns out she was right

So I've been watering my front yard every morning for like 2 years, and my neighbor June finally came over and told me I was doing it all backwards. She said I was giving it 10 minutes each day instead of one deep soak twice a week, and my grass roots were staying too shallow. I switched to 30 minutes every Monday and Thursday and after about 3 weeks the whole lawn looked way greener and thicker. Anyone else get lawn advice from a random neighbor that actually worked?

3 comments

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felix_williams71•1mo ago

My neighbor Joe convinced me to start composting after I saw his bin

For years I thought composting would just attract rats and smell bad. But last month I saw Joe carrying a bucket of kitchen scraps to his backyard at 7 PM... I asked him about it. He showed me his simple tumbling bin and even let me smell the finished dirt from his batch. That stuff just smelled like earth, not garbage at all. Has anyone else changed their mind about something after a short talk with a neighbor?

3 comments