Should You Rent A House Or An Apartment?

Deciding whether to rent an apartment or a house can be a very difficult decision for some renters. There are certain advantages and disadvantages to each option. The renter should carefully consider these points when making his decision. Whether or not an apartment rental or a home rental is ideal for a particular renter will largely depend on his personal preference as well as his current needs in a living situation. For some renting an apartment is perfect while others find a home rental meets their needs best. This article will examine the advantages and disadvantages of each situation to help readers make a more informed decision regarding the type of rental situation which may be beneficial to them.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Renting a House

There are many advantages to renting a house as opposed to an apartment. One of the primary advantages is this situation affords renters who would normally be unable to afford to purchase a house the opportunity to live in a house for a much more affordable price. Another advantage to renting a house is it may offer the renter many more options. Apartments are usually pretty standard in terms of size, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. Renters who have specific needs such as five bathrooms and three bedrooms may have a difficult time finding an apartment with these specifications but may find rental homes which offer these options.

Location is often another advantage associated with renting a house. Apartments are usually situated in more commercial areas while houses available for rent can usually be found in more residential areas. Many renters favor this situation because it makes their rental property feel more secluded. Many house rentals also include a backyard which is desirable for renters with children or pets.

One of the major disadvantages to renting a house, is there may not be a great deal of certainty regarding the amount of time the renter will be allowed to rent the house. While a contract may protect the rights of the renter for a certain period of time, there are no guarantees the homeowner will extend the contract beyond the existing terms. This means as the contract is due to expire; the renter may be given notice that the house would not be available for rent in the future. Conversely, this situation is rare in apartments and most renters are confident there will be the opportunity to renew their lease each time it expires.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Renting an Apartment

Perhaps one of the most significant advantages of renting an apartment is the amenities which are often available when renting an apartment in an apartment complex as opposed to renting a home or even renting an apartment in a private home. Amenities such as pools, hot tubs, exercise rooms, saunas, meeting rooms and theaters are just a few of the amenities often offered when renting an apartment.

Affordability is another advantage to renting an apartment. Rent for an apartment is usually significantly lower than rent for a house. Although the apartment may be significantly smaller than the house, many renters find they are only able to afford these options.

A lack of privacy may be one of the most significant disadvantages to renting an apartment. Apartments are usually situated fairly closely together and most apartments usually share a common wall with one of their neighbors. Renters may find their neighbors end up knowing a great deal more about them than they had intended simply because the living situation makes it difficult to keep one’s life private.

Having to contend with noisy neighbors is another downfall to renting an apartment. As previously, mentioned apartments often share a common wall with a neighbor. As a result renters may run the risk of having noisy neighbors who listen to loud music or have boisterous friends visiting late at night.

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Should we do away with privacy?

5 October 2011 Last updated at 10:50 As battle rages over how Facebook and others impact on our privacy, Cindy Gallop has a radical idea. Forget about privacy and control your image instead.

The new reality that all of us live in today, personally and professionally, is one of complete transparency.

Everything we do and say today, whether we are a person or a brand, business or company, is potentially in the public domain courtesy of the internet.

If you find that prospect deeply unnerving, there is a very simple solution, and interestingly, that solution is the same whether you are a person or a company.

If you identify exactly who you are and what you stand for, what you believe in, what you value, and if you then only ever behave, act and communicate in a way that is true to you, then you never have to worry about where anybody comes across you or what you're found doing.

By definition you are never caught doing anything to be ashamed of.

Continue reading the main story Cindy Gallop is an advertising consultant and commentator on cultural issuesHer episode of Four Thought is on BBC Radio 4 on 5 October 2011 at 20:45 BSTSo, at a time when there are many debates about the privacy settings on Facebook and the ethics of Wikileaks, I actually come from the complete opposite end of that argument. I believe in living your life and operating your business in a way that means you never have to worry about any of that.

Have you registered your ownname.com? The first thing that anybody does today when they meet you is they Google you, and when that happens you want to ensure three things - that you have a very strong online personal digital brand presence, that you Google in the right kind of way, and that you do not Google in the wrong kind of way.

Those three things are, predominantly, very much within your control. Ideally when someone Googles your name, you want to turn up as result number one on page one and you want to use that presence, your personal website, your personal blog, to tell people how to think about you before Google does it for you.

Now obviously that forces the question, so what do I want people to think about me, how do I want to manage people's perceptions of me? Well, a good way to think about that is to identify what is your personal default throwaway descriptor.

Imagine two people are talking. One of them knows you and one does not.

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Once you have stood up on the stage and announced that you have sex with younger men, no-one can ever shame or embarrass you ever again. So I live my life completely in the open”

End Quote The person who knows you makes some reference to you and the other person says, "Oh, who's that?", and the person who knows you says, "You know, they are X". That X is your default throwaway descriptor, and it is in your interests to make sure that it is something you would like it to be, because that is what people will default to in their description of you.

Exactly the same thing operates for a company or a business, too. You need to identify exactly what it is that you do as a business and you need to capture it and encapsulate it in a quick, easy and memorable soundbite, because you rely on people to spread the word of what your business does in order to get more business.

The aspect of this that a lot of people find quite difficult is that it forces you to ask yourself the question: "Who am I?" That is something that none of us really spends a great deal of time thinking about, and all too often throughout the course of our life and business, we allow other people and other things and other circumstances to define that for us.

I have a start-up and when we were first starting the website, my tech team brought me the homepage design and my programmer said to me: "Look, Cindy, we've designed this exactly the way you wanted us to, we've got 'If I Ran the World', and because we think people will be quite fazed when they arrive at the homepage, we've put a button in the box so they know there's somewhere to go."

And I said: "No, take the button out, I want people to be faced with an empty box because I want that to force a few moments of what very rarely happens in our life today, which is self-reflection."

If you don't want your boss to see drunk pictures of you, take action

All over the net today, if you post a profile, you can post a photograph of you at your most attractive, you can post a carefully crafted mosaic of the books and music you like that gives a certain impression, you can lie.

On my website you can't lie about anything because, apart from some basic information about yourself that you enter upfront, your profile is automatically generated by your actions. So when you look at it, it is you at a glance.

You are self-identifying and self-expressing in a very particular way which is: "I am what I do, I am the sum of my actions."

That adds up to an overall benefit which I call action branding. Personal action branding is for individuals and corporate action branding is for brands and businesses, and it is the advertising of the future.

Coming from the ad industry, I believe the advertising of the future is not about saying, it is about doing. It is not about telling, it is about being. Brands will be judged just as people are so action branding is communication through demonstration.

So when I launched my own company, I designed it to be transparent, because three years ago when I came up with the concept, people said to me: "Oh my God, Cindy, you're going to start a business that is all about doing good and you are going to make money out of it? Eek! People will not buy that, you have got to be a non-profit."

Some people think this man is not in love with the concept of privacy

The way I respond to that criticism was to say: "OK, I'm going to make my business model completely transparent." Whenever anybody asks how do you make money, I can just tell them.

Now in a world of transparency, I am essentially unblackmail-able. I'm unblackmail-able because I have a secondary venture called Make Love Not Porn, and I launched it at the TED conference [organisation that promotes ideas] in 2009.

Once you have stood up on the stage at TED and announced that you have sex with younger men, no-one can ever shame or embarrass you ever again. So I live my life completely in the open, and that is an enormously stress free and relaxing way to be.

And by the way I realise that I am quite an extreme example of this, but the principles are the same for everybody.

So I would exhort you to think about who you are, and think about how you can redesign your life and your work to mean that you are always true to yourself, and you never have to worry about what anyone might find about you or where anybody sees you or what anybody finds when they Google you.

This is an edited version of Cindy Gallop's Four Thought broadcast.

Should Casey Anthony testify at her murder trial?

The drama of the summer continues in Courtroom 23 in Orlando as court watchers wonder if Casey Anthony, the Florida mom accused of killing her toddler, will take the stand in her own defense.

Pool photo by Red Huber

Casey Anthony taking the stand has a serious pitfall, analysts say: The prosecution has shown, and the defense admits, that Anthony is a liar.

Pool photo by Red Huber

Casey Anthony taking the stand has a serious pitfall, analysts say: The prosecution has shown, and the defense admits, that Anthony is a liar.

Legal analysts say she has little choice but to testify after her defense lawyer said in his opening statement that Anthony's daughter, Caylee, drowned in the family pool and her father helped cover it up. The lawyer, Jose Baez, told the jury that Anthony had been molested by her father as a child and that conditioned her to keep quiet about what happened to her daughter.

"She has to take the stand now," says George Parnham, a lawyer who defended Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five children during a psychotic breakdown. "She has to explain this to the jury. They need to hear from her. You need to humanize your client."

Anthony's father, George, took the stand during the prosecution's case and denied the allegations. That means Anthony must testify about the alleged abuse and the alleged drowning, other defense lawyers say.

But her taking the stand has a serious pitfall, they say: The prosecution has shown, and the defense admits, that Anthony is a liar. "It's a big risk," says Miami criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Daniel Lurvey.

Prosecutors, Lurvey and other lawyers say, will methodically pick apart all her stories about what happened to her daughter, including that the child was taken on a trip and that her daughter was kidnapped by a nanny named Zanny.

Lurvey says Baez has boxed himself into a corner.

"He's created a situation that if she does not testify, it's almost as bad as if she does and does badly, Lurvey says.

Baez did not return a call to his office. Anthony is charged with first-degree murder and faces the death penalty if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say she suffocated her 2-year-old daughter with duct tape on her nose and mouth, kept her body in the trunk of her car and later dumped it in woods near her home.

Donald Jones, a law professor at the University of Miami, says the prosecution has a circumstantial case that has not tied Anthony directly to murdering her child. He says the defense should have stuck with poking holes in the prosecution's case, but Baez is giving the prosecutor a chance to discredit her on the stand.

"But because the defense chose the strategy it did, it is dotting the i's and crossing the t's prosecution failed to do," Jones says.

Baez, who was admitted to the Florida bar in 2005, has never tried a death penalty case.

Karin Moore, director of defense and death penalty clinics at Florida A&M University, says his inexperience shows in his questioning of witnesses, which she says is not as focused as it should be.

"Questioning a witness has to be like a surgical strike," she says. "You don't cut your teeth on a death penalty case. … I hope this woman does not receive the death penalty because of it."

Judge Belvin Perry adjourned for the day Monday after he said both sides were wasting the jury's time with legal matters that should have been taken up before court began.

Contributing: Melanie Michael, WTSP-TV; The Associated Presshttp://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=dvd+with+media+on+it&_sacat=See-All-Categories

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Embassies Should Defend Citizens on Death Row: Bachtiar

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Cat Declawing - Reasons Why You Should Not Declaw a Cat

A cat's claws are a vital part of their physical and psychological well-being. Many people do not realize that declawing a cat is inhumane, and a very unnecessary major surgical procedure which often leaves the declawed cat with physical and psychological problems that will last their lifetime.

Cats use their claws for many reasons such as to exercise, groom themselves, mark their territory, and as a first line of defense against predators. Cats scratch as part of a normal instinct, and taking that away can lead to even worse behavior problems. Many people believe that declawing a cat just consists of removal of the cat's nails but this is not the case. It is actually an amputation of all the cat's digits at the first knuckle of bone. It is a major surgery, which is very painful to the cat, and recovery and healing from this surgery can be painful and difficult for the cat. Complications such as infection can occur, as well as the general risk of anethesia during the procedure.

The declawed cat often develops litter box issues, such as not using the litter box, because the litter hurts their feet, so they begin avoiding the box and start peeing and pooping in various places around the home. This leads to further frustration on the part of the cat owner who is now faced with the cat damaging the floors and leaving behind unpleasant odors throughout the house. Cat urine odor is very difficult to remove, and a cat's sense of smell is more sensitive than humans. Once the cat begins urinating on the floor, they will often continue to do so because, despite the owners attempts to clean the area and remove the odor, it still exists to the cat's sensitive sense of smell, and this unwanted behavior persists.

The cat owner then becomes even more frustrated as this behavior continues. They often don't understand why their cat who used to faithfully use the litter box now refuses to do so, and often will blame the cat for another bad behavior problem, when it is not the cat's fault at all. If the owner cannot get the cat to start using the litter box again, they will often start considering letting the cat go outside. This poses a huge safety risk to the cat because once the cat has been declawed, they have no way to defend themselves to the many dangers that exist outside. Declawed cats cannot be let outside because they can no longer effectively defend themselves and cannot climb trees to get out of harms way. Once a cat has been declawed, there is not an option of safely converting the indoor cat to be an outdoor cat.

Another common problem with cats who have been declawed is biting. Because they do not have their nails anymore, the cat can become very frustrated. The scratching instinct that the cat has can no longer be satisfied and can lead to the cat starting to bite. Even the best behaved cat can become mean and unsociable and because they no longer have their claws, they resort to biting as a way of letting you know they are unhappy. I am aware of many cases where cat declawing has had a negative impact on the cat and its social behavior. This, however, does not happen in all cases. Some cats who have been declawed seem to do just fine and adjust to their situation without difficulty or resulting behavior problems. But, many cats do not adjust well, and the owners often end up feeing guilty that they did this to their pet.

The best thing a cat owner who is considering having their cat declawed can do is plenty of research. Find out all there is to know about the procedure, the risks, and the outcome. Talk to others who have had their cats declawed and get their opinions. Do not just take a vet's approval on this issue. Some vets will say it is no big deal because they stand to profit from the surgery, and they do not have to live with the cat afterward. Other vets will discourage this procedure because they know it is not the right thing to do. Make sure the decision you make is an informed one. You do not want to end up with regret, as this surgery is permanent.

There are many options the cat owner has as an alternative to getting their cat declawed. One option is to purchase nail caps which are caps that are glued to the cats nails to prevent the damage from scratching. Another choice is to learn how to safely trim your cat's nails to keep them short and dull which will reduce the damaging effects of scratching. Provide several different styles of scratching posts and cat trees in your home to encourage your kitty to scratch the appropriate things. Scratching posts made of sisal rope work really well and cats seem to enjoy using them to scratch on. Try using double-sided sticky tape on the areas where you don't want your cat scratching. It provides a surface that cats do not enjoy and will deter them from scratching there. Buy some scented deterrent sprays that are made to keep cats away and spray it on areas where the unwanted scratching is occurring. It may take a little more effort on your part, but the outcome can be very successful without having to put your cat through a declawing surgery.

Cat declawing has been banned in many countries, unfortunately as of yet, the United States has not adopted this law, and hopefully this will change. Anyone who is considering putting their cat through this should consider and try all the other options. There is just not a good enough reason to put your cat through such an awful surgery. And not just the surgery and recovery, but the lifelong effects it will have on your cat.

Please visit my blog at http://pet-products-reviews.blogspot.com for more cat care information.

Game support 'should be priority'

7 February 2011 Last updated at 21:11 Scotland's games industry faced two major setbacks in 2010

The future of Scotland's games industry must be made a UK government priority if it is to survive, MPs have said.

MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee also said it was a "golden age" of opportunity for the sector but said it faced an uneven global playing field.

In a new report on the industry, the committee said there were "compelling arguments for tax relief" and the issue should be kept under review.

The Treasury has been criticised by firms for not implementing tax breaks.

A Labour government proposal for a games industry tax break was cancelled by the coalition government in June 2010.

The head of The Independent Games Developers Association (TIGA) has said that while the games industry had grown by 33% in two years in places like Canada - where there is tax relief - there had been a 10% contraction in the UK.

Video games development is currently worth about £30m to the Scottish economy, although the market is thought to be worth more than £55bn worldwide.

'Not competing'

Committee chairman Ian Davidson MP said: "The committee strongly believes that the video games interactive technology industry is potentially a world leader for the UK and the government must do more to encourage development and growth in the sector."

The report said that Scotland had an "outstanding reputation" for excellence in games production, the economic benefits of which were felt by the whole of the UK.

Dundee, which plays a key part in the sector, is home to about 15 design companies.

However, the industry cut almost a fifth of its jobs in Scotland last year, including those affected by the loss of Dundee-based Realtime Worlds.

The committee blamed skills shortages, unsustainable business models and a lack of innovation as contributing factors to the UK becoming a less attractive place to invest.

Continue reading the main story

Many of our competitors... offer tax breaks for games production, often at substantial levels, so the effect of that is that it is driving investment away from Scotland and away from the UK”

End Quote Dr Richard Wilson TIGA It also cited the fact that the sector operated in an uneven international playing field, disadvantaged by subsidies from governments overseas, notably France and Canada, and cheaper labour markets elsewhere.

It said the government had a responsibility to help create an economic environment in which the creative industries could flourish.

The report added: "Impediments for growth in the UK are emerging and we believe the government should make the future of this industry a priority."

However, members pointed out that although the UK sector had fallen in the global games rankings, it was behind countries like Japan and South Korea, neither of which had "bespoke, large-scale support" from government.

The report added: "German studios too have attained healthy rates of growth in spite of their government's apathy... towards video games."

Dr Richard Wilson, head of TIGA, said there had to be a strategy for growth for the industry.

He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The Scottish games industry, and the UK games industry in general, are not competing on a level playing field.

"Many of our competitors, like Canada, France and the US, offer tax breaks for games production, often at substantial levels, so the effect of that is that it is driving investment away from Scotland and away from the UK to these other jurisdictions."

'Level playing field'

Mr Wilson called on Westminster to create the environment to compete in a market it is estimated could expand to be worth £80bn a year globally.

Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop said: "Much of the evidence and analysis in the report supports the case for tax relief for the video games industry - something that has long been argued for by Scotland's games developers.

"The Scottish government is listening and it is disappointing that the UK government is not.

"Until Scottish and UK-based games developers are allowed to compete on a level playing field, we run the risk of losing existing businesses to other countries and failing to attract new companies and highly-skilled jobs to this country."

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