Where It Hides, When It’s a Risk, and the Rules for Removing It Asbestos was once used in many common building products for its strength and heat resistance. Plenty of older Central Florida homes still contain it in flooring, textured ceilings, roofing, siding, or pipe insulation. That isn’t automatically a danger. Asbestos becomes a health … Read more
Free Hurricane Inspections and Grants for Wind Upgrades My Safe Florida Home is the state’s program for helping homeowners harden their homes against hurricanes. It offers a home inspection that shows which upgrades would make the biggest difference, and, for qualifying homeowners, grants of up to $10,000 toward impact windows and doors, garage doors, and … Read more
Keeping Them Out of the Yard, and What to Do After a Bite Snakes are part of living in Central Florida. They turn up on lanais, in garages, in pool skimmers, and in flower beds, especially in spring when they become more active. Most of them are harmless, and many eat the rodents homeowners would … Read more
Keeping Them Out and the Rules for Removing Them Scratching in the attic at night, chewed wires, a raided trash can: most Central Florida homeowners deal with unwanted animals sooner or later. Rats, squirrels, and raccoons all want the same thing, a dry, protected spot near food, and they all get in the same way, … Read more
Control That Works and What to Skip Fire ants and mosquitoes are the two pests that make a Central Florida yard hard to enjoy. Both are year-round problems here, both have a long list of home remedies that don’t work, and mosquitoes carry real disease risk. In 2026, locally acquired dengue cases led to targeted … Read more
What They Are and How to Keep Them Out Almost every Central Florida homeowner has met a palmetto bug: a big brown roach that shows up on the bathroom floor at night, sometimes on its back. It’s alarming but usually not a sign of a dirty house. The roach that does point to a real … Read more
Portable vs. Standby, Safety, Permits, and HOA Rules After a hurricane, the worst part for many Central Florida households isn’t the storm. It’s the days without power that follow, in heat and humidity, often with a refrigerator full of food and, for homes on a well, no running water. A backup generator can make those … Read more
Most EV owners do most of their charging at home, overnight, for a fraction of what gas costs. Getting there in Central Florida involves more than buying a charger. You’ll deal with the electrical code and a permit, possibly your condo association, your utility’s EV programs, and, because this is Florida, a plan for hurricane … Read more
Snowbirds are part of Florida’s calendar. University of Florida researchers estimated roughly 800,000 to 900,000 seasonal residents in Florida at the winter peak in the mid-2000s, and New Yorkers were the largest group. Splitting the year between two homes sounds simple, but it means living under two states’ tax rules, insuring a house that sits … Read more
Every Florida homeowner eventually finds it somewhere: black specks on the bathroom ceiling, a musty smell in a closet, a pair of leather shoes that came out of storage fuzzy and green. Florida has its own nickname for that last one, “green shoe syndrome,” and it says a lot about the climate. Mold spores are … Read more
