At times, it may seem as though it does nothing but rain. However, just because there is rain in your area it doesn’t mean that our world isn’t still short on water. Water is one of our most valuable resources. As the water levels drop, our chances of getting more fresh water will drop as well. To help us preserve the water that we have available now, we are focusing our attention on helping people with water conservation tips for our community. Our efforts today will hopefully work to preserve our water supply for our future generations.

The Value of Water

Water may be tasteless and colorless, but that does not diminish its value to us. During years of drought or in areas where there is very little rainfall, things get tough. Plants die off because there isn’t enough water in the ground to help them survive. Temperatures rise causing people to be very hot. Communities start limiting the water that each home can use. You will not be able to burn leaves in your yard, or the burnable garbage that your home may acquire because a single spark could cause a blaze that wipes out your entire area. This makes things very tough for everyone, but our efforts today will help those who come after us.

Saving Water for the Future

We understand that it isn’t easy to live without water. We rely on it throughout the day, every day. Therefore, we are hoping to give homeowners simple ways that they can work to limit their water intake. For instance, you may want to consider limiting how often you water your lawn. We all realize that a nice, green lawn looks better than dead grass, but you do not need to water it for an hour each day. A few minutes every few days will be enough water for your lawn. You may also take a look at your faucets and shower heads. There are plenty of water saving options available if you want to look into an eco shower head review. Toilets can also be eco-friendly because there are so many homeowners hoping to lower their water bill and preserve the fresh water that we have available.

Start Saving Now

A leaky faucet can drain gallons of water each day, even if it is only a drip or two at a time. To see it for yourself, you can put a glass under the drip and watch how quickly it fills up. Those faucets should be repaired if you want to stop needlessly wasting water. You can also attempt to take showers that are shorter, use your dishwasher instead of allowing sink water to run while you rinse, and a lot of other things. You may even want to limit how often your kids are allowed to refill their swimming pool during the summer month and find ways to treat the water that is in the pool. A kiddie pool may not appear to take much water, but if you are refilling it twice a week, it will soon add up to a lot of water wasted. This will make it harder to get out of the next drought that occurs in your area. Would you rather waste now and not have later or start trying to improve your community’s water availability?

If you are considering a move, you may first have to deal with selling the home you currently live in. This may mean that you have to jump through hoops to upgrade the way it looks and increase the overall property value of it. This can seem like a very difficult task to achieve. It is not always easy to get the most money out of something that you have lived in for years. You may feel that you have to spend a small fortune remodeling it. The good news is; you do not need to spend a fortune. Just a few minor tweaks can bring the property value up. Here are some of the things people look for and a few of the top ways to increase property value.

Increase the Value Outdoors

When it comes to upgrading and increasing property value, you should start with the obvious items outdoors. It is the first thing a potential buyer will see when they pull up to your home. A roof that is more than 10-years-old should be checked for damage and replaced as necessary. You will also want to consider applying a fresh coat of paint to the exterior of your home. A little lawn care can go a long way, but you really do not have to worry about a lot of landscaping. If you have a fence up, you may consider installing a gate opener or doing minor things like that.

Make Your Interior Inviting

Inside, you probably do not have a perfect home, even if it was perfect for you during the time that you were living there. If you take down a photo and notice that your walls are stained, you should repaint them. If you have stained up carpets, you may want to replace them. However, you should not stress over it. Most potential buyers will be concerned about two areas of the home. They all have specific ideas about what they want in a kitchen and what they want in a bathroom. They tend to like spaciousness in both areas. The thing is, you most likely do not want to tear out walls to give possible buyers what they want. The idea of trying to increase value is not to put in a ton of expense to get it. Luckily, you can make a few changes that are affordable and increase the way your home looks in those two areas.

Affordable Upgrades to Increase Property Value Indoors

In the kitchen, repaint the cabinets and apply newer knobs. If you have a dark kitchen, lighten it up to make it look more spacious. Upgrade the appliances if you can afford to and use shelves to show potential buyers that it is roomy. In your bathroom, you can change out the toilet and faucets. You can upgrade to low flow toilets. Add a rain shower head or a waterfall type shower head. A great resource for all things bath and shower is aplumbersdaughter.com, a site dedicated to the latest fixtures and accessories.  You may match up the colors of your sink faucet and shower head. These simple things will make a buyer take notice and all are affordable ways to increase the value of your property from the inside.

We live in a large community and everyone here knows and trusts their neighbor. That is one of the main reasons we want to talk to everyone in the community about automated gates. We aren’t proposing that everyone in our community put up a fence around their lawn and an automatic gate opening at every driveway. We simply want to have everyone consider the option to have an automatic gate at the entrance to our neighborhood. As a group, the homeowner’s association voting on automated gates has been showing that everyone is in favor of it, but for those who are not always in attendance, we want to explain our reasoning.

Safety Matters

We live in a world where a lot of bad things can happen. Homes are broken into, children have to be kept close to the house and parents feel they need to watch over them at all times to keep them safe, and you simply never know who you can trust. That is why we feel it would be good to have an automated gate. It would ensure safety.

We have a beautiful community here with nice homes and where children can play safely with their friends. The gates would increase the safety of everyone within our community and it would ensure that unwanted guests are kept away from our homes and our families.

Gate Security

Our gates would work by remote so that all you would have to do is pull near it and push a button. It would open and close behind you once you were through it. You wouldn’t have to worry about getting out of your vehicle in the rain and opening the gate. That is the beauty of the driveway gates for sale that we have found. They offer no inconvenience to the people who call our community home, but they can protect us from outsiders that we do not know or want near our homes.

The Gated Community

The only changes that you would have to make as we transition into a gated community is that you would have to inform people who come to visit you of the new gate that is in place. If you have a visitor coming you can go to the gate and push the remote so that they can enter. If you are not in a position where you can venture out to open the gate, a phone call will be enough to get your visitor inside. We are not trying to prevent you from having company and we are not trying to lock you away. We simply feel that it is a great way to have everyone in our neighborhood know that they are safe. We enjoy watching children have freedom and parents a little relaxation. We like knowing that when our neighbors go to sleep at night, they do so without worry about what may come tomorrow. That is why we are voting on automated gates and hope that you will support our efforts to keep everyone safe.

Our community is a beautiful place. Everyone here enjoys the lake and all that it has to offer. The one thing that most people do not enjoy is the summer time pests that come to visit us, where we live, each year. Some people acknowledge that it is all a part of living in paradise. Others want to know how they can enjoy the summer when spending time out on the water means they must suffer from itching bites.

For the Love of Summer

Most of us moved to our beautiful lakeside area as a way to have easier access to the water during the summer months. What most people do not realize when moving into this area is the constant battle with bugs they will have to undertake, just to enjoy a day on the water. As a part of the homeowner’s association, it is something that we discuss at most meetings and we are constantly looking for ways to stop mosquitoes and no see ums from being so rotten that we feel stuck indoors when the weather and the water are at the ideal temperatures for us and the bugs.

Our Discoveries

Chemicals are the easiest way to get rid of biting insects, but it is not always the ideal solution to keeping them away. Sprays, foggers, and even insect repellent that you wear are all temporary fixes that do nothing to solve the issue. Therefore, we searched the internet to find out how to get rid of no see ums and mosquitoes. We feel that we may have found the solution, but it will take everyone working together. We think that mosquito traps offer our best solution because it not only keeps the bugs from bugging you, but it can put the mosquito population in our neighborhood on the extinct list.

How Traps Can Help

No see ums and mosquitoes share a similar trait. They like warm-blooded animals and humans. They need water and moisture to use as breeding grounds. That is why they plague our summers so much. We have all the damp grounds that they could possibly want between the lake and trees. The homeowners who live here and their pets provide a constant food source. It is a match made in paradise for the bugs, not so much for us.

Traps work by becoming more inviting than the people. They emit carbon dioxide and mimic the human being in every way. The trick is, instead of swatting the ones it feels land on it, it entices the mosquitoes and no see ums to venture near and then sucks them in. They stay trapped until they die and it is fewer bugs that you have to deal with bugging you.

This means, if everyone in our community chooses to stand together and take part in the battle of the bugs, we can perhaps enjoy our summer a little more. With that, it is still going to be necessary for a while to protect yourself with other types of repellents and sprays. This is unavoidable and unfortunate, but together we can eliminate summer time pests and bites.

The Golden Lake Property Owners Association serves the interests of owners of shoreline on Golden Lake and the Bonnechere River below Tramore Dam, as well as others who have an interest in the well-being of our lake and river. The Association works for the common good of all members, and the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of life on the Lake and River.

The Association attends to such matters as water quality, shoreline development, and boating and swimming safety. It speaks with a common voice to all levels of government and works with other organizations on issues that may contribute to the health, pleasure, comfort and security of its members.

If you are one of the roughly 750 property owners along the Lake and River, we urge you to join us as a member so you can learn more about our activities and add your voice to our ongoing conversation.