A simple solution to poorly working remotes

When we remodeled our house, I ran HDMI cable from the TV through the wall to my equipment rack which is on the other side of the wall. At the time, we were using an Apple TV, so we were just using an iPhone over WiFi controlling the Apple TV. This worked well until I added a Roku 3 and a Fire TV to the mix. The Roku 3 uses a WiFi Direct remote and the Fire TV uses a Bluetooth remote.

In theory, the remotes should have no problem reaching about 10 feet through one wall. In practice, the remotes have been flakey. For the longest time, I've been blaming batteries and the remotes. I got so fed up last week that I decided to take another look. My server rack is in the lower level of our house whereas the TV is in the middle level (it's a split level house) and the Roku and Fire TV have both been in the rack; this puts them slightly below the floor level of the middle level. This isn't the best picture, but it will suffice.

I put zip ties around the Fire TV and Roku TV and mounted them on the wall next to the equipment rack; I put them as high as possible given the Ethernet cable I had which situated them about a foot above the rack. Moving the boxes out of the rack and raising them up slightly seems to have done wonders to the remotes. They are now very responsive and I haven't reset the Roku remote in a week and haven't banged them against the couch to get them to work!

While the solution is now obvious, I was so concerned about making my equipment rack nice and neat that I chose to ignore simple troubleshooting steps dealing with RF. Some people may be asking why I don't just stick the boxes next to the TV. For starters, I don't want to see the boxes as they would add clutter to our TV area. Second, I have the wall warts plugged into a power strip that turns off at night to conserve energy (I plug as much as possible into this strip and it automatically shuts down at around 11 pm and turns on around 6 am).

Knock on wood that things keep working; if I have problems again, I'll get some longer Ethernet cables and move the boxes so that they're higher up and on the backside of the TV wall.

Following directions (or how to fix a clogged dishwasher)

Ever since I can remember, I've used liquid or gel dishwashing liquid in my dishwashers. For some reason I thought that the liquid would dissolve better and would wash better. When we got our new dishwasher (a Bosch) 2 years ago, I didn't really read the instruction manual and kept using liquid detergent (I do most of the dishes in our house as my wife does the cooking). Since getting the dishwasher, we've periodically had it give us an error (E22) and fail to completely drain.

I read about the error online and people seemed to indicate there was a problem with how the drain hose was hooked up. Ours was hooked up to an air gap and I adjusted the hoses several times which fixed the problem temporarily. After the last time I got the error, I decided to read the manual. The manual recommended using Finish Powerball Tablets. I thought this was a bit wasteful, but it sure looked convenient. I went to Costco, bought a box of these and started using them.

Since I started using them (knock on wood), we haven't had a problem with the dishwasher. My theory is that the gel we were using didn't completely dissolve and clogged up part of the drain or hose enough that the dishwasher thought it was completely clogged and shut off the cycle (the error always occurred at the end of the wash).

So the lesson here is "read the instructions"!

The end of my vacation rental nightmare

For the last 9 months or so, the property next to me has been used as a mini-hotel; some people call would call it a short term vacation rental, I simply call it a pain in my rear. The City of San Diego hasn't budged on its misinterpretation of the municipal code (§131.0422) that prohibits visitor accommodations in residential zones and the owner has said that he can do whatever he wanted to with this property.

I've spent a lot of my free time amounting to hundreds of hours researching laws and anything I could find about short term vacation rentals. I looked for anything that would be on my side and uncovered trash regulations, but those weren't enough to get the City to do anything. I like watching law dramas where lawyers seems to pull rabbits out of their hats to win cases; I was looking for my rabbit.

When we purchased our house, I knew that there were CC&Rs (covenants, conditions, and restrictions) relating to my property. Our neighborhood was developed in the 1960s and a homeowners association was no longer in existence (if one did exist). I read the CC&Rs many times looking for something that would give me legal recourse against the property owner next to me (neighbors are people that live near you and don't just own property near you). It wasn't until I had read the CC&Rs at least 10 times that I stumbled upon a few clauses that looked like they could apply. In addition, the CC&Rs appeared to automatically renew every 10 years and only expired if a majority of owners voted to terminate them.

I started talking to one of my neighbors that is an attorney that deals with real estate law and he seemed to think that while we could go after the City to enforce the code, my idea about using the CC&Rs could work. As much as I want to help other people, my primary goal was to get rid of the vacation rental next to me. I retained my neighbor as my attorney and he said the first step was to gather support from other neighbors; I got several of my neighbors to join and my attorney drafted a letter to the property owner claiming he violated the CC&Rs on a number of grounds.

The owner next door hired an attorney to represent him and basically wanted to settle without going to mediation or court. Without acknowledging that all of our claims were valid, he agreed to stop renting out his property as a vacation rental. Wow, I was stunned when my attorney told me this! Over the course of the next few weeks, we went back and forth hammering out the details of an agreement. As of now, the current owner is no longer going to rent it out for less than 30 days.

While I've managed to rid my neighborhood of this annoyance, my approach probably won't work for many others. I had CC&Rs that were still enforceable, I had the determination to fight, and I was able to afford an attorney to represent me. I'm not an attorney, so if anyone else wants to pursue an action to rid their neighborhood of a vacation rental, please contact an attorney (I now have several on speed dial :-)).