How to Commute by Bike in the Winter

In some environments, it’s already tricky enough to bike commute even in the best of weathers. But what if you add a whole lot of snow and ice on the streets, freezing temperatures, and cold wind blowing in your face? It seems that bike commuting in winter is reserved only for the most courageous.

Honestly, winter bike commuting is not for everyone because not all have the mental and physical strength required for it. Luckily, there are some precautionary measures you can take to increase your odds of a successful bike commute and to make it as comfortable as possible.

Gear

You’ll often hear all kinds of excuses for avoiding bike commuting once the snow starts falling. Most of them are directed towards the gear, so people often say that their bike is not good enough or they lack some other part of the equipment.

Fortunately, this isn’t as much of a problem as it may sound. You’ll need to choose appropriate tires (wider and chunkier) for a better grip to avoid sliding. Let some air out of them to get more traction, and make sure your pedals and shoes have a good grip.

When it comes to storing your bike, you can keep your apartment clean with a bike cover. You want to keep the dirt off your carpets or furniture. As an off-season cyclist, you’ll be picking up more dirt along with the snow while commuting.

Clothing

Make the wrong choice when choosing your clothes for winter bike commuting, and you’ll curse the day you came up with the idea of doing it in the first place. You can’t make a mistake here - the secret is in layering.

Our mothers and grandmothers always used to remind us that the secret of staying warm is in wearing multiple layers of clothes. The same applies to bike commuting in the winter. Naturally, the principle is the same, but the actual realization is a bit different. The layers worn when biking should be thin, but warm, allowing you to move freely and protecting you from moisture.

Sharing

Bike share programs have gained popularity recently, and rightfully so. There are no downsides to bike sharing – it’s convenient, it’s eco-friendly, and it’s even safer than regular biking. It turns out that you’re less likely to be in a traffic accident this way.

Bike sharing is convenient and practical, and in most areas of the world that implement bike sharing, all you have to do is own a smartphone. Everything else is at your thumb’s reach. Now, you might think that all this luxury comes at a price, but bike sharing is quite affordable. When you compare it to other forms of public transport, bike sharing wins every time.

By using bike share, you won't have to think about the gear in the way you used to when the bike was your own. It's merely the best way to commute in the winter if you think that you've got it in you to succeed.

What Size or Height Christmas Tree Should I Buy for My Apartment and How Do I Keep It Fresh and Green?

The hunt for the best Christmas tree has officially begun. Whether you are buying it on the market or going out into the woods for a tree, choosing the right one for your home can put a special touch on Christmas.

The Christmas tree is the focal point of every home during the holiday season. That means that choosing the wrong Christmas tree can affect the holiday mood of your dearest ones. But what is a wrong Christmas tree? How can there even be such a thing?

The Wrong Christmas Tree?

The wrong Christmas tree would be anyone that doesn't fit the room that it is erected. It typically is placed in the living room, but if that’s a problem, you can solve it by decluttering. The fit isn't strictly size related though; it could be the dominating colour of the tree, the shape, or that it doesn't feel natural. Sometimes you can't see it coming until you put the tree in the room. Once it's there, all you can do is to accept what you’ve bought.

The Choice

The secret to choosing the best Christmas tree is to ask yourself the right questions. In which room will I place it? Am I going to make it a centrepiece of the room or a smaller tree in the other room?

Another big question is how much space you are willing to give to the tree. There are two basic shapes of a Christmas tree – a full shape and a narrow shape. A full form is pretty much the standard. The chances are that all the most beautiful Christmas trees you have ever seen were “full-shaped.” It’s the shape that we all recognize, and that is what makes a great tree.

However, if you are tight on space, then a narrow tree is a must. As for the colour of the tree, it must complement the overall tone of the room as well as the colours and shapes of your Christmas decorations.

Protecting Your Tree

Like finding the best tree isn’t already hard enough, you have to keep it fresh and green (at least for the holidays.) Start the right way, and choose a healthy tree that doesn’t have a lot of brown needles. Once you take it home, the race with nature begins. The secret is in the way you store the tree. If you aren't planning on putting it up immediately, store it in an unheated place, but away from cold and wind.

When the time comes, you must place the tree on a stand that holds at least a gallon of water. Depending on the diameter of your tree, the water level will vary, but be sure that the tree has enough water at any time.

The place of the tree is also important. It shouldn’t be near any heat source, like a fireplace or radiator, nor should it be near a window or front door. The truth is, keeping your Christmas tree green and fresh isn’t that hard, it just requires a bit of dedication. Show your Christmas tree love that it deserves and it will reward you much, much more, by making your Christmas holidays perfect for you and your loved ones.

Steps Towards Green

Those of us who want to help the environment always take on many measures that will lead to complete green living. Even if you’re already living green, there are probably still some small steps that you can take to go even further.

With that in mind, here is a long list of essential steps to take to live green, so you can check which ones you already accomplished and which can still be implemented.

Turn off Lights

Consuming less electricity is one of the main ways to go green. You can do that by always keeping the lights turned off whenever you don’t need them. Many people leave their lights on all over the house because they don’t require much power, but that’s merely wasteful and bad for the environment.

Turn off Your Devices

Another way to use less power is to completely shut off your devices when you’re not using them. For example, instead of turning off the TV with a remote, you can unplug it. When it comes to your desktop computer, you can also completely turn it off if you’re not using it. That’s important because a lot of people leave their computers turned on most of the time, even though they are not using them. An easy way to turn the sets off is by having them connected to a power bar. That way you only have to flip one switch.

Use More Efficient Shower and Faucet Heads

You will have to go out and buy new bathroom items, but in the end, it will be an excellent way to stop wasting water, which is the second biggest obstacle in going green.

Don’t Leave It Running

Another way to conserve more water is not to keep it running while doing the dishes. The same goes when you’re in the shower, don’t keep it running when you don’t have to.

In addition to these steps, you can always think of something on your own. All the ways you can save water depend entirely on the type of apartmentyou’re renting.

Have Less Garbage

Another crucial step towards green living is to reduce the waste you make. Start by buying less stuff that you know you probably won’t need and end up throwing in the trash. It is especially true for food, which we waste in massive amounts. Start buying less of it and try to buy it in packaging that can recycle.

Recycle

Recycling is a necessary step in going green. When recycling, make sure you’re following the local municipal recycling guidelines to sort items correctly. Stop contaminating recycling bins with wrong type materials as contaminated recycle batches end up at the garbage dump.

Don’t Use Chemicals

There’s a lot to this, but in the simplest of terms, stop using products with toxic chemicals and opt for more sustainable options. This way you will keep the environment safer, but also keep your family or the people living with you healthy.

Use a Drying Rack

Instead of a dryer that uses a lot of electricity and hurts the environment, you can always dry your clothes in the traditional, natural way, whenever you can.

These are just some of the main ways of going green, and there’s a lot more that can be done. The key is doing something, and you should also keep on educating yourself on how you can help the environment even more.

4 Ways to Winter-Proof Your Apartment

Winter is coming, and depending on what kind of apartment you have, it can be relatively easy or tough withstanding the lousy weather and the low temperatures.

If you’re not going to move to a warmer place, the best thing that you can do right now is to winter-proof your apartment. Thankfully, apartments are not as hard to winter-proof as houses, but there are still several things that you need to do.

1.    Insulate the Windows

The worst part about the winter is the cold. Depending on where in Canada you live, the temperatures are very low or extremely cold in the winter. All in all, there’s no escaping the elements, wherever you live.

The best thing that you can do, besides the heating, is to insulate your windows properly. If you haven’t already, air will quickly enter your apartment, and the heat won’t be able to mitigate the constant shivers you’ll be getting from the barely noticeable draft. Plus, the warm air will have an easier time escaping.

It will take a little bit of work by the way, as you’ll have to buy some rubber weatherstrips and stick them to the frames of each window. You can even use some transparent cellular shades that will block the air but not the sunshine.

2.    Close the Doors and Use Draft Guards

The heat leaving the apartment can be a problem if the windows are not insulated properly, but also because of the many doors and rooms in the condo. To keep the heat in the area, you are in; it’s best to keep the doors closed. You can even do this for the other rooms to keep the heat where you want to keep it.

Furthermore, you can use draft guards under the doors as well. The effect is the same as with insulated windows.

3.    Uncover the Vents

A lot of renters, especially the ones who move during the summer, cover their heat registers in one way or another. When winter comes, they don’t remember placing items such as furniture over them, which is why they are not adequately using their heat source.

If you have vents, make sure they are not blocked. If you have radiators, remove any clothes left on them or move any large pieces of furniture that are blocking them.

In general, if your heating sources are covered in any way, the heat won’t be able to spread across the room properly, and you won't be able to get warm. Surviving the winter can get at least a little bit easier if you unblock all of your heating sources.

4.    Cover the Floor

Did you know that more than 10% of the heat leaves the apartment through the floors? If you’re renting an older building, it’s more than likely the floor is hardwood, and they usually lack insulation.

You can’t change the floors as that would be expensive, and you might move in the meantime, but you certainly can buy some thick and spacious rugs to mitigate the problem and keep your feet warm.

All in all, you can’t stop the winter, but you can certainly keep yourself warm in your apartment with these few easy steps.

Get Around Easy: How to Navigate Everyday Traffic If You Don’t Own a Car?

These days, when everyone’s in a constant rush to this or that place, it feels impossible to get around without your own car. Usually, paying for taxis on a daily basis is too expensive and somewhat unreliable, public transport can get frustrating, bikes aren’t that great a solution for longer rides, and rail line services don’t always fit our usual to-and-from places. So, what are we to do? Sit and cry or look at things a bit differently? Let’s go with the latter.

We list five awesome ways to navigate everyday traffic and get places even if you don’t have a vehicle:

Use Public Transit

If you are thinking that using public transport is beneath you, we’ll stop you right there. Unless you were born in Kensington Palace, it’s not. Public transportation is just fine, and everyone’s using it. Naturally, like everywhere in the world, using public transit will treat you to occasional frustration but, those are the “perks” of living in a big city. Anyway, when you plan your routes right, you’ll get from Point A to Point B hassle-free.

Bike Share

A bicycle-sharing system, also known as “bike share,” “bike-share scheme,” or a “public bicycle system” is a service allowing individuals to rent bicycles on a short-term basis for a price or free. Usually, bikes are cute, comfy, and functional, so you can put your bag, your laptop, and other stuff in the baskets that often come with the bikes. These days, there are options to get an electric bike, which is even more convenient!

Use Uber/Lyft/Taxi

For all of you who want to have a car experience without owning a car, Uber, regular Taxi, or a Lyft are the best options! Not only are these three options cozy and convenient but also they appear to be cheaper than paying for gas and car maintenance. Plus, there’s always the benefit of not having to worry about parking or crazy people in traffic. Instead, you sit back and relax, and let your driver handle everything.

Light Rail & Commuter Rail

If there’s a light rail where you live, you are in for the win! Light rails are usually incredibly convenient for transport all over the area, they are sturdy, eco-friendly, and a cheap way to get around. Commuter rail is also a great way to get from point A to point B, i.e., from your city center and middle to outer suburbs, and back. Commuter rails are used by people who travel on a daily basis from commuter towns or other locations.

Carpool

Not your typical car replacement because, well, we ARE talking about a car, after all. However, this one’s a sort of unusual method, but very effective – especially if you live far from public transport or aren’t financially “there yet” to go by taxi every day. Take turns carpooling with your friends and colleagues who live nearby, split the gas cost, and make it an awesome road trip every day. Not too shabby, right?

We do hope that the tips above prove that you can easily navigate everyday traffic without owning a car. If you’ve got any other suggestions, we’re all ears!

Legalized Pot & Rental Units in Canada: What Are the Rules, Anyway?

To smoke or not to smoke, that is no longer the question. However, the question on everyone’s minds these days (well, at least in Canada) is will tenants be able to smoke weed in their apartments? Will landlords have the authority to ban marijuana consumptions inside their properties? Who has the final say when it comes to smoking and renting in Canada? Let’s talk it out.

From the moment recreational cannabis become legal in Canada, on Oct. 17, Canadians got the green light to smoke pot in their private homes, without fearing they’ll have cops bang on their door any second. However, things were (and still are) somewhat different and more complicated for renters who live in multi-dwelling buildings.

For now, we’ve got several questions answered:

What Is the Cannabis Act (Bill C-45)?

The Cannabis Act (Bill C-45) is the new law in Canada allowing individuals over the age of 18 to purchase and consume cannabis. With this law in power, adults can buy fresh or dried cannabis, plants, seeds, and cannabis oil. Despite the right to openly possess and use Cannabis, Canadians are prohibited from transporting it over an international border.

Can Building Management Ban the Use of Cannabis Inside 

Apartment Units?

If you are a tenant, you have the right to use cannabis in a private residence or your unit in an apartment building. It includes your porch or backyard, as well. Renters are potentially looking at the possibility of having a ban issued against smoking pot in the place of their lease. What is more, if their current lease doesn’t allow smoking in the unit, it usually will apply to marijuana smoking, as well. Laws are different from one jurisdiction to another, although, if you have signed a contract stating you can’t smoke on the property, then you can’t.

However, in case your current lease doesn’t already have a smoking ban in place, your landlord can’t retroactively add a ban. Landlords are allowed to change contracts for new tenants or once a lease agreement has ended for their current tenants. You might anticipate some court challenges coming soon.

Can Smoking Be Prohibited Altogether per Unit?

There have been plenty of condo corporations passing bylaws that prohibit marijuana consumption in their buildings. However, there’s already legal opposition against those bylaws, most commonly from people with prescriptions for medicinal marijuana. Further, legal fights are coming from tenants with smoke allergies, too.

How Much Weed Can I Have?

Adults have the permission to carry up to 30g of dried cannabis in a “public space.” If you get caught with more than 30g while out in public, you can face up to five years in prison.

Can I Grow Weed If I Am a Tenant?

Recreational users can grow up to four plants per household. The plants aren’t to be taller than a meter. Some provinces have declared against this suggestion, arguing that the plants should be grown out of public view while others have already made home growing illegal. Most landlords are against tenants growing cannabis in their rental properties and are pushing for a full ban to be enforced.

While on the one hand, landlords want to give their renters freedom to carry on with their lifestyle unobstructed and not violate tenants’ laws, they too want to protect other tenants who’d rather live in a smoke-free environment. Other than that, some landlords feel strongly against marijuana consumption, putting them in a peculiar position. Finding the middle ground may take years of conversations and challenges, and we hope both tenants and landlords will get their way.

How to Increase Your Living Space Without Paying More Rent?

With a few exceptions, every person wants to live in a spacious home. Unfortunately, however, it is not always an option, especially if you are renting a place. If this is the case for you, then you've come to the right place. Below are several tips on how to increase the size of your home without paying more rent. 

The Pareto Principle

Also known as the 80/20 rule or the law of the vital few, the Pareto principle dictates that 80% of effects are a direct result of 20% of the causes. The truly fascinating part about this principle is that it can be found everywhere in nature, but it also applies in areas of human activity equally as well. It's a sort of natural law if you will. 

In this context, the Pareto principle applies to how we move around the house. If we take a moment to examine a room, we'll quickly come to realize that most of the time (about 80%) we walk on the same parts of the floor, roughly the same 20%. By doing this simple exercise, you may even notice areas that you never set your foot on. 

Anyway, by keeping this principle in mind, you can rearrange your furniture and belongings in such a way so that you'll never have to bump into anything ever again. By improving the traffic flow around the house, you've inherently optimized everything, thus allowing you to maximize the use of your space more effectively. 

Striking a Balance

If and when you rearrange your furniture, keep in mind to have everything in balance. Rooms that are too furniture-heavy on one side will give off the impression of a tight space, even if this is not necessarily the case.

Don't let too many pieces of furniture be the first thing you see when you enter a room and, instead, try to balance things out a bit more - but also keeping the aforementioned Pareto principle in mind. Also, don't be afraid to rearrange furniture from different rooms together if it means that it will offer you a better visual balance. 

Mind Your Storage

If it's a small space we're talking about, every square inch counts. Scan your home and look for things out in the open that you don't use on a daily basis. If, for instance, you make toast roughly twice a month, keeping that toaster on the counter will only take up much-needed space. Make the countertop hold items that you use on a daily basis and try putting everything else away. 

Storage may be tight in a small apartment, but it's an opportunity for you to become creative. It's a great idea to declutter any storage space that you might have, and try increasing the number of shelves. You can also place smaller pieces of furniture under larger ones. Hanging things can also be an option. Now, given your unique circumstance, your imagination will play a huge role here.  

Conclusion

In the end, everything boils down to how you manage to do more with less. Keep in mind the Pareto principle as well as the size of your furniture in every room, and you'll be fine.

Home Habits You Didn't Realize are Bad for the Environment

Though it might not seem like it, the average North American spends roughly 87% of their time indoors and an additional 6% in their cars. Given these statistics, it's important to realize what our most-common habits are and which of them can be harmful to the environment. 

And as we've gotten more used to the idea that humans have a tremendously adverse effect on the environment, we also need to understand the consequences of our actions. Small as they may be, little by little, things begin to add up, bringing us to our current predicament. In other words, we can either be part of the problem or the solution, tipping the balance ever so slightly. 

These habits presented here may be things that you do on a daily basis without even realizing it. But with a few tweaks to your behavior, changing these habits can make the difference between being a positive or a negative influence on the environment. 

Shopping Online and Ordering In

Both of these habits are relatively common in households all across Canada. The convenience they provide makes them in high demand. But according to the numbers, these two activities have a significant toll on the environment.

As you've may have guessed, it's not necessarily the packages or the food per se, but transporting them to your front door that does the real damage. And before you say anything about the environmental cost of you having to go out and buy these things yourself, it's important to remember the frequency. How often do you go out to buy something instead of ordering it from Amazon? 

Keeping Chargers Plugged In

Who would have thought that keeping your chargers plugged in, even if you're not charging anything, is a drain on electricity and, thus, an adverse effect on the environment. The energy consumption of your charger alone is not significant, but the chances are that you have more than one charger plugged in, already. And when we consider that there are millions of chargers plugged in all around the globe, the cumulative energy waste could power an entire city. Unplugging them not only reduces the effect on the environment but also eases your energy consumption.

Big Fridges and Misleading Expiration Dates

Food waste is considered by some to be the world's dumbest problem. On average, North Americans and Europeans throw away roughly 230 pounds of perfectly edible food every year, or about a quarter of all the food they buy. This food waste accounts for anywhere in between $1,365 to $2,275, annually. On a global scale, if food waste were a country, it would be the second most significant greenhouse gas emitter after China and the US. 

Food waste is also facilitated by two habits most people have. For starters, they buy large fridges - above 25 cubic feet. But as it turns out, people do not like to see empty refrigerators and tend to pack them full with food whenever they get the chance. It also means that much of that food will inevitably go to waste, driven in large part by a second trend - taking expiration dates literally. 

It may come as a surprise to many, but expiration dates are not something official. Baby formula is the only one that has a law-required best-by date, while the rest are either an approximation or a means for manufacturers to try and convince people to throw away perfectly excellent food, then go out and buy more. And as one might have guessed, this strategy is working.

Statistics show that 54% of people consider it a health risk to eat food past their best-by date. The food is good to consume; dates only indicate the freshness of the product. Furthermore, 91% of consumers occasionally throw away food past their sell-by date, and 37% always do so. 

Conclusion

These are a few examples of everyday habits that have a tremendously adverse effect on the environment. But by changing them, each us can lower our carbon footprint and make this world a better place. 

How to Make your Apartment Smart

The development and sophistication of smart technologies give people increased control and convenience over their domestic lives.  While many of these technologies require more in-depth and permanent installations—the kind that might make more sense for property owners—there are many adaptable, lighter weight smart-home technologies that can greatly improve the daily lives of renters as well.  Here are a few ways renters can harness the power of smart technology for their apartments.

Integrate your Streaming

Gone are the days of having your content fixed in the separate silos of your television, computer, device, or stereo.  The emergence of streaming services, from Netflix to Spotify, to your local public library’s streaming service, gives us access to an almost infinite amount of content, without having to hold it in any one particular place.  You can unlock this new mobility of content by picking up a wifi-enabled stereo or speaker set to broadcast music directly from your device.  Similarly, the magic of dongles and screen mirroring allows you to screen videos, television shows, or films from your laptop, tablet, or phone directly onto your television screen. 

Smart Lighting and Smart Sleeping

While there are full lighting solutions that link to an all-encompassing smart solution like Google home, basic white light bulbs controlled by remote are available for lamps or other stand alone lighting, and require no rewiring.  These smart bulbs give you greater control over levels of brightness, and allow you to turn everything off from bed!  And speaking of beds, there are also technologies that let you remotely control both the warmth and coolness of your bed.  Technologies like BedJet incorporate heating and cooling into a hollow top sheet, which you can then regulate from an app on your device.  If you live in an apartment that can swing from being either a little too cold or a little too hot depending upon the season, technologies like these ensure a good night’s rest.

Get a Digital Personal Assistant

Almost every big company has their own version of a digital personal assistant these days, and while these technologies can be fully integrated into homes, for tasks ranging from security, to climate control, to household inventories, renters can still make good use of them.  These digital assistants are voice-activated, and allow you to do everything from finding and playing content, to making orders or reservations, to taking notes and scheduling, to calling, texting, or email contacts.