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

Your Washing Machine’s Rubber Door Gasket Is Dirtier Than Your Toilet Seat, Microbiology Research Shows, and Almost Nobody Ever Bothers to Clean It

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pink and green plastic container

The rubber gasket lining your front-load washer’s door is one of the dirtiest spots in the entire house, and most people never touch it with a cleaning product. A 2025 peer-reviewed microbiology study published in Frontiers in Microbiology found bacterial loads on front-load door seals averaging 6.5 log10 CFU per swab, a measurement that translates … Read more

There’s an Exact Outdoor Temperature That Sends Mice Racing Indoors Looking for Shelter, Pest Control Data Shows, and It’s Warmer Than Most People Think

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brown rodent on brown dried leaves

Most homeowners picture mice moving indoors once the first hard freeze hits. Pest control professionals say that clock starts ticking much earlier: once outdoor temperatures fall and hold below roughly 50 degrees Fahrenheit, rodents begin actively migrating toward buildings, well before winter actually arrives. That’s still sweater weather for most people, which is exactly why … Read more

Backyard Chicken Ownership Hit Record Highs After Years of Soaring Egg Prices, and Industry Data Shows Demand Still Hasn’t Slowed Even as Prices Finally Drop

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A brown backyard hen foraging in a sunlit green pasture with other chickens in the background

Nearly one in five Tractor Supply customers now own chickens, and the retailer sold roughly 10.5 million chicks during its 2024 spring “Chick Days” event alone, according to reporting on the company’s own sales data and customer figures. About 11 million Americans currently keep backyard chickens, a roughly 28% increase since 2023 based on industry … Read more

Homeowners Are Cutting Back on Renovation Spending This Year, Angi’s Own Data Shows, but One Project Category Keeps Growing Anyway Despite the Pullback

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Front entrance of a house under renovation with tools and materials scattered around

Just 35% of homeowners who hired a professional in the past year took on an actual renovation, compared with 63% who paid for maintenance and 58% who paid for repairs, according to Angi’s own 2026 State of Home Spending Pulse report. That gap is the whole story of home spending in 2026: discretionary upgrades are … Read more

Top Interior Designers Say Vintage Furniture Is Now Outselling Brand-New Pieces in High-End Homes, According to a Fresh Industry-Wide Survey

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Living room styled with vintage wooden furniture and an ornamental rug, reflecting the rise in antique furniture demand

Designers are furnishing high-end homes with more secondhand pieces than at any point in five years, and the shift is showing up in the numbers. In 1stDibs’ newly released 2026 Designer Trends Survey, 36% of everything sourced for client projects in 2025 was vintage or antique, the highest share the marketplace has recorded since 2021, … Read more

Starter Homes Under $300,000 Have Nearly Disappeared From the Market Entirely, NAR’s Own Data Shows, and First-Time Buyers Are Paying the Price for It

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Small suburban starter home for sale on a sunny day

In June 2019, more than half of all homes listed for sale in the United States were priced under $350,000. Today, according to Realtor.com’s own inventory data, that share has fallen to just 37.6%, and the country has roughly 300,000 fewer entry-level listings than it did seven years ago. The National Association of Realtors’ own … Read more