Eric G dives into the whirlpool of midweek madness with a fresh update on all things home, politics, and absurdity that only life can conjure. Kicking things off with a light-hearted jab at local politics, he muses about the recent elections that feel like watching a toddler's tantrum over a toy. He can't help but roll his eyes at the bond measures that somehow expect citizens to fork over cash for basic police services—because, you know, that’s totally how public funding works, right? As he navigates through this political maze, Eric highlights the sheer ridiculousness of how tax money is spent, or more aptly, mismanaged, leaving us pondering if our local governments are running a circus instead of a service.

But wait, it’s not all doom and gloom! Eric also brings us the latest in home improvement news, including some eyebrow-raising recalls on tools and furniture that might just send you to the ER if you’re not careful. Imagine a dining chair that decides to throw you off for no reason—sounds like a great way to spice up dinner, huh? He rounds up interesting recalls like the Milwaukee chainsaw that’s a little too enthusiastic about lacerating its owners, and chairs that could double as a game of ‘who can fall off first’. Eric’s knack for mixing humor with cautionary tales keeps listeners engaged and informed—who knew safety could be this entertaining?

As the episode winds down, Eric shifts gears to the lumber market, revealing that prices are plummeting faster than a rock thrown off a cliff. He shares insights into why this is happening, tossing around terms like 'soft US construction demand' and 'inventory overload' that make you feel smart just for listening. With a wink and a nod, he reminds us that while lumber prices might be dropping, the shady dealings at your local Home Depot might not reflect that drop—cue the eye-roll! Overall, this midweek update is a delightful mix of sarcasm, insight, and that friendly nudge to keep your toolbox handy. Buckle up, because Eric G is here to keep your week interesting!

Takeaways:

• Eric G dives into the absurdity of local election bond measures, questioning why basic services like police should require additional funding.
• The podcast highlights some wild recalls, like chainsaws and dining chairs, reminding us that home improvement can come with unexpected hazards.
• Eric discusses the current lumber prices hitting historic lows, making it a great time for those looking to build or renovate their homes.
• The episode humorously critiques government spending, suggesting that voters need to wake up to the fiscal absurdities happening in their own backyards.

Links referenced in this episode:

• aroundthehouseonline.com
• aroundthehouseonline.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Milwaukee Tool
• Crate and Barrel
• Polaris Industries
• Avenco
• Novilla
• Home Depot
• Lowe's

To get your questions answered by Eric G give us a call in the studio at 833-239-4144 24/7 and Eric G will get back to you and answer your question and you might end up in a future episode of Around the House.

Thanks for listening to Around the house if you want to hear more please subscribe so you get notified of the latest episode as it posts at https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/listen

If you want to join the Around the House Insider for access to the back catalog, Exclusive Content and a direct email to Eric G and access to the show early https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/support

We love comments and we would love reviews on how this information has helped you on your house! Thanks for listening! For more information about the show head to https://aroundthehouseonline.com/

Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.

Mentioned in this episode:

Suscribe to our YouTube Channel

Want even more home improvement tips, tricks, and insider advice? Subscribe to my YouTube channel @AroundTheHouseEricG for project guides, product reviews, and behind-the-scenes content you won’t hear on the podcast. Don’t miss out—hit that subscribe button today!

Around the House YouTube

Foreign.

The House with Eric G. Your Go to source for everything home improvement Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric.

G. Is here to guide you through.

The latest tips, tricks and trends.

So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap, and let's get to work right here on around the House with.

Eric G. Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for home improvement information advice.

Happy Midweek Special.

This is our midweek update that we do that didn't fit into last weekend's national show and this weekend's national show where we just talk about whatever topic is hitting my mind and that might spark some conversation or thoughtfulness or anything else between your friends and your family, including some of the things that I see in the news during the middle of the week that comes out with recalls and everything else.

And you know, it's kind of interesting.

I've been watching we're not going to get into politics here really, but it's just kind of interesting watching the day after a national election.

Now it was a smaller local one.

We had governors, we had things like that.

You know, we had mayors, we had a lot of tax deals and voting rights and things like that all across the country.

Which always gets interesting in these kind of off year elections where there's only, I mean, I got my ballot and I had two things show up and both were were bond measures.

And one of them actually got me kind of frustrated, to be honest, because one of them was for the libraries and doing the libraries.

Great.

I understand that the next one was for basic police services.

They said they'll show up if you call in a theft.

Wait a minute, why is that a bond measure and why is that not my local government paying for that?

Why am I paying extra for that?

That's part of the original bill, guys.

That's what you guys are supposed to do.

That is for paying for basic services.

That tells me that my county that I'm in is probably not running things.

Right.

Because they're spending that money on something else.

And if you guys are regular, listen to the show.

I'm in Oregon here where yeah, they say money should be going into box A and we sign something and say this is where it's supposed to go.

Most of the time it ends up in box D spent on something completely different.

And if you want to see how money shenanigans go, I mean, we had here in Oregon, we had this whole thing about transportation funding.

The Oregon Department of Transportation was gonna have to shut down next week and lay off most of their staff because they couldn't agree to fund things as they wanted to.

Well, here's the interesting part of that.

Because most people in Oregon don't like this increase in the way they're spending the taxes.

The governor has held off signing it for weeks and weeks and weeks because it was an emergency.

Of course, this was back in, like, July.

Somehow they found out, found the money to pay for the people that they said they couldn't pay a week before.

But the interesting part is now she's holding off to the last day to sign it because that way the people that are going to vote to recall that have less time to turn it in for the next election.

So she's trying to give that to the last day to sign it so it reduces the amount the way people can get, you know, signatures for the recall of that bill.

So not really an emergency when you say that, hey, I gotta lay people off next week.

And 90 days later, those layoffs haven't occurred because, well, they had the money, they just didn't want to do it.

So I think it's people out there that are.

And I'm not part of any political party by any means.

Our, our party system is interesting.

But long story short, until the public sits there and says, hey, I've had enough of your nutty spending, they're going to keep doing what they're doing, and we've got to vote different people in to change that.

And it doesn't matter if you're on the right side of the aisle or the left side of the aisle.

You know, I feel bad for the people of New York.

You just.

If you're a homeowner there or you're a landowner in New York and you just got a mayor of the voter dead that wants to take your property away and make it public like they do in Cuba and Russia and even China to some extent.

Yeah.

Good luck, Tom.

I think we're gonna see some mass exodus.

I would not want to be a building owner in New York City.

I would not want to be a business owner, because with all the new taxes that are coming to the upper end people there, they're the easiest ones to pack up and say, I'm moving to New Jersey.

I'm moving over here.

I'm moving to Florida.

So they have got some financial problems because they tried that here in Portland and it failed.

Now they're going to try it on a bigger scale, which means it's going to fail faster.

So fascinating stuff, watching the elections it.

I think the people have had enough of high taxes, paying for stuff, wasting money and hopefully when election times come around, people start paying attention to who's spending their money and what are they getting for it.

Because we sure see a lot of wasted money out there, which is bad for people.

And there's a lot of people that need help out there that aren't getting it.

But other people's pet projects are just getting overfunded.

So let's see if we can steer back and take care of our neighbors, take care of our families, take care of the people around us, take care of our homeless veterans out there.

No excuse for that.

They should all be taken care of.

You know, we've got some big issues out there that as people we should be taking a look at.

Well, I dove into another subject here.

Taking a look around a couple recalls that are interesting.

Milwaukee tool recalls their M18 fuel 14 inch and 12 inch top handle chainsaws due to laceration hazard.

So the chain breaks not working correctly.

There's about 90,860 of those and 7,500 in Canada.

Contact Milwaukee Tool for free repair.

You can go on their website and find it there.

A couple other things that are interesting Crate and Barrel recalls Anna dining chairs due to fall hazard.

Breaking legs is the cause of that.

Lots of lots of kids toys.

Dressers that fall over.

If you bought some new dressers recently and especially online, take a look at that.

That's a big one.

And then going down the list, there's a couple more on here that are interesting too.

They've got a alternator cable that's bad there and then another one here that I thought was interesting to Avenco and Novilla mattresses recalled due to risk of serious injury death from fire looks like.

Doesn't say where those were bought at.

Yeah, it looks like these might have been online.

Some kind of.

Not too many of them either, but just one of those things.

It could be like a Temu kind of thing or something where people are online ordering stuff.

And then the other one here is yeah again more of those w live fabric drawer dressers being recalled as well.

And that really starts to get crazy because they're not putting the kits in those things so people fall over, they pull down.

Not great.

So those should be attached to the walls.

We don't have it falling over on kids or even earthquakes.

You know, another thing that I've been watching is where's our lumber prices at these days?

And if you look on the lumber trading, on the futures, what I'm seeing, for instance, this morning we are at a low point, probably our third lowest point of the year for lumber prices, which tell me right now that even with the trade stuff going on that we've really got a low for building out there.

You know, we were talking about in August, things being at almost $700 for a thousand board feet.

And now we're almost under 5 at 5:37.

As I'm doing this right now, pretty crazy, we're in the 540s, 5 30s, bouncing around in there.

So that tells me a couple things.

One, looking at this, that, you know, this is framing lumber.

This isn't stuff for cabinetry or things like that.

But we start to see that number get down.

These are really big lows.

And I think it's our soft US construction demand and lots of inventory out there.

And until we see builders start building again, Tom, I think we're gonna be at one of those things where we're gonna be here seeing lower lumber prices.

Now, lumber prices aren't always showing up at your Home Depot and Lowe's, for instance.

And that's just something to consider out there because there's still a lot of, you know, people in the middle there that are marking it up to keep the prices up.

So that might drop down.

And if the lumber industry doesn't drop it down to be competitive and those prices stay the same.

So it's really interesting when we start looking at prices across the country.

Now, my lumber prices out here usually pretty good here in the Pacific Northwest because of what we've got.

But the more stuff that we have coming in from overseas, coming in, or even just out of Canada as far, lumber coming out of there, that's.

That can change those prices as well, Tom.

So we're not seeing the composite boards and the decking stuff change around that much.

But it's really, you know, taking a look right now at my local Home depot here, we're 355 for their number 2 kiln dried stud and 325 for their green studs.

Tells me kind of right there, looking at it, that we've got a few options here, basically.

So in my store here, we have actually premium grade Katie, basically kiln dried studs.

Then they've got a premium number two grade for dimensional lumber not dried.

And then they have another one here, that's 365, which is their Burrell Premium first stud.

So kind of interesting when you start looking at that.

And then they do have some of these pro wood green studs as well.

They're down to 2 98.

So you know, my lumber yard here has about eight different styles of two by fours out there.

But you get where I'm going at.

That stuff starts, starts to show up there now.

Plywood osb.

That stuff really hasn't been going down like I usually see it when our lumber markets go down.

So that's one of those things that we should see.

Some numbers probably go down here as we get farther into winter.

Again, less people building.

So it's still pretty high.

So these are things we should be taking a look at out there.

Well guys, we had a great show.

I'm gonna wrap up on that.

We had a great show coming up this weekend.

We've got two great interviewers, just two great people coming in.

We're gonna be talking about cleaning inside your house and carpet care in the first one and the second one.

We've got a leading attorney out there that deals with how to hire contractors and all that good stuff.

So that will be helpful there as well.

And if you want to find out more about us, head over to our website at around the House Online.

If you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel and the podcast, please do because we're going to have some additional stuff coming out here and you'll be able to catch it versus hearing me talk about it later.

And you can find all those links@aroundthehouse online.com we had a big rush of questions come in this week on the website.

So keep it up guys.

I'm really enjoying having those questions come in so I can answer those.

And I think we're going to start putting some of those back up on the show again in our Q and A's.

And we're even looking at possibly doing some kind of a live event here this next month.

And we'll have it where you can tune into the recording, streaming it and ask your questions as we go.

So it's something we're working on a little bit of a sneak peek right there.

If you've got any suggestions on a topic that you want to hear as well, just send a message over ends up in my email box.

So just head over to around the house online.com and you can find it all right there.

All right, guys, I'm back to work.

Lots to do today.

Happy Wednesday.

Happy midweek.

Everybody's working for the weekend.

I hope everybody has a great rest of the week.

And we got a killer show this weekend.

I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning in to around the House.

Make sure to follow us on social media.

Just head to around the house online.com for all the links.

Make sure you check out our new YouTube channel.

Just type in at around the House with Eric G. And click subscribe and ring the bell for updates.

We will see you next time.