Black Panthers in Texas, Ridiculous Interest at Home Depot, Patrick Bet-David Real Estate Predictions and New Swift Clean from Ryobi!

This is episode number 278 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Greg Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode. If you haven't yet, Like and subscribe, because that's the thing that you do on YouTube. You like and subscribe because you're watching the channel. Like and subscribe. So right at the top end.

Yeah, so there's no reason not to like and subscribe. Yeah.

How you doing, man? Oh no.

Oh, the puppets.

That's, that's a reason.

It's been, it's been a while since that's happened.

Yeah, no, that's a reason.

Hey, I'll tell you this, uh-huh, we're trying out a new feature tonight.

Trying out some fun stuff.

I don't know, we got a lot of, we got a lot of things that are happening and I don't know how it's gonna work.

Uh-huh.

But we're gonna find out.

Yep. And we're playing with some new toys.

If it works, it's gonna be awesome. That's all I know.

So, all right, so we got a fun episode for you guys tonight. We've got 3, uh, interesting news stories to share with you guys and a product review that we're gonna just like— we're just gonna jam it all in right here at the, uh, this whole episode. So why not bonus episode, I guess? Is that, is that how we're gonna categorize it?

That's how we're gonna do it.

Yeah, so hang in there. We got a, we got a new Ryobi product we want to, uh, showcase for you guys. Should be pretty cool. Excited to check that one out. But before that, we've got 3 news stories. The first one, and I think I sent you the picture of the cat.

Yes.

Have you seen this photo?

I haven't, but here's the photo.

There it is. Okay, so this photo went viral. I think it was last week.

Okay.

And it may have been a little bit before that, but I know it was last week for sure because a guy in Huntsville, which is just about an hour down the road from here, claims that he saw a black panther crossing his field up in Huntsville, Texas. The problem with this is there are no black panthers in Texas.

Nowhere.

They don't exist.

No.

So, and so much so that like animal groups and biologists got involved to look at this guy's photo and all of them said it's just a cat, dude. They all, they all said it's a, it's a house cat. All right.

I'm looking at it right now. And I'm, I'm telling you, that is the largest freaking house cat I've ever seen in my life.

Freaking house cat. They, they said it's like a perspective thing, that because of where it's at in the field and all this kind of stuff. That being said, it came up on the Joe Rogan podcast. Oh, because he claims— Joe Rogan claims, and he says he has the footage, I want to see it— he says he has a black panther that walked through his security camera at his house.

What?

Yes.

Okay, so if that happened, then there's no doubt he's got better footage than that.

I would imagine so.

I mean, it's gonna look a lot better.

I heard him talk about, I wish that we had that clip. We could have pulled that one up. We had enough trouble getting the clip that we wanted for today anyway. But anyway, you can go look it up. You can just like search Joe Rogan black panther. And like, by the way, Joe Rogan lives in Austin, Texas.

Right.

And there's not supposed to be black panthers in Texas, but this has been a thing with like hillbillies and rednecks and hunters and outdoorsmen for years.

Well, where's the, where's the closest location the black panthers would actually exist?

I, if I had to guess, I would say Florida.

Okay. Um, now I want to know. I, I'm curious.

I think that's the closest. Now they, they have, I mean, like, they, they have a large roaming area. And there's also like this whole thing about how it's not a black panther. It's, um, melanistic jaguar.

Okay.

Because I like— apparently there's no such thing as a black panther.

So, okay, well, okay, I, I understand what you're saying. Yeah, but according to Google, uh-huh, which it's on the internet, so it's got to be true. Got to be true. It's believed—

So you're saying there's a chance?

It is believed that black panthers do not exist in in the wild anywhere in the United States.

Right.

So, and that is, that is by the Humane Wildlife Control and Google. So, um, and it says, and tales to the contrary are often regarded as folklore or attributed to a mistaken identity.

Yes. And I'm telling you, like, if you start searching this stuff, there are all kinds of rednecks and hillbillies and outdoorsmen and fishermen and anglers and stuff, they will tell you that 100%, I saw it. And, and this guy in Huntsville, man, he was like— he said, the guy that took the photo, he's like, look, I couldn't— like, that was as far as my camera would zoom in, but I saw the thing crossing the field, and it was no house cat.

Well, yeah, and, and I mean, on top of that, like you said, I mean, they say that black panthers don't even exist.

Uh-huh.

I mean, what, what are they? They're like black longtails or something like that. Like, I don't know what they actually call them, but they're— they say they don't even actually exist. But all I know is that this picture right here, I'm telling you, if that— I mean, it could be something else. Like, could it be a pig?

Uh-huh.

I don't know. I mean, so like, I'm not zoomed in or anything.

If this is—

this is it.

If you do a Google search for melanistic jaguar.

Okay.

What you will find is what looks like a black panther. Now, when you get close enough to them, what you will see is spots. Oh, but they're very— like, from a distance, they're indistinguishable.

Yeah.

Um, and so that's what a lot of people call a black panther. Now, there used to be jaguars in Texas.

What?

And some people claim that they still will roam into Texas. And so What, what people who are saying like it's a possibility are saying, okay, it's a possibility because it could be a melanistic jaguar.

Okay, well, that actually makes more sense. Yeah, in my mind.

Unless—

I mean, what I will say, and there have been no reports of this, so you would think this would happen. I mean, they have them in zoos.

Sure.

So But we would know, right? We would— it would be all over the news. There was a jaguar loose, right?

So like, here it is. If you, if you search, do jaguars still live in Texas, it says extinct. The jaguar is extinct in Texas today, which means it used to actually exist. Yeah. So there are many records and sightings that date from the late 1800s to early 1900s, and this large cat actually was regarded as common in some areas. The most recent documented record from the state was in 1948. When the last jaguar was shot.

Oh geez! How would you like to be that guy? I mean, you either have great like like forever history.

We didn't catch him with like great regard. Right. You know, just shoot him.

Yeah.

That's a very Texas thing to do.

Of course.

He probably bragged about it.

Like, hey, watch this, Jorge. I don't know what name. That's a first name I came up with. So Jorge is probably the worst.

Anyway, it would be really cool if it was.

Yeah.

And I'm like, they don't live in, like, in big groups or anything like that. They're pretty like, you know, they live by themselves.

Sure.

So it's rare to see one in the wild anyway.

Right.

So anyway, interesting story from Huntsville. The other one is I got a notice from Home Depot the other day.

Okay.

So you know how most big retail stores have their own credit cards?

Yeah.

So, and they will entice you by saying, you know, first purchase, get 15% off your entire purchase, right? Or, um, 0%, um, on your first—

for 6 months or whatever.

Yeah, for 6 months on your first purchase, right? Whatever.

Yeah.

Um, so I got a notice from Home Depot, one of those notices that most people don't read, okay? When they say like, we're changing the terms.

Yeah, sure. Of our agreement, right?

So what the notice was is, you know, there are— the terms change after you fulfill— after they fulfill their obligation to get you in the door.

So that first 0%—

Yeah, the incentives that they give you. Okay, so the Home Depot credit card, uh, interest rate is going to 29.9%. What?

Yeah. 29? Holy crap. Like, I— look, I I mean, I think— I don't know, I'm about to say something that's really stupid because I don't, I don't have anything to back this up right now, but I think average is probably around 23% on, on like retail cards.

Yeah, I would, I would— that's probably fair.

Like on a regular whatever Kohl's card.

Sure.

Probably 23%. 29?

29.9. So almost— I mean, like, you know, 0.1 away from 30.

Geez, that is— that's a lot of money, y'all.

Yeah.

And I, I opened it and I was like, is that even legal?

Well, I was wondering, is it?

I, I have no idea.

I don't either.

Yeah.

Who do we— who do we know that knows these things? Chime in, please. I need to search it real quick.

Highest legal interest rate.

Well, I'm sure it is legal. I mean, they would—

On a credit card.

78%. Wow.

There is no limit on card interest rates.

Okay. Well, now we know.

No limit.

I'd go up to 45% if I were them.

Yeah.

Just why not? I mean, does it matter? I mean, at that point, I mean, you get to set the terms. I mean, the thing is the people that are using that at 30% are gonna use it at 45%.

Sure.

You know what I mean? Yeah.

No. I'll pay it off at the end of the month.

Exactly.

You won't.

No.

You won't. You won't pay it off by the end of the century. That's, that's the problem with that. It's gonna take forever.

I don't know what to do with that. I don't either.

So credit cards are wonderful.

Yeah.

I mean, like, if you use them the way they should be used. Do not use a 29.9% interest rate credit card ever.

No.

And I don't, I don't even know why, why Home Depot would do this. I, I don't think that they're doing poorly. I mean, no, I mean, they seem to— I'm They're expanding. They're building another one right down the road from us in Montgomery. I mean, like, why do they need 29.9%?

They don't.

I mean, the only thing I could think of is if they've ceased to manage their credit card.

Oh, I'm sure they don't. They probably pay multiple people to do all of that, and they've got to make something off of it, most likely. Right. Right. So, so who knows?

Okay. The other one is we got a clip for you guys from the Valuetainment group over there. Patrick Bet-David. And this one, this one, it has Patrick Bet-David and Tom Ellsworth in it talking about interest rates in the residential market right now, which I know all of you guys listening to this show are always interested in hearing about, especially you guys, you're first-time homebuyers. So what they're— you guys know that on this show, if you listen to it at any length of time, we talk about interest rates all the time.

Yeah.

We tend to grill real estate agents about it. They don't like talking about interest rates because interest rates is one of those things, especially right now, deters buyers from getting into the market.

Yep.

And right now, interest rates are, you know, they're not historically high, but they're higher than they've been in a long time.

Yeah.

And so they feel high. And what everybody's been talking about is, well, the economy is doing better right now, so we're probably going to start seeing some rate cuts. And I heard this on the PBD podcast the other day, and I was like, ooh, need to bring this back to the home team. and let everybody have a listen.

Sure.

So watch this clip.

All right.

7% mortgage rates are back, but fear not, rates will fall in 2024, economist says. Mortgage rates began falling again last December when it dipped below 7% for the first time in 4 months, states the Mortgage News Daily. However, rates have surged once more, with the 30-year rates climbing at 7.14% as of Friday afternoon. Freddie Mac said its measure showed rates jumping 13 basis points to 6.77% as of February 15th. Highlighting the recent uptick in mortgage rates. Additionally, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the average contract rate for 30-year mortgage right now is 6.87%. Last week, according to Lawrence Yun from National Association of Realtors, the 30-year mortgage rate is likely to go up to 7%,

and he projects that the average rate will be closer to 6% by the end of the year, indicating a potential stabilization in a market despite recent fluctuations. Tom, Listen to those 2 numbers, America. They're pretty close together, 7% and 6%. And a year ago, I said on this podcast that I was aligned with people that thought there could be as many as 6, you know, rate cuts this year, although I was locked in at 4. Now I'm not even locked in at 3 because I don't think we're going to get a rate cut the next meeting of the Fed. And then meeting after that on May 1st. I'm only 50/50 there's going to be a cut because it looks like inflation is heating up a little bit. We got a little bit more unemployment. So I think this guy's exactly

right. Get— in other words, what they're saying is get used to where the interest rates are now.

Get used to it.

If we get 3 rate cuts this year, it's only— it's going to be a small marker. And by a small marker, I think Lawrence Yun from NAR, which is a very rational voice, they're usually— this is, this is not politicized. Um, he says, listen, I don't think they'll hit 7, 6.77 right now, but I think the rate will be closer to 6. So he's saying down a little bit, but don't assume these are going back to 3.5, um, and taking, um, home prices back down with them. It's, uh, not gonna happen.

Yeah, that's, that's the craziest part about it, man, is that they're saying not only like, because I think, I think people assume that if the interest rates went down, that home prices would go down. And I think the exact opposite would happen. I think if rates went down, home prices would go back up again.

Well, that's, that's what we've always seen though. I mean, when, when it— everything levels out somewhere, right? Right. If, if the rates go down, people go, okay, I can get a little bit more for my, for my house. I mean, it's— we, we've seen that over and over and over. And, um, the, the thing that's difficult about this is there have been a number of realtors that we've talked to friends of ours.

Yep.

That have said, look, the rates are gonna go down. Don't worry about it. Look, our mortgage lender, we have this great mortgage lender. They've got all these cool programs. And one of the cool programs is we can lock you into a free refi as soon as the rate goes down. We'll get you in— into a free refi, which is great.

Sure.

I mean, that's a— I mean, if the rate goes down, but the rate has to go down first. Like, and so, so here's the thing. Like, people were thinking, oh, maybe by the end of the year, so I'll lock into this, you know, I'll do this, you know, 6.5%, or maybe, maybe they got down to 6%, where the rate was low enough that it's like, oh, this makes sense. In a year, I can pay it for a year, but then after a year, it's going to go down. I'll refi, my mortgage will be back to a reasonable number, right? And let me tell you what happened to my house.

Mhm.

Um, so we added, uh, a second dwelling on our, on our property. 1,200 square feet. Okay. It's half the size of my house.

Right.

And on an overall 3.2-ish acre property, we added 1,200 square feet of living space. It more than doubled what they wanna charge me on taxes.

for your property value.

For my property value, right, which was high based on the acreage, right? It was like $5,000 roughly. Um, went up to— it was lower, like $4,200, something like that. It went up to $9,600.

Dang.

For the year. Now I'm gonna fight it, reasonably so. I mean, I think I have very good case, right? But my mortgage went up like $900 a month.

Woo!

Because of the escrow. I'm, I'm in escrow. I chose that. I wanted to be in escrow. Some people don't. I actually like the security of it, so I, I chose to do that. But $900 on, on top of— our, our interest rate's fine, but on top of someone that didn't know that that was going to happen, right? Your property value goes up, your taxes go up, your interest rate doesn't come down like you expected to, what are you going to do? You're going to foreclose, or you're going to move, or you're going to do something. And the market is not going to be very healthy for you right now. Right.

Well, and I don't know about other places in the country, but like, at least where we live, they aggressively raise the property values. They do around here.

Bad— in, in a bad way.

So much so, it's like, it's like a, it's a professional sport to contest your property taxes around here. I mean, like, there's, there's even companies that will do it for you.

They will.

Because it's just a thing around here.

Again, I don't—

I'd love to hear from some people around the country if that's something that they're experiencing as well. But like, they will jack up your property values.

Part of that, we don't have state income tax, right? So they're going to get their money somehow, and property taxes is the way they do it.

That's the— that's one of the only ways they can get it.

Exactly. So, so they, they give us ridiculously high, uh, property taxes in lieu of a state income tax. Now, If, if I've got to have it one way or the other, I prefer the property tax.

Yeah.

But that being said, um, it still puts us in a bad place, especially whenever it comes to mortgages, you know?

Right.

I mean, either you add it to your escrow for mortgage or you're paying out of pocket, but either way, that money's coming from somewhere, right? And, and if you don't pay it, you're in a bad place.

Yeah.

Right? So This not having a rate cut and actually going up, it's not boding well right now.

No. And like, that, that's something I wanted people to key in on was Tom Ellsworth, who's a super smart, uh, business guy. He, I mean, he actually has his own show called The Biz Doc. Um, really good stuff. I mean, honestly, all the, all the stuff coming out of Valuetainment right now is really, really good. But, uh, if you watch his show, you'll figure out how smart that guy is. And if you— what you heard him say is like, look, end of last year, I was saying like, don't worry about it. You know, we're, we're probably looking at like 6 different rate cuts over the next year. And now he's saying we're definitely not getting one this go-round.

It was down to 4, now down to 3.

Yeah. Right.

And he said he's 50/50 on that.

50/50 on the, on the one in May. And it's like, okay, so like, that's a 2 in a row where we're probably not getting rate cuts. And which means that it hit an all-time high and we're just gonna stay there.

Yeah.

Which is not good.

No, no. Well, I mean, it's—

The only, the only good thing I can see coming out of that is potentially prices in homes going down.

That— well, that's, that, that's what I was gonna say. That's the only thing that can happen here is house prices have to go down, right? They have to. But the problem is the people that lose in that is the homeowner. Yeah, that is selling the home.

Oh, big time.

You know, they're, they're losing really badly. And I— look, I'm going to go back to something that I said. Um, I, I kind of foreshadowed this a little bit. If you remember, I said I got into this weird sweet spot where I sold my house as high as I could possibly sell it with the lowest interest rate I could possibly get, which is 4.5% is where I locked in.

Right.

And I sold my house for a little bit more than 50% than what I bought it for 5 years previously. That, I mean, people are like, oh, you paid 4.5 instead of if you would've sold it a little bit earlier, you could've gotten into like the 3s. Well, but I wouldn't have sold my house for as much as I did.

Right.

I got into this weird, weird sweet spot that worked for us. But, but now, I mean, it, the pendulum swung hard as it hit 4.5. Next thing I knew, it was 5, 5.5, 6. Up to 7. It did come down slightly, but now we're back up again. Yep, man, it, it's just going to be really hard for, for people that want to— well, we got a friend, um, who's lived in their house for a long time, and they've, they got it really great price. They want to move, and they're looking at it going, I don't know if it's worth it.

Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, they, and they've got so much equity in that house because they've lived there for a long time. They've paid it down. it's worth way more than what they paid for it. And so they've got a ton of equity, but they're like, what, what is that equity worth? Yeah, whenever I'm paying it all in interest rates. And it's not just residential too, it's business as well.

Oh, commercial stuff's out.

I mean, it's crazy.

That, that's a whole different ball game right now.

It is.

So I mean, like, that, that one, like, honestly, like, if you're looking to, like, lease now would be a great time. Sure. You can get a sweetheart, especially here in Houston, you get a sweetheart of a deal.

Well, and it's because these, these business, like the, the property owners, they have to get those things rented, right? Because they can't afford the what's happening with them.

No, I mean, like, if, if you have cash, yeah, I mean, I mean, like, to right now might be a really good time to, like, you know, snap up some, some commercial property.

Sure.

Um, But hardly anybody's got cash.

No.

So, no. And those that are, are wanting to charge 29.9%.

That's right.

To lend it out.

Well, that's the thing. I mean, if you're, if you're going to be a private investor, that's great. But now what, what do you know? Well, you know that you can charge quite a bit of interest and still be under the bank.

Yep.

You know, and, and you know you're getting your money back. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's a pretty safe bet if you're an investor.

Yeah. Real estate's always a pretty healthy bet.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, if you, if you have a little inkling as to what, how the market works and how the, how the system works. Um, anyway, interesting stuff from, uh, those guys over there. Uh, anyway, we, we have a short product review tonight. Uh, we got a new toy in the Williams household, the SwiftClean from Ryobi. Kevin, Kevin gets to do the showing off tonight. So here it is. If you're looking at it going, what is that weird submarine? You're not, you're not far off.

It really does look like a submarine, but no.

Yeah, so we actually got this to clean a couch that we bought. My wife fell in love with like this 8-foot-long pink couch.

Oh, let me tell you, I The— I have a couple things to say about it.

Uh-huh.

I know why she fell in love with it.

Yep.

It looks like it's straight out of the movie Friends. Yep.

The show, is that what—

I said movie, I meant TV show.

Okay, just making sure.

Um, it is nice and comfortable.

It is.

It is massive.

Yep.

I mean, when I say massive, y'all, I mean like imagine the largest sectional you've ever seen and double it. It's massive.

It was fun moving it, but it's pink. It's bright pink.

That's the only problem.

So, and it needed a good— it needed a good scrubbing.

Sure.

So I didn't want to scrub it by hand.

Of course not.

So I got a scrubber.

Why not?

Yeah, so we got this thing, which it's super cool, man. It's basically a little tiny carpet cleaner.

Yeah, like when you say carpet cleaner, you mean like shampooer? Yes, it is a shampooer. Yeah, but it's like a Shop-Vac size, or— but like a Dustbuster size. Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah, so like it has, it has a chemical tank on the top, and it has a reservoir underneath.

Yep.

And, and then it has scrubbing head, rotating head underneath.

I'm gonna show, like you can see the—

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

It's got like the rotating brush.

The bristles.

Yeah.

So, and then in front of that is the actual suction, and, and then in front, just above that, that little notch that comes out is where you can actually shoot out the cleaning solution.

Right here, that dude.

Onto the carpet.

Okay.

And so like you squirt the cleaning solution, and then you don't— here's the cool part, like one of the things I thought that was really neat is like it all has independent control. So like to shoot the, the chemical you have a button to, uh, scrub the carpet. It has a button to suction up that carpet. It has a separate button. And so it's not like on/off. You have options to do different things.

Yeah, they're all right there.

Um, and you know, Kevin was playing with it before the show and it's super easy to take apart.

Yeah, I mean, there's just like a— it's hard not to hit the microphone here. So there's like this button here You just press that and it releases the, uh, the reservoir. Pop it right back in, no big deal. And, uh, I mean, you can, you can actually really easily— it's got a, uh, see, that's how much you haven't used it.

The tag is still on. Yeah, well, I wanted to, I wanted to leave it on for the show.

Sure. But there's a, uh, there's a little knob here that you just turn with a, like, a quarter, and the brush comes right out. You can clean it. Yep, really easy. Um, look, I, I, I'm gonna go back to something that I've, that I've, uh, not said in a while.

Uh-huh.

And that is, you can, you can say whatever you want to about Ryobi.

Yep.

You can, you can say that their power tools are not as good as Milwaukee or whatever other brand you want to—

Even though they're the same tool.

Right, the same tool. Maybe it's not as powerful, use what you say. Maybe it doesn't last as long as what you say. Maybe the battery isn't as powerful as you say. But nobody comes up with more and cooler products than Ryobi. Yeah, nobody.

They just have the coolest stuff.

They do.

And like the most unique for sure.

I mean, they're— I mean, quite literally nobody has a larger product line.

Yeah.

And honestly, there's multiple times whenever you can get their batteries at a like 2 for $100, they're like the 4 amp hour. batteries. And so, but I've found that they actually last a long time.

Yeah, I've—

If you maintain them, if you keep them and, and like keep them charged, keep them on the charger. I mean, that, that's what they say to do, keep them on the charger. Don't just leave them out somewhere. That's what kills them.

Yeah.

Right?

And like, I've got gobs of Ryobi batteries.

Yeah.

I mean, like just like a whole shelf full of them.

Sure.

And I've had one go bad, and I'm pretty sure it was my fault. I left it out in the rain.

That would do it.

That'll do it.

But the other thing is their warranty is amazing.

Yeah.

You literally just take it back in, they'll just go, go get another one.

Go get another one.

And that's it.

Yeah, no questions asked. No, just swap it out.

Right.

So, and this one's— so as I was, I was looking at this one, so we got it to clean our couch.

Sure.

Because like using a regular carpet cleaner would be annoying and probably overkill. This seemed to be like the— oh, it does come with cleaning solution, so it's like an Oxi cleaning formula. Yeah, you can buy more of it, but that container actually comes with it.

Okay.

And it's not terribly expensive at all.

Sure. It's Oxy.

Oxy. We bought a bigger container of it. I think it was like $18.

Oh, it's not bad.

So it was like a little pint.

Okay.

Anyway, I was looking at it going, man, like, I actually thought of you, Kev, because I was like, man, that could actually be really helpful, like in an RV.

Yeah.

Like if you have carpet in your RV or like, you know, cloth seats anywhere, I mean, something to clean it, you know, or just like area rugs. Like something that happens to us all the time is like we have a white rug in our upstairs living room and that's where we sit and drink our coffee. Well, occasionally it gets spilled.

Of course.

You know, and then you get like a little brown spot on there and, you know, something like this and that you don't have to like pull the whole rug out, put it in the washing machine or take it outside and hose it out or anything.

Just get this, Well, and I'll tell you, like, I've, I've had— I've used shampooers before, and I've also bought, you know, like rented the Rug Doctors and those sorts of things. And honestly, they're, they're really good. Like, even the Bissells, the, you know, the ones you buy from Walmart or Target or whatever. Yeah, they're actually really good. Uh, they do a great job. But I'll, I'll tell you, like, you can't put that on your couch.

No.

You just can't.

I mean, too wet.

It's too wet. It's too big. I mean, there's no way. I'm sure people have tried.

Yeah.

But, like, it's— it— you really can't. And so you're, you're, you're forced to do one of two things. Either live with a stain.

Mm-hmm.

Or if you have, you know, if, if you bought a brand that's good enough that the, the cushion actually zips, like, the COVID zips off and you take the COVID off.

Yeah.

But most are not made that way.

Right.

Right? And so what are you left with?

I mean, well, I think that's why this product exists is because there really wasn't anything else.

No.

Short of like a brush and a, you know, maybe like a mop bucket.

Sure.

You know, it's like get in there and scrub it and maybe then use a Shop-Vac to get all the liquid out. But even that, it's like, what are you gonna do? Yeah.

I'll tell you, I'm gonna borrow this thing and I'll tell you why. My outdoor cushions, like my outdoor furniture.

Yeah.

Like, we, we left it— okay, we, we have like a covered area, a covered porch, and we bought new furniture for it. We left it out there. We're like, hey, this is great, you know, we, we don't have to take it in because it's not gonna get in the rain. Like, they say that you can leave those outdoor cushions out. Don't do it.

I just— well, just around here, man, they're gonna get pollinated.

It's gonna be awful. But our dogs found them.

Uh-huh.

So they were laying all over them and, and they just got dirty. And some of them, like, we did the best we could to clean them Um, there's still— there's a couple of places I'm like, man, if I just had like a scrubber, that's what I needed.

Here's what I want to know. Did you do anything about those varmints eating your cushions?

No, not yet.

Not yet?

Oh my gosh, we should tell people what happened. So, uh, Craig— Craig does pest control over at my house. Shocker. And, uh, he came over one day and he was like— he was like, hey, uh, you know, squirrels are eating your, uh, your outdoor furniture cushions, which these were 2 old ones. We didn't care much about them. So we leave those out actually most of the time. And, we just hose them off if we need to. And, I was like, I hadn't even noticed, which by the way, I don't know if I told you, but my wife was like, I was— we were wondering what that was. So like, I mean, literally, the, the outside of the cushion, they were, they were coming in, these squirrels were coming in, eating the outside of the cushion and taking the—

Stuffing out.

The stuffing out.

Uh-huh.

taking it to their nest, those little turds.

Yep.

And, um, the problem is I rarely see them. Mhm. And so, like, for me to be able to do something about it, I got to see them, right? And that means I probably got to camp out, which now is a beautiful time to do. It's gorgeous outside, so I need to do that. But, um, yeah, they were just eating The couch cushions.

I'm surprised your dogs hadn't gotten after them.

Well, me too. Well, I've seen them get after them. Like, I've— I, I was out at my mother-in-law's house the other day, and all of a sudden I saw my dogs tear across the yard and they were chasing a squirrel. And those things, you know, they, they kind of dart back and forth. Yeah, my dogs are trying to keep up with their— pretty funny watching them. But, uh, they never got it. Um, moles they get. We remember that on there. I do remember that. But no, I haven't seen him get a squirrel yet. Maybe they have, but it's a problem, dude.

I saw a, um, it was, it was some kind of hunting dog. It was a bird dog of some sort. Okay. Today I was at it. I was at a customer's house and I was watching this dog and he was going nuts over some squirrels. Really? I mean, just flipping out. I mean, like running around the bottom of a tree. I mean, he was, he was basically treeing, treeing the squirrels.

Sure.

And the squirrels were like antagonizing him. Like sitting, getting as close as they could and chattering at him. Oh my gosh, like teasing him. And so he's running around the tree and like I watched this dog and he took— he takes a running leap. That dude has a better vertical leap than any NBA player, let me tell you. I bet. I mean, he was getting like 8 feet up in the air. What? I mean, it's nuts.

You're like, you're gonna tear something.

Well, and so he, he sat back and waited for a squirrel to come down a little bit. And then took a running leap and he pulled a squirrel out of that tree.

What?

Yeah, because I was talking to the— I was talking to the lady that owns the property and she was like, ah, he's just out there running himself silly. He'll— he never catches one. And we sat there and watched him. You could hear him like squealing. And I mean, he was so happy with himself.

Oh, I bet.

I was proud of him.

Yeah, well, I would be too. Well, I mean, he can— as far as I'm concerned, he can kill as many as he wants. Yeah, tree rats.

Not short on squirrels like we are jaguars.

No, I, I do not like the squirrels.

Oh, well, dude, uh, cool product. Lots of cool stories tonight. Anything else we need to do?

And I, I can't think of anything else. It's, uh, cool. Been good. So thanks for, uh, for listening. If you have not already, what we talked about earlier, you need to like and subscribe. But I'll tell you what we didn't do, uh, we're gonna go ahead and talk about Lone Star Appliance Repair long enough to say— oh, you're gonna take— okay, we take the bumpity bump off. That's fine. Because we didn't talk about Lone Star Appliance Repair, but we should have.

We should have.

I don't know what's happening over there, Craig. We're losing it. It's late. We're losing it. We— so going back to Home Depot for a minute.

Yeah.

I see people in there all the time just looking at appliances. And I actually, I was in there not too long ago and I saw a person looking at some of this stuff in the aisle.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, you need a new washer?

So they're like, uh, mine's doing something weird. I was like, really? What, what kind of weird thing? And this is— this is— my wife hates me for this kind of stuff, like talking to strangers.

Talking to strangers.

Right. And I do it all the time.

She's worried you're gonna get kidnapped.

Right.

Yeah.

That's the problem. And, and they're like, ah, you know, it doesn't always start the way it should. It's like, well, I don't even know what that means. I was like, have you ever tried to get it repaired? And I'm sure some Home Depot person's going, shut up. Shut up. And, uh, ruin it. Yeah, exactly. And they're like, well, no, I don't know any appliance repair people. And I was like, let me tell you.

Yeah.

You need to call Lone Star Appliance Repair.

So 2 things are gonna happen. One, you're gonna get your washing machine fixed.

That's right.

2, you're not gonna be paying 29.9% for a new washing machine.

That's exactly right. Like, it is— whatever they charge you, yeah, will be way worth it.

And way less.

Way, way less. I mean, because And, and they're not gonna— I mean, honestly, they're very good people. They're not gonna gouge you. And like, it's one of those deals where they're gonna charge you a service fee to come out and check on your, uh, whatever it is. Because look, they, they're gonna take their time, their gas, their, their— they, they're not doing another job while they're coming to check on you. So they're gonna charge you a service fee. However, if you have them repair it, they don't charge you the service fee.

Right.

It gets rolled into the, the price of the entire thing, and then they're not gonna charge you that service fee. So Great, great people. Uh, if you have any— and here's the other thing we've talked about, um, they also do maintenance plans.

Yes.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

So like, if you want to get your stuff regularly cleaned so it lasts longer— honestly, we, we think about this whenever it comes to like, um, our HVAC. Like, actually, Jehu just called me and he was like, hey, it's time for your regular checkup, which is great. He'll come over and do it, no big deal. I'm on a monthly plan right now, which is, which is really cool.

Yeah, they switched over to monthly.

Yeah, which is awesome. It's actually cheaper. And so, uh, you know, come over and clean it, make sure it's running well, and it's gonna last a lot longer. So they have a lot of options about how you can make sure that your stuff lasts. And, uh, give them a call. The number is right on the screen. It's 936-647-2364. That is 936-647-2364. 2364. And now it is time for the Bumpy.

Y'all, if you ain't getting your washing machine cleaned on a regular basis, your clothes is gonna smell nasty.

Dude, that is— it is a problem.

It's mad. Oh, I've pulled the, the filter out on a couple of them. It's, it's one of the grossest things that you could ever smell or see, right?

I mean, and honestly, the, uh—

God bless the people that clean those for you.

It's worth every penny. Every penny. But it's gonna also gonna make your machine last longer.

Yeah.

Right. And, and, and I, I know that they say to use those, like, little fresh tabs. Yeah. Which are— they're helpful. They're very helpful. Very helpful. Um, it's not gonna be the same as someone going out there, pulling out the filter, actually cleaning it, doing what needs to be done. Yeah. And, uh, so anyway, give them a call, 936-647-2364. They're good people. You can also text them, which is, uh, probably my favorite thing about them. Um, and, uh, we know they'll take care of you. Anything else?

Nope.

All right, thank you all for listening, for liking, subscribing, because you did that at the beginning of the show. Uh, leave us a rating or review, that would be really, really helpful. We would really appreciate it. And, uh, talk to your friends, let them know The Homeowner Show, we're here. Dude, it's been a long time.

Yeah.

278, is that what you said? 278th episode.

Somewhere in that neighborhood.

Yeah, it's a lot of episodes, and, uh, we got a lot more to come. So thanks for sticking with us. Till next time, we'll see you later. See ya.