Just A Few Odds And Sods

As I watch my laundry dry on the line on this beautiful sunny but windy day I think of what else I can do to save electricity.

Yesterday, Toronto Hydro installed what is called a "Smart Meter". The purpose of the smart meter is to determine when you use the most electricity and charge accordingly. It is potentially a windfall for the power company since the absolute best Off-Peak time is from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM during which time we will pay 3.2 cents a kilowatt hour. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but that's generally the time I'd like to curl up in bed with a good book or knitting, not be cooking, baking or doing laundry.

The most expensive time for power consumption are 7:00 am to 5:00 PM, that's in the summer. There are different times for winter consumption and then there is the Mid-Peak which I won't bore you with. Suffice it to say I'm going to need a spreadsheet to figure this out.

One thing I do know for sure, it will cost more. During peak times the cost is 9.2 cents a kilowatt hour and during mid peak it's 7.2 cents. So in order to break even I figure I need to do almost all of my living at night and sleep during the day.

I know that in Europe this system has been in place for a while and that my mother-in-law does her laundry before she goes to bed and hangs it out in the morning. The clothes always smell musty and when my sweetie came home from his last trip there he asked me to rewash all his clothes. During out winter I can't hang clothes out anyway but guaranteed I'm not going to bed and leave the dryer running. Nor will I run the dishwasher at night. I have heard of fires started by dryers and homes flooded by a broken hose on a dishwasher. Will I take that chance, not in this lifetime... I guess I'll just pay the higher rates.

The other big news in the "world class city" (the mayors words, not mine) of T-Dot is the new garbage rules. We used to have garbage pickup weekly, then it went to bi-weekly with a 6 bag limit. Recycling was the order of the day but having garbage hang around for two weeks during the hot summer months was a pretty buggy affair. A year ago the city started a new program and gave us a new bucket for compostable garbage. Just about all wet stuff can go in that including kleenex, paper towel and even diapers. This was picked up weekly and whatever garbage was left was still picked up bi weekly with a 4 bag limit. So now we separate garbage into three different containers to be picked up weekly and bi weekly on different weeks.

This past spring our city fathers, having run out of money to spend on perks have figured out a new way to tax (sorry, generate revenue) us by taking away our garbage bins and forcing us to buy a city approved bin. These come in four sizes with the smallest size at no extra cost (tax) to us. It hold one green garbage bag and will be picked up bi weekly. So now for the same taxes we pay, which have actually been increased another 3 percent this year, have gone from 4 bags to one bag of garbage, awesome (I hate that word) right? I wonder if it's a union company that produces those new garbage bins?

I personally am not buying a bigger bin, I will make do with the small one. Of course if I have a dinner party, when the guests leave, together with a doggy bag of leftover food I can give them their share of the garbage to take home...

Another revenue generating tool being voted on next week is an extra $60 a year registration fee on your car, but only in the city of Toronto. This money is supposed to be for road repairs, of course all the suburbanites to travel into Toronto daily and use the road don't have to pay. And the worst tax of all, the one that has every one of my Realtor friends up in arms is the new Land Transfer Tax for the City of Toronto only. Considering that this tax is already paid to the Province, this will be double dipping and could add up to $6,000 to the cost of a house, payable up front of course. What will happen to the robust real estate market here? If they kill it the economic slowdown will affect everyone not just the realtors.

Oh yes, one more tax, a tax on sidewalks. Yes you read that right, a tax on sidewalks for business in our entertainment district where people have to line up. I wonder if they will tax the panhandlers too? Then they wonder why tourism is way down and Americans don't come here any more. Our Mayor who has a degree in Economics from some fancy American University should be able to figure this out.

On a fun note, this goody. Do you live in a neighbourhood where walking to amenities is possible? Take the test and see how your hood rates, Americans and Canadian only though.

My neighbourhood rates only 54 out of 100 which means it's not terribly walkable. Just to get to a pharmacy I would have to walk 1.43 miles never mind the grocery store, that's over two miles away. Can you imagine me walking home two miles carrying groceries? I can't much as I'd like to. There used to be many more small stores in this neighbourhood but numerous tax increases in the last few years have bankrupted most of them.

And while I was out hanging my laundry in the backyard, the FedEx guy was at my front door. So sad, I still won't get that laptop up and running.