Random 5 for March 16, 2025 – Information sources, mismatches, Amazon, bad advice, bugs

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YouTube versus Google – When I’m looking for information, those are my “go to” sources. I rarely bother with owner’s manuals (if there is one). Lately if it’s instructional or operational information I’m seeking, YouTube is my first choice. I am amazed at how many people make videos of simple things. I’ve been using YouTube frequently to get to know my new cell phone.

Yebbut – Is it just me or do you notice that during a tutorial, your equipment doesn’t look the same as the picture even when it’s the same model. You will be instructed to click on “xxx” but your phone (insert proper piece of equipment here – computer, range, washing machine) will show something totally different. Sigh!

What’s up with Amazon? – That used to be my “go to” for anything that wasn’t available locally. Or maybe it was available but expensive. This past week, I needed something. I was going to order on Amazon but double checked the price (because I thought it was high). It was! I bought it locally in a big box brick and mortar store at half the cost. You must be vigilant. There was a time when Amazon had the best prices. Not anymore. Maybe it’s a tax for being too lazy to shop around.

That was stupid! – We had our heating system serviced this week. It was a routine checkup. I get soot or dust in my one bathroom that is the first off the heating system. I suspect somewhere in the bowels of my ductwork, there is construction debris. I asked the maintenance guy about it and if there was anything I could do. He didn’t know so he called his supervisor. The answer was that the soot is dust created by flushing the toilet and taking a shower. What poppycock that is. We may disperse germs but my flushes and showers are not dusty. What happened to the old honest “we don’t know?” My solution was to put a filter in the floor vent and that helps.

Won’t be long!

Spring is here – Maybe not officially but we had our first ant invasion for the season. A good sign that warm weather and bugs are coming.

So how was your week?

43 thoughts on “Random 5 for March 16, 2025 – Information sources, mismatches, Amazon, bad advice, bugs”

  1. It really is amazing how many how-to videos are out there for all kinds of things! It really is a godsend, and sometimes fun to watch as well 🙂 The heating guy’s answer sounds like total nonsense to me as well. Those aren’t linked systems, and usually water-related actions don’t yield dust or soot. ?? He just didn’t know.

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  2. I rarely remember that YouTube exists, but have a few times used it to find out how to fix something. I use DuckDuckGo for my search engine. It seems to find the answers to my queries faster than Google ever does.

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  3. Our week was the all too usual roller coaster. Google is my first choice for a quick search of some ridiculous thing that has come up in a conversation. Usually something I can’t remember or think of the name of something. YouTube is second choice for how-to, where is and what is mostly for my phone and I love following peeps who cook delicious looking comfort food that I am never going to eat. Amazon and Wayfair are useful and I always shop around for a better price. That answer about dust when flushing the toilet and taking a shower is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard. I have never had our ducts cleaned because I think it could cause all kinds of other problems—#1 being the flexible ducts getting moved around and creating condensation issues that show up on the ceiling. My first line of defense for ants is Windex. Hit them with Windex for as far as I can follow their trail and they lose their scent trail they were following. But mostly if they are pesky we call our quarterly bug guy and he takes care of them!
    Good Morning, Kate!

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    • You got me at “delicious looking comfort food that I am never going to eat.” I used to clip recipes (back in the medieval days) and never make it! Today most recipes I read have ingredients I can’t pronounce or don’t have, so no. I use Google for words I can’t remember (and that’s getting more frequent) too. I have gotten good at describing a word I can’t remember so it can find it. It’s like charades in computer-style (and I had to look up charades because I forgot!) I get ants in my office. There is no food or water source and it’s second story. Makes no sense to me.

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  4. All of it is so true! I use youtube to get instructions and it is never quite right with what I am using, but somehow I get it figured out. And Amazon does overcharge for some stuff. I think they’re just too big to care now. Greed has taken over. Our local chipmunks are back around, so Spring is here!!!! Yay! Enjoy!

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  5. No ants here yet…….I’m thinking as soon as we warm up a little we’ll see the little beggers though. I too have heard that Stanley Steamer does a good job on duct cleaning – I often have nightmares about “STUFF” that hides in the ductwork – we’ve lived here over 20 years and never had the ducts cleaned out. ICK.

    Hugs, Pam

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    • I worry mostly about construction debris. The previous owner had the hardwood floors refinished. Most companies do not block air ducts for that. A long time ago, an HVAC guy told me to never let floor guys run the system to clear the dust because the particles are too small for the filters and will circulate throughout your entire house forever. May be true of spackle dust too. Our house has had several redos besides what we have done.

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  6. I’ve noticed Amazon prices high too. I don’t like reading the owners manual and will watch you tube instead. I also watch you tube to see how good a product is before buying. Never heard of dusty flushes and showers either. Hope you figure out the problem.

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  7. I know what you mean about Amazon. A lot of times I find things cheaper through Walmart. I do love youtube videos for anything I need instructions on including installing car seats. Have a nice week.

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    • I hate to go to our local Walmart and they charge shipping. We have a megastore. Parking is like the Kentucky derby and there are so many people. It’s like our Costco. You are lucky if you can park in the same county! Kudos to all those folks who post instructional videos! Love them!

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  8. I recently cancelled my Amazon account and was happy to be able to tell them why. In retalation, they instantly deleted all digital books I had purchased from them and all Audiobooks I had purchased for Audible. Still, it was totally worth it to me.

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  9. The comment that I just wrote seems to have disappeared. This is more or less what I said:

    Dust is everywhere, especially when you’re remodeling. It’s bound to collect in you ductwork. A couple of months ago, I had the air duct cleaners clean my ducts. It was pricey, but I think it’s worth it to have clean air.

    Thanks for the tip about Amazon. I’ll be sure to compare prices from now on.

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  10. No matter what you do, dust is always with us, and it’s going to collect in your ducts. I had my ducts cleaned a couple of months ago. It was pricey, but I think it’s worth it to have clean air.

    Thanks for the tip about Amazon. I’m going to double check the price next time.

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  11. YouTube is my go-to for everything too. When I worked, I used it for Office 365 programs as we had been using a much-lower version of Word and Outlook. I also like finding the videos with pictures and will look at YouTube before cracking open any manual. Lazy or resourceful? I think the latter! I have issues with YouTube occasionally though as my Malwarebytes anti-virus software has an adblocker, so sometimes, not always, YouTube rebels and blacks out the video. My solution is I copy the share link, e-mail it to myself and watch the video like someone sent it to me. 🙂

    Interesting the tech has to call his supervisor, then offer a flimsy excuse and/or guess.

    I have Amazon Prime too and they are adding lots of sports features which I think people pay extra for, but I liked it better when they didn’t have as many features. Sometimes I watch television shows or movies on Amazon Prime as I don’t have cable nor a modern TV, but more and more, there is some restriction or it’s not available.

    Oh no for the ants. It was that brief warm-up I’ll bet. Mine usually arrive in mid-April, one side of the house only, the rooms that affect me the most: kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Sigh.

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    • I thought the tech would recommend getting the ducts cleaned. Maybe that company doesn’t do that. I don’t usually have issues with YouTube but every once in a while something goes wonky! I’m keeping my eye on the ants. If we get a lot, I’ll get someone out. Last year we went through a lot of different products and natural methods and still had them. We had the exterior of the foundation sprayed and that ended it.

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      • I hate those ants and only started getting them about eight or nine years ago. I was going to get Tru-Green for the ants a few years ago. I saw they had something new they started during the pandemic where they sprayed the perimeter of the house, rather than coming inside for household pests. Safer if you had pets too. But the salesperson on the phone said “be prepared for an onslaught of spiders, centipedes and creepy crawlies entering your home, as well as the ants after the initial spray.” I didn’t like that idea and Googled around for reviews on Tru-Green to see if it worked well for the ants, so maybe I’d relent, then saw many comments of people with Ring doorbells or video surveillance cameras, that captured the Tru-Green person showing up, putting a hang tag on the door, but never unwinding the hose to spray, just returning to his/her truck. Some of those people worked, but others were right in the house. So I had already paid for “x” amount of sprays (you got one free spray that way) and I called and said I had second thoughts about the “infiltration” of creepy crawlies. I was credited thankfully.

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        • Wow! We didn’t get any bugs after our treatment and the guy rang the doorbell and talked to me about where I had them. I had them in the back of the house but he found the congo line in the front under a big picture window.

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          • Well the reviews weren’t good, so that was, in part, why I decided to not go through with the service. We had Carpenter ants many years ago and we hired Ortho to get rid of them and they didn’t get rid of them despite drilling holes in the baseboard and putting in powder Diazinon and spraying the perimeter and inside the house. Then our HVAC tech was there on a routine furnace check and saw a few Carpenter ant bodies and recommended a service he used to his rental homes that had roaches. He said they got rid of them first time. We tried them and they got rid of the Carpenter ants. I had them spray for years for spiders and centipedes in the garage and basement, but our guy retired and the service was not near us and they wouldn’t come to the area. But I didn’t have little ants at that time – I guess after the spray wore off is when it started.

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  12. We’ve cut our Amazon purchases back to almost zero… and probably won’t renew. I think that most people don’t check prices and just assume theirs are the best… they aren’t.

    Good luck with your ants! We don’t get them at all anymore now that we don’t have pets (but I look forward to the day we have pets… and ants… again).

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    • He said it with a straight face. On the other hand, my face was twitching. He was young so I didn’t get into it although I wish I would have told him to tell his boss that was poppycock!

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  14. Vigilant is the word for shopping these days, and thank heavens for our ability to search for a comparable price. I’ve also noticed that some Amazon orders don’t exactly arrive in two days anymore either. I love YouTube and am always amazed at the folks who video themselves doing various things. I’m grateful, because I’ve learned ‘how to’ a lot of times.

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  16. We got our HVAC ducts cleaned about a year-and-a-half ago. Since then, we had half the kitchen cabinets torn out after water damage and replaced AND multiple wildfires. Had HVAC serviced Friday and they showed us pictures of dirt in the system. I guess we’re doing it again, despite the expense and hassle with pets.

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  17. Stanley Steamer and other companies can clean your ducts. It might be worth it if you see visible signs of dust. I tried posting a link for you, but it disappeared. Maybe into your spam folder.

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  18. How much does Stanley steemer charge for duct cleaning?

    How Much Does Stanley Steemer Air Duct Cleaning Cost? (2025)

    $500 to $1,000

    Stanley Steemer duct cleaning costs $500 to $1,000 on average, depending on your home size, HVAC size, and whether you have one or two furnaces. Duct cleaning uses high-powered vacuums to get rid of dirt, dust, dust mites, and allergens. This improves your air quality and can even improve your HVAC’s energy efficiency.Jan 17, 2025

    How Much Does Stanley Steemer Air Duct Cleaning Cost? (2025)

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  19. One of my clients had ants last week too. Sure sign of spring. And rain usually brings them in too. They’re just looking for a dry place to hang.

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