Property Tax Reassessments Are Landing in Mailboxes Across the Country This Fall, and Homeowners Who Don’t Appeal in Time Are Stuck Overpaying for a Full Year

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a row of colorful mail boxes sitting next to a bush

Millions of property owners are opening envelopes this month that quietly reset what they’ll owe next year, and most of them have less time to respond than they think. County assessors from Illinois to Colorado to Washington State are sending out fall reassessment notices right now, and in nearly every jurisdiction, the appeal clock starts … Read more

One Single Category of Kitchen Appliance Has Been Recalled More Than Any Other Over the Last Five Years, CPSC’s Own Records Show Pretty Clearly

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black and gray blender

Air fryers have been recalled six separate times by the Consumer Product Safety Commission since early 2022, more than any other small kitchen appliance category in the agency’s own public recall database. Pressure cookers are next, with four recalls logged since 2023, according to the same federal records. Blenders show three. Coffee makers, electric kettles, … Read more

Pediatricians Just Quietly Updated Their Official Guidance on Giving Kids Melatonin Gummies Before Bed, and It’s Noticeably Stricter Than What Most Parents Are Doing

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woman holding orange and white candy

The American Academy of Pediatrics has quietly rewritten its official patient guidance on giving children melatonin, and the update, revised on HealthyChildren.org as recently as January 22, 2026, is considerably more conservative than what most families are already doing at bedtime. The new guidance tells parents to start at 0.5 to 1 milligram, not the … Read more

Wallpaper Is Officially Outselling Paint in Home Renovations for the First Time in Over a Decade, Industry Sales Data Shows Pretty Clearly Right Now

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a bedroom with a green wall and a white bed

Architectural paint volume in the United States is on track to shrink by 0.3% in 2026, even as the total dollars spent on it inch up slightly, according to forecasting firm ChemQuest’s data reported by PCI Magazine. Wallpaper is moving the opposite direction. The global wallpaper market is projected to grow from roughly $2.0 billion … Read more

More Parents Are Bed-Sharing With Their Kids Well Past Infancy Than Official Survey Data Shows, Even as Pediatricians Keep Warning Strongly Against It

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a man and two children sitting on a bed

Nearly half of American parents are still climbing into bed with a child who is well past the newborn stage. A national survey commissioned by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 46% of parents say they sometimes, often, or always co-sleep with a child under the age of 18, a figure that has … Read more

Parents Spend Nearly as Much Time Staring at Their Phones Around Their Kids as Those Same Kids Spend Looking at Screens Themselves, Research Shows

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a woman sitting at a table looking at her cell phone

Parents spend more time looking at screens than most of them realize, and in a lot of households, it rivals or exceeds how much time their kids spend doing the same thing. A landmark survey from Common Sense Media, conducted with Northwestern University’s Center on Media and Human Development, found parents average 9 hours and … Read more

Pruning Your Hydrangeas Right Now Could Wipe Out Every Single One of Next Summer’s Blooms Entirely, Horticulturists Warn, and This Timing Mistake Is Incredibly Common

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Close-up of a gardener trimming plants with pruning shears in a colorful garden.

If you’re standing in the yard right now with pruning shears aimed at a hydrangea, put them down until you know which kind you’re holding. Late summer and early fall are exactly when bigleaf hydrangeas, the classic mophead and lacecap varieties most common in home landscapes, are forming the flower buds that will open next … Read more

These Five Home Improvement Projects Legally Require a Permit First, and Skipping Even One Can Cost Homeowners Thousands of Dollars When They Try to Sell

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man standing infront of miter saw

Roughly 35% of homeowners say they would try to skip a required permit to get a renovation done faster, according to a survey of 1,000 homeowners by Clever Real Estate. Five categories of projects in particular tend to get built without the paperwork, and real estate and legal experts warn that skipping the permit on … Read more

Data Just Revealed the Single Best Week Left This Fall to List a House for Sale, and Sellers Who Miss It Tend to Pay for It in Lower Final Offers

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gray wooden house

Home sellers who wait too long into fall are already leaving money on the table, and the data shows exactly how much. ATTOM Data Solutions’ 2026 seller-premium analysis, built on 52 million home sales going back to 2015, shows October as the single worst month of the year to close a deal, with September only … Read more

CDC Surveillance Data Shows Respiratory Illness Is Already Climbing Among Kids Just Weeks Into the New School Year, a Seasonal Signal Right on Schedule

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A caring moment of a woman checking a sick child's temperature on a cozy green couch indoors.

The CDC’s own respiratory illness data channel, updated September 4, 2026, shows rhinovirus and enterovirus activity “increasing nationally” just weeks after classrooms reopened, alongside rising COVID-19 activity in several regions. Overall acute respiratory illness nationwide is still rated “very low” on the CDC’s five-level scale, but the agency’s own tracking already shows the seasonal climb … Read more