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10 Ways to Add Value to Your Home

We all dream of making major renovations to our house: adding a deck, putting in a pool, totally revamping the kitchen.

We then dream of the big price we’re going to get for the house when we wow prospective buyers with our makeover.

But what’s often forgotten is that it’s the really simple things that can add significant value to your house in a cost-effective way. [More]

How to Resolve your Neighbourhood Disputes

Brett’s is a typical neighbour dispute. Whenever Brett’s next door neighbour goes out for a big night her dogs bark until she gets home. Brett (not his real name) is kept awake for most of the night. He’s furious. So he wakes early and cranks up his lawn mower. He knows that after a big night the noise must be hell for her – but it’s his form of revenge.

Disputes like Brett’s are common and create a toxic neighbourhood environment. Our homes are meant to be sanctuaries – but a fight with a neighbour can make you feel under siege. “As someone said to me, ‘you’d be extremely lucky to have gone through life without having one bad neighbour’,” said Natasha Mann, Director of NSW’s Community Justice Centres, which mediates and resolves neighbour disputes.

Neighbour disputes are becoming more frequent and intense as people live closer together. “We’re all living on top of each other these days,” Mann said. “Living in high-density housing definitely has an impact. It certainly is influencing disputes and dispute types. Living in those sorts of conditions we do need to be a lot more considerate of each other than we had been previously.” [More]