Squatters and Tools

This is episode number 259 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you 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 thank you for joining us for another live episode here at The Homeowner Show. That's my phone in the background doing a weird echoey thing. Because I forgot to turn the volume down.

It happens.

Yep. So how you doing, bud?

Man, I'm great. Everything's good.

For sure?

Yeah, like, I mean, you know, things are, things are moving, things are shaking, and we got some rain last night. So I think that was like— everybody's like dancing in the rain, people posting on Facebook, you know, stuff happening.

And, uh, yeah, So I personally want to thank whoever washed their car yesterday for the rain.

I don't know who you are, but we all appreciate you.

The good rain juju that you sent our way. That's right.

I mean, you got to do what you got to do at this point. That's right. I mean, it's, it's getting a little bit dicey out there. Um, I mean, we're, we're— I've resorted to, to literally like just putting a hose on my trees and just turning it on.

Oh yeah.

I mean, all you got to do is just soak.

I mean, it's— you got to hit the roots and just hope to God, it stays alive.

Exactly. I mean, that's— and, and thankfully where we're at, I mean, I know there's a lot of places around here that are like on a water restriction.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't, can't run your—

You're in a burn ban.

Yeah. And so burn ban, water restriction, all the above. Thankfully, you can't water restrict me. So good luck. I own my water.

It's my water. You can't tell me what to do with it. That's exactly right.

So, um, I've been using my water, especially since I paid a lot of money for that water recently.

Yeah.

So I'm— yeah, we're, we're trying to use it. I literally— dude, I— so, so you know how far it is from my house to the front of my property, right? It's a long way.

Yeah.

Um, I'm probably an acre, and I was watering the front of my property the other day. I had water hoses like connected all the way down. You know those tractor, uh, water—

Oh, the ones that kind of walk?

Yeah. Well, yeah, they roll, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was— I had that thing going. It was like walking all over my property.

Do those actually work? I've never used one of those.

Oh dude, they're amazing. So we had one growing up and, um, I was like, man, I, I wonder if they even still make these. So when we moved to our property last year, I went out and looked for them on— and I found some on Amazon. And I'm like, huh, that's interesting. I'm gonna buy one. And they were— I mean, they're expensive. They're like $70. Really?

Yeah.

And I was like, this, huh, I wonder.

Um, because I got like 2 of those like 3.5-foot tripod ones for like $60.

Yeah. And I've got a couple of those as well. Um, but this thing, like, I— what I was concerned about was it was going to be like plastic because it's not going to work very well if it is. But no, this is Full, full-on heavy. I mean, it's heavy duty, but you know, you can, you can take those like those tines and like move them and like give a further out spread or, you know, closer in. And you can water a lot of area with those. Yeah, a lot of area. So it's awesome.

And you got to be strategic.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you, you lay the hose out where you want it to go and it goes.

Yeah.

So it's awesome.

I tell you, the worst, the worst part about the storm that came through yesterday was I was standing in a parking lot talking, talking with some friends and like rain, no problem. No. But as the storm was coming in, it was coming with wind.

Oh, that wind was forceful.

And it was kicking up all the dust in the parking lot and it was, it was like a dust storm.

That's all we have.

I mean, dust. So I've, I've never been in a haboob.

I have.

So it's the, it's the closest thing I think I'll ever come.

You're blessed.

Yeah, well, it was, it was painful.

I was thankful. So I don't remember when it was, um, I don't know, it was back in the spring. We had a big storm that came through and it rained and the wind was heavy. And we not— I mean, there were limbs down. There were— do you remember this? Oh yeah, limbs everywhere. It took us, it took us days and days and days to get all the limbs up. And I was just terrified that this was gonna happen again yesterday. I guess all the limbs fell down.

Yeah, we already got—

they were all gone.

We got rid of the weak ones. Yeah. So I was actually concerned about the same thing because, I mean, so many have gotten brittle at the top.

Yep.

I mean, I'm sure it happened somewhere.

I'm not joking. I bet they were 60 Mile an hour winds.

Yesterday?

Yes.

Wow.

It was crazy. It was crazy.

Well, speaking of crazy.

Yes.

You want to hit this, this story that we—

Let's talk about it. We got— we've got to talk about this. So we were gonna hit it last week.

Yeah, we just went a little long. Ran out of time.

So let's talk about it.

So it— I mean, it's been 2 weeks since the story hit.

Yes.

And this was out of the New York Post, but it is a guy out of— and I believe it's Decatur, Georgia. Because the story that comes after this, it's in the same story. So thank you to Mary Kay Jacob over at the New York Post for writing the story, getting this information out, because I think it's actually an important one when homeowners make the headlines. This homeowner, let's see, what's his name? Let me get it here. Tim Arco was— I think the headline sums it up rather well. Homeowner arrested after trying to evict squatters from his own property. Walked in on weapons, a prostitute, and a bunch of dogs.

I just— there's so much that just— you just said right now that I'm going, what in the world?

I think he owns property in South America.

Yeah. Well, I'm not sure he owns his own property. Like, this is nuts, man. So, and it's getting out of hand.

Well, and let's— I'm not going to bury the lead on this because they— he has now finally gotten court orders to get, what do they call them?

Dadgummit.

They're not— it's not the police.

The bounty hunters?

I don't know.

I don't know what you're looking for.

I keep saying— I keep thinking in my head Rangers, and I'm like, that's a Texas thing.

Yes.

Marshals.

Oh, the marshals.

U.S. Marshals.

Okay.

So they've got, they've got the marshals on the way to actually evict these people, um, who have been squatting in his property for 6 months now. So, but here's, here's the craziest part of the whole thing to me is, let's just follow the timeline here. Tim is— has a rental property, right? He had tenants living in the property.

Yes.

Those tenants moved out. We don't know under what circumstances those tenants moved out. Not important.

They're gone.

They're just gone.

Yeah.

Tim was showing up to check on the property to get it ready so that he could move new renters into the property.

Right.

When he shows up to the property to check on his property that he owns, he finds people inside. Not only does he find people inside, apparently those people have weapons because they brandished a gun at him and chased him off of his own property. I don't know how he knew one of them was a prostitute.

He's got eyes, man.

But that is what has been reported. And apparently, and amongst the weapons and the prostitutes, there were dogs.

Dogs.

So he flees the property. There's actually a video you can go watch of the interview with the local news agency. He jumps the fence and runs away because he says he doesn't know what else to do. When he safely gets away, he calls 911.

Right. As you do. I mean, that's what I would do.

Right. Like, hey, there's people in my, in my property.

Right.

The cops show up. The people in the house say that he was a home invader that scared them. They arrested him.

The homeowner gets arrested because the people that are overtaking his home are scared.

Right. And then stayed there. They have now been there for 6 months.

Right.

Crazy. Yeah, like, what do you do?

Ah, see, this is, this is the point at which— I mean, so we've got, we've got laws in place, right? There are laws in place that protect renters, right? And there's this whole castle thing, right, where, where you can, like, if you declare a place to be your shelter, right, then someone cannot come and take such shelter from you.

Right.

Um, and so because of this law that has been put in place, anybody can go anywhere and declare it their castle.

What— so here's, here's my concern, is enough of these stories are going to come out, right, where the squatters realize that when the owner shows up, they have the right to dispatch that person, right? with whatever means is necessary.

Yeah, they can be armed.

And let me tell you guys something. In any gun class that they have out there, what they will tell you is if you decide to brandish a gun, you better kill the person. You better kill the person that you're firing upon.

That's right.

And in this case, that probably would have been— I mean, like, yeah, this issue would have been resolved somewhat.

Yeah.

In that regard. Yeah, I'm not saying that people should do that. I'm concerned that squatters are going to realize that they can actually stay longer if they have rights.

Yeah, somehow, somehow the, the law of like stealing doesn't apply to people who steal a house, you know?

Well, I mean, but we're actually seeing this in different parts of the country right now. I mean, like, have you seen the videos of people just like walking in and start looting the store?

Yes.

I mean, it's starting to happen more and more.

Right.

And, you know, the result of this is going to be that eventually these people who are providing these services in these stores in these cities are just going to remove their businesses from those areas.

They're going to have to.

And so those— so people living in those areas are not going to have access to groceries and clothes and other necessities. Because there's going to be a lack of stores willing to continue to do business at a loss. Right. And put their employees at risk.

Why would they?

So, I mean, you know, yeah, keep it up because you're just, you're just going to isolate your city.

So let me get—

and I think, I think the same thing is going to happen with this squatter thing because this is not the only story coming out of Atlanta.

They're all over the place.

It's happening here in Houston. It is. It's obviously happening in Georgia. I mean, there's other places that we're hearing these stories coming out. And as we hear about them, we want to bring them to y'all's attention. One, so that you're aware that this kind of stuff is happening, but also because, like, we want you to be aware of your rights.

Yeah. And, and so let me get this straight. So, like, if, if I'm— so I'm at my house.

Mhmm.

And if someone tries to come in my house and I choose to shoot them.

Right.

And I kill them.

Mhmm.

Then very likely, I'm going to, to get off on self-defense.

Yes.

That I'm protecting my—

Myself and my property.

Myself and my property, my family, whatever. Right? However, if I come to my same house and someone is in my house instead of the opposite.

Right.

and I go in and I shoot them, now I have intent to harm someone who has rights inside of my own house.

Well, unless you kill them.

But you see the irony in this whole thing? Like, somehow I have rights and privileges as a homeowner, as someone that owns a piece of property to defend it.

Yeah.

And to, and to, to make sure that people don't take advantage of my stuff, basically, unless I'm on the outside coming in.

Right.

That just— to me, the, the logic behind all of that is so completely flawed. Something's got to change. And I understand, like, on some level there needs to be some protection, because for good reason the Castle Law exists.

Yep.

for good reason. And I, and I agree with the castle law. I think it should exist. But there comes a point where certain—

For property owners.

Yes, for property owners who— you own a property and someone else has come in and illegally taken over that property, cannot produce a, uh, a lease, cannot produce any documentation showing that they have actually, you know, signed ownership of this property as a renter.

I think, I think we ought to be clear on this too, because, you know, like, I think people listening to this that might be renting think that we're not considering them property owners. I, I don't— I disagree with that.

Sure.

I think someone who is renting is a property owner. Absolutely. They are renting that property.

But do you have proper documentation that shows from you and the homeowner that you are legally in, in a contract that says, I am allowed to be here?

So, so for, I mean, for whatever reason, we've created this category called squatter.

Yeah, exactly.

That distinguishes it from trespasser. And it's the same thing.

It's the same thing. It's, it's the exact same thing. And if I go in and take care of the trespasser and don't actually kill 'em, I guess, and then they've, you know, somehow, you know, wanna, wanna come at me.

Right.

Then I'm the bad guy.

Yeah.

And it just makes no sense.

It makes absolute zero sense.

And yet, and yet the law protects 'em.

Yeah.

And so somewhere, I, and I don't know what to do about this. Like, I, I'm not the guy to do something about this because I'm so ignorant with it. But there's somebody out there that's going, we gotta fix this. And I, I don't know what they're gonna do though.

Well, and I, I would imagine some of this has to do with writing laws for inner cities that make sense for inner cities, but that don't make sense for neighborhood communities.

Okay. Like what?

Well, I, I mean, like, I know that there's a, there's more of a squatter issue when you have, like, a multi-tenant building. Like, it's just, It's harder to keep track of.

Sure.

And so people that have, you know, been living in a space for a long, long time, like, say, in like a condemned building, you know, like they're living there, it's illegal, but they've been living there for a long time.

Right.

You know, some— the city wants to attribute to them certain civil rights about the property that they have in place in that building, even though, like, the— no one— I mean, someone owns it, but technically they're not taking care of it.

Right.

You know, in instances like that, it kind of— if it's like an abandoned property, Yeah, I can, I can see how you can make a case. Sure. You know, but like, at some point in time, if the property changes hands and someone wants to come in and demo that building, like, I'm sorry, you got to vacate.

Yeah, I would even say that even if the person who owns that property comes and says, look, we're about to, you know, we've got, I mean, we've got permits, we're about to do something with this, like, you, you have shown a different intent with what it is, whether it's a demo or whether we're going to remodel it or whether we're going to— right, you know, whatever it is. Like, if you show intent with that abandoned property to do something, I think there's still reason in that moment, even if it's not changing hands, for the people that are there that don't belong there to vacate.

Yeah.

To me, I, I just don't see that you get to take over a place that you don't own call it your own and have any rights in such place.

Yeah.

So that makes sense.

The, the other, the other story that we, we haven't gotten to on this is the, the one of Lieutenant Colonel, uh, Dalia Duarte, and I hopefully I'm pronouncing that, that last name correctly, um, who was out of, uh, the country on active duty.

Yeah.

But owned a home in Atlanta. a rather nice home. They said it was like a $500,000 home.

Wow.

And that she got home from active duty only to discover that her house was being lived in. And she hadn't rented it while she was gone.

I mean, it was—

she was expecting to come home.

Sure.

And there was people, and they— I— we saw the video of the, uh, law enforcement officers actually evicting people from her home. And like, they hadn't just like kind of moved in.

I mean, they were fully moved in.

There was like 2 moving vans out in front of the house loading their stuff back in.

Jeez. Out.

And, you know, this is— this has got to be something that certain— oh, yeah, it's a 4,300-square-foot house. Wow. It's just like, obviously there's people looking— oh my gosh, I'm just— I'm scanning the article as I'm talking. It says she had to spend like over $35,000 on renovations after they left.

Oh my goodness. Um, yeah, they're, they're scouting these places out, right?

Yeah, they have to.

They have to be. They, they're, they're going, look, no one's, no one's there, or hey, this is our, our chance.

Yeah, like there's the modern-day wet bandits.

Yeah, I mean, there, to me, again, it comes back to this, this question about laws. Like, there's intent behind what's happening, and I think a lot of, a lot of the law depends on intent. Whenever, whenever you're talking through, um, like cases of, of law, court cases.

Sure.

There's so much that winds up turning around on intent. And if your intent is to do something nefarious, right, then I, I just don't see how, how that doesn't get over— over— how it does get overlooked and it doesn't get taken care of. But it happens. It's happening.

So, so I— what I wanna know, and I, I— we probably need to talk to somebody in insurance about this, is like, what happens if you have squatters in the house?

It gets—

and then something happens.

It's a good question.

Is that covered by your insurance? Because they, they weren't renting. You didn't give them permission to be there.

We should probably talk to Ryan about this.

Like, seriously. You know, like, or, like, Is it possible for squatters to have renters insurance?

Huh. I don't know.

You know, I mean, like, how many—

how many—

like, again, like, this is probably a good question for Ryan or some, you know, anybody in the insurance business. Like, is it possible to take out a policy like that without actually checking to make sure that there's a lease in place?

Well, okay. Well, let's, let's talk about it from this standpoint.

I mean, it's been so long since I've rented property. I have no idea the answer to that question.

So, so my mother-in-law, when she sold— so she sold her house.

Mhmm.

and then turned around and lived in that house for, I don't know what it was, like, I don't know, 3 or 4 months, right? Um, she was paying rent back to the people that, that bought it from her, and so she went and got renter's insurance for her property, right? Like her, her stuff, right? Well then—

Which, if you're a renter, get renter's insurance.

Oh yeah, you need it. Yeah, I mean, there's You need it.

It's cheap.

It's like, yeah, I think she's paying like $8 a month.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like ridiculously cheap. Okay. So then she moves, you know, we move her to our property.

Mhmm.

Build, we build her house. She moves in. She goes to get homeowner's insurance on her house.

Yeah.

And she can't get homeowner's insurance. We've talked about this, right? No. No, she, she can't get homeowner's insurance on her house. You know why?

Why?

There's no deed. I own her house.

Oh.

She built it, her money. She— it's, it's her house.

And you had to get the homeowner's insurance.

So I had to get the homeowner's insurance, which is fine.

Sure.

Honestly, it's a good thing all the way around because adding a second dwelling on a current policy pretty inexpensive.

So, like, an ADU policy?

I don't have a clue what you just said.

So I don't know. Well, that's, that's how they're characterizing it. It's like if you're selling a piece of property, additional dwelling unit.

Yeah. That's—

yeah.

It's, it's a second dwelling.

Yeah.

And so I, I guess that would be—

Well, I think— okay. So what I, I think this is the same thing that happened with, like, master bedroom. Some people were taking offense to the idea that it was mother-in-law, mother-in-law quarters.

Okay.

And it's like, well, okay. Yeah. But this is my father-in-law.

And now we're being sexist.

Okay. Yeah.

So it's a second dwelling. Yeah. And ADU is the— Okay. And honestly, it was like $150 a year to add it to. I mean, it was so cheap. So cheap. There's no way she could have gotten homeowner's insurance or anywhere close to that. But then the question goes, okay, what does that cover?

Right. Yeah.

Well, it, it doesn't— it basically covers the structure. That's what it covers. It doesn't really cover anything in the dwelling.

Oh, none of her possessions? No.

Really? Yeah. Not from what we could tell, and I mean, and again, for $150, and what is it gonna actually cover? It's mainly structural. So what do you do? Well, you get renter's insurance.

Oh, so she's got renter's insurance.

So she's got renter's insurance.

Nice.

But here's, but here's the reason I bring this up. She called the, the insurance company that she was working with whenever she had renter's insurance, uh, back in East Texas and said, Hey, I've got renter's insurance with you guys for all of my, my possessions. Um, I just moved to a new home and I'm not renting it, but I'm living there. Can I use renter's insurance for that? And they said, absolutely. And she said, what do I need to do? They said, you've already got a policy with us. You're good.

Oh, so she just—

There's no, there's no— so, so there's no property connected to that.

The answer to that question then is probably no. You don't need to show proof.

Apparently not.

You can just transfer your policy.

Yeah, because I would assume that you can do like renter's insurance on a storage unit.

I would think so.

Or a home or an apartment or whatever. And as long as you kind of— and now there's, I would assume, really this is where we probably need to hear what Ryan would say on this, but like, I would assume you really need to take some good inventory of what you own. Oh, for sure. You need to take some video. need to have serial numbers of things that are, that are important. Uh, you know, guns or, you know, whatever that you have serial numbers on. You, like, make sure you know what you have so that if they have to replace it, you can show good, you know, uh, this is what I actually have. But it does not, from what she— now, again,

I'm not an insurance agent, so I may be completely wrong.

Or an attorney.

No, I've had no—

Either one of us.

Nowhere close. Yeah. But from what she was told, she was just like, they're like, yeah, you've already got a policy with us. Just don't cancel it. Yeah. It's like $8 a month. So anyway, it's just like I told her, I was like, look, this is the cheapest insurance you're ever going to get. Don't worry about it. Yeah.

So did I ever tell you about the— since you brought up his name, did I tell you about the jewelry policy that we got with Ryan?

Yes.

It's the greatest thing ever.

It's a great policy.

Yes.

Mention it.

Well, I mean, so like we— so there's not really any like coverage for Apple Watches, right? So he mentioned to us, he's like, look, it's technically jewelry, so you can put it under a jewelry policy and it costs next to nothing, right? I think it, I think it cost us like $40 for both of our watches every year.

For a year?

Yeah.

Right.

Um, and we're like, so what happens if it breaks? He goes, you just get a new one.

Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. And so like super easy.

Yep.

Cover your watch. I mean, $40 a year.

Like AppleCare. AppleCare is like $4 a month.

Yeah.

Per device.

Per device.

And so this is for both of ours. Yeah. It's a no-brainer.

Yeah. And like, like this, this is like, this is, this is why it's important to have a good insurance person because like he's like, he knows, he knows the kind of stuff that we're into. And so he's gonna call us and be like, hey, are you aware of that? We can do something like this. Had no idea. Thank you.

I didn't even tell you what he just did for me this last week.

No.

He emails me, I don't know, a couple weeks ago and he's like, hey, just noticed we don't have your auto insurance. You wanna check on that? And I was like, dude, like we're up a creek because my Excursion has a salvage title on it. So I was like, man, like there's not a lot we can do. There's only like one, maybe two places that will even insure a salvage title. At all, let alone the fact that it— I only get collision on it. Like, I can't do anything more than that.

I thought you could as long as it passed an inspection.

No, no, it, it is— no.

I've heard differing reports on that.

Well, according to everything that— I mean, maybe, maybe there's a way to do that, but according to any insurance agent that I've talked to, it's just like, no, a lot of places won't even touch it because it's salvage. Huh.

So, I mean, I've heard that too.

It makes sense. I mean, now if they had any idea why mine was salvaged, it was— it's like it was in a front-end collision that like the bumper and fender were messed up and they didn't want to fix it because it was old. Uh, I mean, it didn't touch the engine, didn't touch the frame, didn't touch any of that. Like, just cracked a couple of things and they replaced them. It's good. So it's like the most ridiculous reason to have a salvage title, but it has one because they totaled it. So, um, so he's like, well, never hurts to look. I was like, all right, look. He comes back, dude, not only did he find me another insurance company that's a better insurance company that will insure

my excursion, they'll do it for cheaper and offer comprehensive.

There you go.

So this company is a better company, uh-huh, offering comp and collision for cheaper.

Nice.

And like, again, like knowing the right guy who actually knows what they're doing, the insur— and who really cares about you, you know, take care of you, whatever. Um, that's, that's the insurance person you want.

Yeah, every time.

You know, every single time.

Yeah.

So anyway, he takes care of us. Yeah, of course.

I don't know how many policies we have with him. I mean, we're kind of like, I'm all over the place.

We are too. So we are too.

My wife has way too many life insurance policies on me. We just went through estate planning. Like, we just wrapped that up last week.

Yeah.

I mean, there's still a couple of little pieces that have to go in, but like, we were going through all of it and I was like, how much are you going to stand to gain? Well, no, I was looking at it like, who have you already hired to kill me? Right.

I would kill me. It would, it would be worth it.

So just mind your P's and Q's, buddy.

That's exactly right.

Like, is there anything like that Double Jeopardy?

I saw a movie once. I saw a movie. Oh yeah, we do have one other thing we want to talk about, right?

Yeah, yeah. No, so I mean, we haven't done like a tool review in a while, but Ryobi just, just dumped—

I don't even know what it is.

You don't know? Okay. All right, so Man, there was another one. We can't talk about that one yet. We got a press release on some new stuff from Lutron, but we can't even talk about it yet. No.

Well, we were invited to learn more about it.

We got the press. They sent us everything. Yeah.

So, yeah.

Anyway, we just can't talk about it yet. Yeah. But Ryobi just dumped a new Saw. Oh, it is cool looking. Really? And like I'm I'm actually kind of excited about it just because I've done tile work before. It is a stone saw.

Oh oh oh like a like a flagstone type thing?

Well, like like like for cutting tile and for cutting stone and slate and blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, although it probably wouldn't be great at cutting slate. Nothing's good at cutting slate.

Not with that attitude.

But, but, you know, like ceramics and different things like that.

Okay.

What's cool about it is, one, it's cordless.

Oh.

It's not a table saw.

Okay.

Because you like— have you ever, have you ever cut tile?

Yes.

With like a wet saw?

Yes.

So it's usually a table and it's got like a water bath underneath.

Right.

So this one is just like a circular saw, except it's got a water tank on top.

I see it.

And it's—

I'm looking at it right now.

It's cool.

So you don't have to have— it's, it's, it's just a hand— it looks like a circular saw.

Yeah, but with a water tank.

Oh, with a water tank.

To make those smooth cuts on this, on the stone.

Interesting.

And like, here's, here's the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand about saws in particular. Like, as long as the motor works and it hits the right RPMs, it has very little to do with the tool as much as it does the blade, right? And, and so if you have the right blade, like the right stone blade on that thing, you can do whatever, and the water's hitting it just right, man, as long as the, the tool itself is working, yeah, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna do fantastic.

So there's a couple of things that this does. Um, number one, the portability of this thing is awesome because, I mean, first of all, most tables— I mean, most tile saws are, are limited in the fact that you've got to have power.

Uh-huh.

And—

Plugged in, you mean?

Yeah, you got to have, you know, shore power basically. And you got to take all your tile over here, then you got to cut it all, you got to take it over there, see if it lines up. And then, I mean, it's a lot of back and forth. And, and a lot of what I would assume this is going to be really good for is stuff that needs to be good but doesn't have to be perfect.

Sure.

Pavers would be a good reason, you know, to— again, I, I mentioned, uh, you know, landscaping stuff, but I would think that this, you know, it needs to be really good but doesn't have to be perfect.

Yeah.

Work really good for that kind of stuff.

Well, but you and I both know that there are some carpenters that— oh, they're with, with the, the, the saw in their hand, they're, they're better with their hand than they are if they got a straight edge.

Well, because— yeah, of course, because one of the other things that you can do with this though is if you have a straight edge, a clamp straight edge, you don't have to have a tile saw at all. You can use a clamp straight edge. I mean, basically what I use instead of a table saw these days— of course I still use a table saw, but I use a track saw as often as I possibly can because the track is so versatile, right?

You—

this is versatile, man.

Like, yeah. So, but like, you also don't need to cut straight lines. I mean, like, you could cut curves. You could.

Absolutely.

I mean, weird shapes and all kinds of stuff. So it really, it really gives a— I mean, like, it's, it's an innovative tool.

I don't know.

I mean, like, you know, I'd want to get my hands on it and cut some tile and see how well it, you know, actually functions.

It's even got a, it's even got a, um, a bevel.

Uh-huh.

So you can even bevel stuff with it.

For like corner pieces.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that water tank's not so heavy that it's not—

It's not huge. I wonder how, I wonder how that— if there's like an adjustment on it to adjust the water flow?

I assume so.

Um, well, because like I'm thinking maybe it only does it like it's trigger activated.

Uh-huh. Um, so it like, it, it uses say tile, natural stone, fiber cement, and masonry.

Oh, so you can use it like on HardiePlank?

Yeah.

Okay.

Use it on HardiePlank. You can use it on, on, you know, pavers or landscaping, stone, tile, bricks.

It's cool, man. It's—

and, and the tool itself's only $200. It's, it's 18-volt battery, so as long as you got batteries. Yeah, but with the battery, it's only $250.

Yeah, but if you're like me, man—

Oh, I know, go through batteries.

I mean, DM me if you want my secret free battery trick. You're—

oh, just like take them back in?

No, I, well, I, I don't wanna like, I don't wanna share it on air because like I don't want it to go away.

Okay. I think I actually know.

I think I've, I think I've told you before.

Yeah, we'll talk about it off air.

If you want a free Ryobi battery from time to time, just shoot, drop me a DM.

Yeah, I'll, I've actually got one right now that needs to be replaced, so.

Oh yeah? Yeah, dude. I see, I see a lot of people using these, uh, off-brand batteries.

Oh yeah.

Like, I don't know where they're getting them.

I don't either.

I imagine they're significantly cheaper, but I can't imagine they're all that great.

No, I can't either.

Um, I'm actually curious if you've ever used an off-brand battery in like a brand name tool. I'd be curious.

Well, like places like Batteries To Go, like they rebuild batteries.

Yeah.

Um, I don't know if it's cheaper for them to rebuild it, and I don't know if it's better than what you can get straight from the store.

But well, I imagine if you have a system, because I've taken one apart before just to see if I could. I mean, because it— I mean, there's basically— it's just a bunch of little batteries just wired together.

Yeah.

But like, good luck.

Yeah, right.

I mean, but if you develop a system of doing that, that's why those battery places— because they've kind of like, okay, they've played around with it, they've broken it, they've, you know, they they have the know-how to do it and do it quickly.

Right.

But anyway, dude, I saw— okay, we're kind of done with everything, but I saw the thing today that was blowing my mind. Have you ever heard of Ion Wind?

No.

Dude, you and I need to watch a video after the show.

Okay.

This is the craziest. So this guy is developing, and I think this has been a thing for a while. I don't know if this is in production to create any sort of propulsion system. But like, it's a pretty cheap way to create propulsion, like jet engines.

Okay.

So the way, the way it works is the— you create an electric charge, that electric charge arcs off of a piece of metal, and if it's a tube, then it creates what they call ion wind. And, and so if you focus that in a certain way. Well, watch. I'm terrible at explaining this because I don't understand science all that great. But it's really like he explains it in a way that makes it, you know, really understandable for idiots like me. But like, you can watch him. It's basically like a transformer, some wires, a metal tube, and you can see the blue sparks coming off the wires, hitting the metal. And he tests it at first by blowing out a candle.

Okay.

And then he sees how far away he can put the candle to blow it out.

Interesting.

And I mean, it's like a little bitty thing, but like at 40 inches, he's blowing the candle out.

What?

And he's like, okay, let's see if we can actually move something. So he builds— he puts it on a piece of Styrofoam boat in the water, and the boat goes right across the water.

Nice.

And he goes, okay, let's see if we can do some sort of aerial propulsion. So he builds a zeppelin out of a helium balloon.

Okay.

And he figures out exactly the size of balloon that he needs to suspend the weight of the engine, and he gets it, and then it just scoots it across the room.

What?

And it's like, okay, this is something.

This is like— So it's electric-generated air, basically?

Yes.

But it's not gas. It's not—

Right. But I mean, it's more efficient than using a battery.

Right.

Um, it's just different. Well, I'll have to show it to you.

It's interesting.

It's the craziest thing. And I'm thinking, okay, like my brain's already going, okay, how do we scale that up? And then, because this is, this is how all technology works, right? Is you build like the little scale model. Yeah. You get it to work, right? And then you build the really big one, and then you micro that down, right, to the same power as the massive one to where it's a much smaller scale, but still putting out the same kind of propulsion. And I'm like, that could be insane. Yeah, it could.

Huh. We'll have to look at it. Yeah, we'll watch that. Cool.

So anything else?

No, man. I think we're good. Thank you everyone for downloading the episode today. Thank you for watching live or replay. However you watch, thanks for watching. And if you haven't already, go on to iTunes, leave us a rating and review. subscribe, hit the bell so you're notified on YouTube whenever we are going live, all of that kind of stuff. And, uh, yeah, thanks for being here. Until next time, see you later.

See ya.