New Year - 2021 Bring It On

This is episode number 122 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 Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could be joining us for this newest of 2021's That's right!

It is the first episode of the new year coming to you live!

Live! That's right! It's a new year, so we're trying some new stuff.

Yeah!

So hopefully right now we might potentially be live on Facebook.

It shows on my end that we are.

That's right! And if all you jokers would just go over and subscribe to our YouTube channel, we could be live over there, but we haven't hit that threshold yet.

Yeah!

Because we're not all that good-looking.

Not yet.

So we can't garner— maybe if we took our shirts off for the show, Kev?

That would definitely do something.

Oh.

It would do something.

Yeah.

But I don't know that anybody would still listen. They definitely wouldn't watch.

We would definitely attract a certain audience.

That's true.

What do they call those guys? Creepers?

No.

Oh. We're not trying to attract guys.

Oh, okay.

It's a body type that they— there was like a fad with like DiCaprio was like, it was like, oh, he's got the something bod. I got nothing. You got nothing?

Nope.

We're really in tune with the happenings on the—

Yeah.

In the culture.

I guess so.

I'm gonna— it's gonna come to me like halfway through this episode. I'm just gonna scream it out. No one's gonna know what I'm talking about at that point.

You're assuming that anybody is still listening now, let alone halfway through the episode.

That was ambitious of me.

Yeah, it was. Well, so here's the interesting thing. I think we're live right now, right?

It says we're supposed to be.

So if we are, I'm checking. I'll tell you right now, like, it's Monday night.

Yep.

And a lot of times we record these things on Thursday.

Hey, we are live, I can see it.

There you go, boom.

There we are, look at us.

Awesome, we're there.

I liked it.

Okay, good. You're the only one.

Well, technically, oops, one of my businesses just liked it. I'm gonna switch over to me. I liked it.

Oh. Yeah, so we thought, hey, we'll just try it out. And for those of you who really wanna see it early when we record it, whatever time it is, whatever day it is, we'll go live. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, it should be fun. I mean, it's a new feature. We've got some new content coming down the pipe for you guys. So that should be really— it should be a fun new medium for us to try. And we're gonna try and push it to as many platforms as we can and take advantage of all this advanced technology that we have here in the Homeowner Show. It's been widely underutilized.

Sure.

We had to get an additional hamster for the wheel to power this thing.

Yeah, but— Believe— you say that in all jest, but like, we made some adjustments.

Yeah.

And being able to be live right now is because of some of those adjustments.

Yeah, and we'll probably make some other adjustments.

Yeah.

Because we're, you know, we're not afraid to, you know, make some mistakes along the way.

That's right.

We're always pushing forward.

We're still here.

Just for you guys.

Just for the listeners.

So, and like, this is— because it's, you know, this is the first show of the new year, We just wanted to take a minute and say thank you.

Yeah.

I mean, because we've we've been doing this for close to two years now.

No, no, no, no. Two and a half.

Two and a half?

Yeah, we started September 2018. Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

So yeah.

No. So beyond two, you guys have been sticking with us for a while now.

Yeah.

This is this is a big deal. I mean, like this this means that the you know the show's got some legs.

Yeah.

You know we're we're eventually going to buy out HGTV.

Yeah.

And and reform all that nonsense that's going on over there.

Yeah. I mean, Bob Bob Villa has already he's waiting. He's quit.

He saw us and he just—

he bailed. Yeah.

He's like, no, I'm not doing the podcast anymore.

He's out.

So, you know, and, you know, I think, I think that's probably a good, good point. And we, we, we've already skipped over those stuff that we planned to talk at the beginning of the show. You were going to talk about your sink. I was going to talk about my zipline.

Yeah.

We'll cover that in another episode.

Yeah.

It'll be great. Um, no one's been injured on the zipline, by the way.

Yeah.

Just, you know, spoiler alert.

Right.

Um, but, you know, I, I think— and I was thinking about this today while I was out working— I was like, One of the reasons that I love what we do is I think we're trying to bring a realistic perspective to being a homeowner.

Right, yeah.

This is not to dog on HGTV because obviously those guys do a good job. They try and put together good programs and all those kinds of things. They haven't called us yet.

It's inevitable.

They're not ready.

Right.

But I think what's different about what we're trying to do is to just make it as real as possible. not trying to like talk to these celebrity types. We're trying to talk to real people who provide real services and solve problems for people on a daily basis.

Yeah, and, and neither one of us— you or me, either one— neither one of us are like super homeowner necessarily. No, I mean, I, I don't, I don't have a background in anything related to owning a home or, or, you know, re— doing a home or remodeling or—

Right.

Building or anything like that.

Like, I—

all I have is a little bit of a desire to do a better job of owning my home than I did yesterday. Like, I, I— and, and, you know, let's just get into the sink for just, just a brief minute because like, I, I had a problem and I could have called a plumber and I did call a plumber, but the plumber was unavailable, right? Because It was the day before New Year's Eve, right?

And so ain't nobody want to work then.

No, he was busy.

Yep.

And it's fine, I understand that. So what'd I do? I looked under my sink and I figured out what the problem was.

Yep.

And we'll talk about what actually happened and how I fixed it another day, but I fixed it on my own without a plumber, and it was easy. It was— I mean, took some time and some information and some information and, and I figured out the problem and I figured it out, uh, by doing a little bit of research and choosing to get my hands a little bit dirty. And, and at the end of the day, I think that's really what this podcast is about.

Well, and I mean, we're not going to get into it again, but like, again, like you accessed a network of information. And it completely changed whether or not I was going to be able to do that job. Yeah.

I mean, without that, In fact, when I told you about it, you were like, I didn't even know that existed.

Yeah.

And I didn't either.

Which again, that's the whole point of the show.

Yeah.

Is for us to be able to present you guys with information and experts that know what they're talking about and are able to present you with like, this is how I, an expert, would go about doing this. And not to say you can't do this, but here's what I as an expert have learned over the course of my career and experience. And then you can then take that information and go, oh, I shouldn't be doing that.

Right.

Or, hey, that doesn't sound so bad.

Yeah.

I can handle that.

Either I can do it or I need to find someone else who can.

Yeah.

You know, and, and here's the thing, we know that many of you that are listening to this right now, you don't live in Houston where we live. So accessing these specific people, um, maybe that's not the right thing for you, but hopefully it's going to give you some insight in going, okay, I now know a couple of things I need to ask that person when they show up or whenever I'm giving a bid on something, you know, I, I have a little bit of knowledge in what I'm doing. It's not that I know what I'm doing, it's that I at least, hey, I heard someone at one point say something about this.

Can you talk to me about that? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so, uh, all that to say, like, we, we feel like we're providing a unique product to you guys and, and, and Obviously, we've continued to garner more and more listeners as the time has gone by, and we just wanted to say thank you and say that we're not done. In fact, I think you and I are in the same mind here. I feel like we've barely scratched the surface.

Which is really bizarre to think about.

Yeah.

I mean, because this is episode number 122, right?

Right.

Which means, you know, some of these we've done, you know, a review here or there, which we haven't done a review in a while. We should probably get on that. Um, but, you know, we, we brought in a lot of people and there's still a lot of people that we haven't brought in yet.

Yeah, that we just haven't had the chance to like talk to. There's been— I mean, like, we've had— like, I can't tell you guys the number of like canceled interviews that we've had.

Yeah.

And not because people don't want to come on the show. Like, everyone is genuinely interested in coming on the show. There's— I mean, like, because these guys are operating businesses, like, and, and then they have families and obligations, you know, it's, it's difficult to get some of these guys in to actually talk about what they do. Um, but, you know, we're staying vigilant. I mean, like, I think, I think you've been working on an episode on, like, disposal.

Oh, for a while.

I mean, it seems— I don't know how long, but, like, these guys, they're, like, they're interested, but then we can't get them in, and it's like, who's the right guy? Like, it, like, it can get complicated.

Well, I mean, we're, we're talking about government stuff at this point. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm gonna be able to— I haven't got to go through a senator in order to get these people on. And, you know, it's not— it— maybe they want to, but they've got to— their boss has to give approval, right? You know, we—

And we run into that a lot.

Yeah.

Where some people are like, hey, like, you know, I'd love to come on the show, but like, we have to go through these hoops in order for us to even be allowed to talk about these things. Which is— I mean, like, I, I get it. There's, there's a certain amount of liability with that comes with public speaking when it comes to certain things.

Yeah.

Like, there's things in the pest control industry that I, I just can't talk about and, and offer my advice openly and freely.

Sure.

Because of liability issues.

Sure.

Um, and, and sometimes I play loose and fast with that. Anyway, um, that actually happened today. I had a real estate agent reach out to me about— man, this was bizarre. So, you know, and this, this is not like I'm not like sharing secret information here, but like at least in the state of Texas, if you do an application for anything, you are required to list the chemical that you used for that application.

Okay.

And not just like the chemical, you have to list the chemical, the EPA registration, and the concentration rate that you use because there's different concentration rates for different pests.

Okay.

Right. And different application rates. and different even application types that you use. And like, you're supposed to, you know, if, if they change or they alter or they're different from something normal, you have to list those things.

Okay.

And so this real estate agent reached out to me. Um, actually, I don't think she minds if I, if I say her name. It was Christy Finnell. That's actually been on the show before.

Sure.

She did our episode on first-time homebuyers.

Yeah.

It's a great episode.

I think it was one of our best, one of our best performing episodes.

She had a client that had bought a home and they were having an issue with carpenter ants, and she'd gone gotten a record of treatment from this company. And, um, what I won't do is I won't mention the name of the company, um, because that could get us in trouble. Um, but she would— she sent me a copy of what they had done, and there was no chemical listed, and there was no application listed, and it was like charged like $150. And I was like—

What?

And I was like, Christy, what'd they do? And she goes, I don't know. And I was like, well, what'd they use? She goes, I don't know. And I was like, they have to tell you this stuff. Is there any more paperwork? And she's like, no, there's no more paperwork. And I was like, okay, they're either withholding paperwork from you or they made a really bad mistake and did not fill out this paperwork properly because like, you know, they didn't follow these steps. And it's like, you need to know that kind of information.

Yeah.

And like, just, just within our industry, I mean, the reason that that information is there and like this should be like top of mind, tip of tongue with people right now because everyone's so aware of medical issues in their life. Like the reason you have that information is in case someone has an allergic reaction.

It's protection.

It's for your safety.

Yeah.

So like when a doctor, you know, you're having like some— you're having hives or you're having, you know, some sort of breakout or allergic reaction, you know, you're having trouble breathing or something like— and a physician asks you like, have you come in contact or, you know, have you come in contact with any pesticides recently?

Yeah.

Yes, this one.

Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, has anybody ever wondered watched like The Good Doctor?

I haven't.

Or like Chicago Med? I mean, come on, people, these are real problems out there.

More of a Doogie Howser guy.

Doogie Howser.

That's really when I— that and Scrubs, and I'm— I've been out ever since then. I learned everything about doctors from those guys.

Oh, that's funny. That's funny. Well, uh, you know, I, I agree. I— there's, there's so many things out there I mean, you and I have learned a lot just by doing this show.

Yes.

I mean, I— it's unbelievable to me. Just every once in a while I'll talk to someone and they're like, oh, this and this and that and that. And I'm like, oh, we did an episode on that. Oh, we did an episode on that. And there— but there's still so much in the pipe that we haven't even, uh, broached. And one of the things that's been on our mind, um, is foundations.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, foundation around here in the Houston area There's bad foundations all over the place.

That's another one we've been trying to get on. Lisa Agents connected us with that company that lifts houses and readjusts their foundations and things like that. Those guys have been so busy. They're next to impossible to get ahold of. We'll get them though.

Yeah, we will.

I'll tell you another— this is kind of funny. I went bowling the other day.

Oh, really? Are you a bowler?

No. Um, and you know, it's one of those like nicer bowling alleys where, you know, the waitress comes over, would you like any drinks?

Oh yeah.

And I wasn't bowling at the time. I was actually just sitting and watching, and I struck up a conversation with this gal. And, and she was— I mean, to your point, like we did an episode on, like when, like when you, when, like when you say that about like that, it happens, that happens in conversations all the time now. Um, she was talking to me about how, uh, she's having to share a home right now with her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law and his wife. and her husband. And she's like, I'm really trying to, uh, you know, we're trying to adjust and move to where we can all get our own separate living spaces, but we'd really all like to live on the same property. She goes, but the problem is, is none of our credit's really great. And I was like, well,

I actually host a show and we interviewed a guy that really knows how to repair your credit. And, and like, actually, if you go listen to the episode, he gives some real practical tips. You know, shout out to Mason Miller over at BWI.

Yeah.

Um, you know, on how do you repair your credit. And she's like, what did, what were those practical tips? And I'm like, well, I'm a moron and can't remember every interview. Right. Like, you know, go listen to it. I'm sorry. Just go listen to it. Here's the link. Here's his name. Here's the episode. I'll even look up the episode for you. I was like, I can't remember everything that he said, but like, I remember him giving some very practical advice as to what you can do to improve your credit. And then I'm like, if that doesn't do it for you, call him. He's willing to help you.

Yeah.

Um, and she was like, oh my gosh. Like, and then she was like, is he local? She, and I was like, Yeah, he's like here in the Woodlands.

Yeah.

And she's like, oh, I'll give him a call.

And I'm like, fantastic. Good.

Because that's what he's there for.

And, and that, that conversation right there is the reason we do this for you guys, because we want you to be empowered to not make mistakes and to feel like you, you didn't get gypped on things. Like, giving knowledge is power in, in so many ways. And I'm not talking like, like power like like, I, I own you. It's, it's, it's power, like just the power to not get taken advantage of.

Yeah.

The power to feel like when I'm talking about something, I'm, I'm not just mindlessly talking, like to have some, some actual, um, information to work with. So, uh, you know, that's what we want to do. And, and we know also that there are probably some things out there that you wish we would do an episode on that we haven't covered yet, please let us know what it is. In fact, that's where we got the idea about the waste removal stuff, right? It's a— it's— we, we had to try to figure out like, where are we gonna find that information, you know? How are we gonna find it?

Sorry, my phone came on.

What does your phone do?

I didn't, I didn't mean to like interrupt your important moment there.

Well, I had lots of really important things to say just now and Carry on. What I— well, I, I completely lost my train of thought. It was really good, Craig.

It was.

People were, people were really like, man, that Kevin, he knows what he's talking about. Yeah, until that.

What are you doing over there? Well, like, I'm checking. I was trying to check on the livestream and see what's going on, and like, the, the one comment is from, is from William Underwood. He only says is duct tape, which is fair. We haven't done an episode on duct tape.

No, and I have not successfully gotten you to close your mouth yet, so a little duct tape could be an effective tool. That's right, that's right. Thank you for the advice, William. I will get duct tape around, uh, Craig's mouth soon. Yeah, that'll be, that'll be good.

And if that's, if that's how you intended it, William, I need to talk to you about my mattress.

Oh man, I, I really hope he was watching and saw that look you just gave him. That's funny. Um, yeah, because that duct tape you had to put on the mattress, that wasn't very good. Yeah, a whole nother conversation. Yeah, operator error. That's right, that's right. Well, and, and, you know, there's some other things that we know, um, Not just, not just experts that we want to bring in. Sometimes we do reviews on things, and maybe there's something out there that you're interested in trying, um, or maybe there's something that you've said, hey, I've heard about this thing, can you do a review on it? We love doing that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and, and we— I mean, like, just, I mean, just right off the top of my head, I, we— I know we've got some interesting guests in the pipeline. Yeah, already. I mean, we've got our mutual friend Jared coming in soon to talk about the house that he basically rebuilt from top to bottom by By himself. Um, and, and, but he's also, I mean, like, he's— since he got rid of that property, he's moved on to making like some handmade cutting boards.

Yeah.

And, and some, some other products for your home.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, like, they're, they're fantastic looking. Well, we have a licensed therapist friend of mine that we're, we're talking with about coming in and doing a mental health episode for like, you know, you know, we're in Texas, we have a little bit more freedom here. move about and go out and do some things. Not all restaurants are closed down and things like that. But a lot of people across the, you know, the U.S. that listen to this show, they're in not as friendly of— friendly is probably not a great way to put it. They're not as open.

It's not as open. Yeah.

You know, for whatever reason.

Yeah.

And so that's a difficult situation to be in, which brings me to some actually— I mean, like, A friend of the show that we, you know, we'd love to have back on again, uh, up in the Seattle area. Haley Thayer's back active doing some stuff online again from—

Hey, what's up, Haley? Hey, I hope you're listening right now.

Yeah, uh, we, uh, we're super proud of you. Your, your baby is beautiful.

Of course.

Uh, I saw him on the, uh, the YouTubes.

Yes.

So we're excited that you guys, you're, uh, active again. We'd love to chat with you about everything, uh, interest rate and home buying and all that kind of good stuff again. She's always a fan favorite to have on the show. And then Tanya Manley, we're planning on having her back in. We've been talking about the episode. Last time we talked to her about home cleaning. You guys are going to be blown away what we're going to be talking with her about. She has had a crazy 2020.

Man!

I am just in awe and amazed by her and Will, who is her husband, who's also going to be in the studio to talk about you know, everything that's been going on in their world and their life.

What a strong family. Yeah, I mean, really.

I mean, and they're— I mean, like, you want to talk about having to adjust your home?

Wow.

Yeah, we're really excited to get them in and talk about what's been going on with them. So, you know, and again, like, that's just the stuff, like, off the top of my head that we have planned. We have a lot of, like, other stuff That, you know, it's not confirmed yet, so we can't talk about it. Um, but we have a lot of other stuff in the pipeline that we're just excited to get to you guys because we— and again, like, it's stuff that we're excited to bring to you because it's stuff we haven't done yet.

Yeah.

And, you know, you know, back 2 and a half years ago when, like, we were, you know, like, penciling out, like, here's a, here's a list of topics, right? And we thought that, like, that list was pretty exhaustive.

Yeah. And what— there was like 40 or 50 things on there.

Yeah.

And we were like, Dude, it's gonna take us a while to do this. And it did. And there's probably still some things on that—

On that list we haven't done yet.

Yeah, I mean, and here we are 2 and a half years later. And, and I'll just say, I mean, we said it earlier, I'm gonna say it again. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah, because I mean, we, we enjoy doing this. It's fun for us. Uh, but I mean, if you weren't listening, at some point we'd be like, we're done, right? And so, so thank you for, for listening and, and, and being part of what we do. It's it's a joy for us to be able to bring you stuff like that. Absolutely.

So can— like, and like, Kevin and I have different roles on the show, and he's, he's actually looking over the, uh, the, the video stuff right now. Um, are— can you see comments that come through on, on what you're looking at?

No.

No? Okay. So these are all fun things that we need to learn. Yeah.

Um, I mean, maybe, but if so, I don't know where.

You don't know where? Okay, we'll, we'll figure it out. I mean, like, I can, I can look at some of it here on my phone. Um, but just real quick, we appreciate your support. One of the best ways that you can support the show is by sharing our content. Yeah, you know, especially now that we can put the episode live up on Facebook. And, and so many people ask us, like, how do you have time to do this? Well, now you know, because we do it late at night.

Yep. Um, and, and most of the time it's after our kids are in bed and our wives are, you know, Starting to wind down for the, for the night.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So a great way to support the show is just to share the content. An episode that you enjoyed, you're like, hey, this is really important information. I feel like people need to know these kinds of things. Please share that information. We want— it's free and we want it to get into as many hands as possible because we feel like it's valuable information. We're not gonna do an episode where we feel like, oh, this is just— throw this one away. Other ways that you can support the show, you can actually buy our t-shirts on Amazon. Yeah, uh, there's a link for that always in the show notes. Um, we'd appreciate any— and also that just helps promote the show because you can wear the t-shirt and you're all beautiful, wonderful people and we'd be happy for you to wear our

merchandise.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, other than that, I mean, like, we just love you guys.

Yes. Yeah. And you know, anytime you can subscribe, tell someone else about the, the show, um, those things are all valuable. They're valuable, hopefully not just for us as the show, but hopefully for that person you're talking to.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, thanks for sticking with us.

Yeah, I, I guess one other quick thing is like, if you know of anybody that would bring value to the rest of the listeners, yeah, you know, if you have a recommendation for someone that would be interesting for us to talk to, we'd love to either, you know, bring them in via Zoom or have them in the studio. Um, we, we have— obviously we have that ability to do.

Yeah, I mean, we don't have to— I mean, we, we talked with our friend Molly Um, I think she was in New York at the time. Yeah. And, uh, we, we did that episode. So I mean, and we, we talked to Haley multiple times. There's, there's lots of people that we've talked to on the show that are not in, in our Houston backyard here. So, um, I, I, I said that as if Houston's like a little small place. It's not. But yeah, I mean, let us know if you got some— someone you're interested in. Let's talk to them. Yeah. So, well, listen, um, anything else you want to talk about?

No.

Okay, I think that about wraps it up. Thanks for listening. Thanks for, uh, sticking with us. But more than anything, we hope you're looking forward to 2021 like we are. Uh, honestly, I have a lot of hopes for 2021, just personally, for our country, for our world. Lots of things I think are going to be better than 2020, and hopefully the content here on The Homeowner Show will continue to to make you happy. And so yeah, we're gonna sign off. Thanks for watching live on YouTube. I mean, sorry, Facebook. We're not on YouTube yet.

Subscribe over there, then we can go live on YouTube.

You'll see it, but not live yet. All right guys, until next time, we'll see you later. See ya.