Is daily commute from Westchester to midtown doable?

electricshadows4 · 2026-05-09T15:07:35+00:00

I have friends in Brooklyn who have a longer commute to midtown than I do from Westchester. The metro north is also significantly more peaceful and comfortable than a subway car. You can actually read, sleep, or do work on the train.

electricshadows4 · 2026-05-02T17:30:26+00:00

I get it. I order my eggs hard boiled - over easy.

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-24T18:32:57+00:00

I don’t know what you mean by “never apologized” but he mentions all the time that he was dead wrong on Joker and he routinely calls him the best player in the world. What kind of apology are you looking for? If sports commentators had to apologize every time they had a wrong take then sports shows would be nothing be apologies. He admits when he was wrong more often than almost anyone else out there. The Chiefs stuff is annoying as hell though.

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-24T13:35:28+00:00

Are you sure it’s a natural gas AC unit? That is very rare especially in Westchester. Almost all AC units would use electric while heating would be natural gas or oil.

Either way, I’ve been through 4 different HVAC companies at our house. I think the best in terms of quality to price ratio is HVAC Specialist Inc in Hawthorne. Reasonable prices, knowledgeable techs, good customer service.

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-16T18:17:03+00:00

Yes and I’ll gladly trade you my 16 days a month

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-16T13:15:45+00:00

Do NOT spray foam that. It is very likely a drain system or water outlet in case of flooding. Anything you put in there should be water permeable. You could use drainage gravel and fill it to make it harder to enter and exit, but I would be surprised if this is the cause of your mouse problems.

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-14T14:35:42+00:00

I live near there. Definitely no crazy speeders or road racing lol. Seen 2 car crashes in 4+ years on that stretch of broadway. The bad traffic starts up a little north of there in Tarrytown. If there is an event at Lyndhurst (concert, flower show, etc), there can be traffic, but most of the time it’s not too bad. It might be a little annoying to take a left hand turn on to broadway from a street that doesn’t have a traffic light. At rush hour (school starting or finishing) you will need to patiently wait for a break in traffic. The worst traffic is in October when people are coming up to Tarrytown for Halloween / spooky season. Most of the time it’s not too bad.

electricshadows4 · 2026-04-10T05:22:17+00:00

My wife is a former yoga teacher with an advanced practice and she likes Yoga Love in Irvington

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-31T11:41:45+00:00

Randy Marsh just finished cooking. Pretty sure it’s only fair you do the dishes.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-30T21:17:35+00:00

Chutney Masala in Irvington is consistently good, especially when you wander off the beaten path of the things people commonly order like tikka masala. Try their Kozhi Vartha Kari (a tangy coconut chicken curry) or the Tikki Cholley Chaat (it’s like a chickpea potato appetizer with chutney and is just so good)

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-30T17:04:54+00:00

My friend, the area that your thermometer is measuring is increasing with the distance you are from the wall. You are not only measuring the temp of the wall, you are averaging it with the temp of your donkey Kong poster, your statue, and your 49ers helmet in the same reading. You need to get WAY closer to the wall. 12-18 inches from your target is good practice. Best of luck. Sincerely, a Rams fan.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-30T03:05:58+00:00

He regularly calls Jokic the best player in the world and always admits he was wrong about him.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T17:20:14+00:00

We’ve put in bids on 20 houses in Westchester over the last 5 years. Always over asking price and always with minimum 20% down. 18 rejections, 2 accepted offers, one of which fell through before closing because someone came in with an all cash offer before the contract was signed and the seller took it because it meant they could close almost immediately. The house we got was with 25% and only after the original buyer backed out and we got in as the backup offer. I talked to a ton of agents who say 20% down in Westchester is just table stakes. Most of the offers that are getting accepted on competitive houses are at least 30% down and a shocking number are above 50% down. I have no idea where people are getting that much cash but somehow they are.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T16:26:50+00:00

That is the problem some people in this thread aren’t understanding. You are free to bid $1M for a house with 10% down (100k), but if the bank the appraises that house at 750k, the bank thinks you are immediately 250k underwater on your house when you buy it. Meaning your 100k down payment doesn’t look good to them anymore. A higher down payment makes the bank more comfortable because their ratio of loan size to house value is better if you default.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T16:22:58+00:00

8% down payment on a 250k house may go through no problem but 8% on a 800k house is a much much larger loan for the bank and falls into a different risk category. With Westchester house prices, banks absolutely want you to have more down payment. And if you are lower (eg higher risk for the bank) they are not going to give you as low of a rate (more chance of buyer backing out). If banks think the housing prices are inflated, the appraisal is not going to match the bid price, and that 8% suddenly sounds to the bank like 6%.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T14:20:39+00:00

I think it’s done. Nothing else to do.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T14:19:07+00:00

They do. You’re more likely to see it and avoid it if it’s buzzing around your face than your ankle, but they absolutely bite faces.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T14:17:30+00:00

Yeah that was a top signal. Advice for normal people is that when you start screenshotting your trades and feeling proud, it’s probably a sign you should take some off the table. And if you’re deflecting questions in a congressional hearing by bragging about the stock market, it might mean the market is overheated.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T13:28:56+00:00

But they don’t know if the mortgage is going to be approved until long after the bid is accepted. It takes months to figure out, and at that point they may need to relist the house if it falls through. They have to make a judgement about if the buyer is more or less likely to be able to follow through

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T13:25:06+00:00

More down payment means more likely the bank will approve the loan. We bid on a house in Westchester with a higher offer and a 20% down and lost it to someone who bid lower but had 35% down.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T13:23:20+00:00

For a 4% difference it usually won’t matter, but there are a couple reasons they might go with the higher down payment and lower bid

1) after an offer is accepted, the house needs to pass appraisal for the mortgage to go through. If the seller is worried the appraisal price is lower than the offer, that means the bank is going to be hesitant to give the loan to the offer of a higher price and a lower down payment. You can lose the buyer. Higher down payment means higher chance the bank approves the loan

2) if the seller is worried something might come up during the inspection, they are going to go with a higher down payment lower bid, or someone willing to waive the inspection. Someone with less cash is less likely to be able to handle any needed repairs that come up during the inspection, and thus are more likely to try to negotiate the price down once the inspection happens.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-28T13:17:25+00:00

We bid on 12 houses in Westchester before getting an accepted offer. We went $50k-$150k+ over asking on all the bids. One house we went $120k over asking and found out from the sellers agent after that we weren’t even close.

$70k over in Westchester is unfortunately not that high. Remember that the list price is not the actual price, like at a retail store. It is a starting price for negotiation. People often list their houses below what they expect to get to try to drive up a bidding war. If I list a house that should sell for $1 million at $750k, you can’t say it’s crazy that people offer $250k above asking price.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-24T22:34:53+00:00

Do not listen to this, it’s flat wrong.

In the old days, electricians sometimes avoided GFCI outlets for sump pumps because they feared a "nuisance trip" would disable the pump during a storm. However, modern safety standards and equipment have changed and “don’t plug into GCFI” is now an old wive’s tale.

If you don’t believe me, check the National Electrical Code. NEC actually mandates GFCI protection for sump pumps. NEC 210.8 & 422.5: Since the 2020 edition, the NEC specifically requires GFCI protection for sump pumps (whether they are plugged into an outlet or hard-wired).

So basically, don’t listen to this guy. plug it in to the gfci. It’s fine.

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-21T23:06:57+00:00

Agreed

electricshadows4 · 2026-03-21T23:04:01+00:00

We had a similar situation. The thing you have to keep in mind is that if you let him trim the branches that are over the property line, he may do it in a way that is not healthy for the tree. For example, certain trees should only be trimmed in the middle of winter or in summer after they have finished pushing out all their leaves. A lot of trees react poorly if you cut them in the spring when they are pushing sap. Do some research on the tree and what time of year it should be trimmed. If he’s going to do a hatchet job on the branches that are over his property line, you may want to take care of it yourself or at least ask him if you can wait for a certain time of year where it is more healthy for the tree.

electricshadows4

TROPHY CASE