How do couples live in tiny homes without killing each other?

Couples make each other more radical. That’s very bad for fighting terrorism.

When news broke that Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook had carried out the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., people were shocked. Mass shooting are very rarely committed by more than one person in the United States.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But really, we shouldn’t be surprised. Marriage is a perfect hotbed for radicalization, and couples often push each other to behave more radically than either would on their own. While men are often portrayed as instigators, radicalizing their supposed lovers, history suggests that these interpersonal dynamics are rarely that simple. That’s because radical relationships create a mutually reinforced echo chamber where dissent and concerns are easily silenced by the consolation of trusted companions. While romantic duos are not the most common form of terrorism, this trend deserves recognition. Tight-knit groups of friends are known to be influential regarding radicalization, and few relationships are closer than marriage. See, for example, Amanda and Jerad Miller, a married couple of reportedly anti-government white supremacists. In June 2014, they killed two police officers at a pizzeria before shooting a civilian in a Las Vegas Walmart. In 2005, Belgian Muriel Degauque and her husband, Issam Goris, tried to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. While Goris’s attack was thwarted, Degauque killed herself and injured an American soldier. More recently, Hayat Boumeddiene, the wife of the shooter in the January 2015 attack on a Kosher supermarket in Paris, allegedly fled to Turkey and crossed the border into Syria days before the January 2015 Paris attacks. French authorities say that Boumeddiene exchanged more than 500 phone calls with the wife of Cherif Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. These partnerships are dangerous. Rather than using communication tools such as online platforms and messaging systems, tight-knit partners are more likely to interact in person while plotting attacks, which may easily circumvent detection by intelligence agencies. Not only does this phenomenon occur in romantic relationships — and with parents — but also within families. Within the foreign fighter movement in support of the Islamic State, entire families have migrated to Islamic State-held territory. Australian couple Khaled Sharrouf and Tara Nettleton, for example, relocated to Syria with all five of their children in December 2013. Mississippi newlyweds Jaelyn Delshaun Young and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla used the guise of a honeymoon to mask their attempt to join the “caliphate.” The newlywed couple communicated with an FBI informant who posed as a fellow Islamic State supporter and was arrested on their way to Syria. Perhaps the most notable sibling pair, the Tsarnaev brothers, carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The now-deceased older brother, Tamerlan, is often credited for the duo’s ideological transformation while the younger brother, Dzhokhar, who is facing the death penalty, is responsible for his participation in plotting and executing the attacks. Extremism is not limited to individuals and lone actors, nor does it only exist within diffuse networks. Romantic partners and family members are extremely influential with regard to radicalization. Although certain individuals may be dominant agitators, radicalization is rarely a one-way street.

Home, squeezed home: Living in a 200-square-foot space

Step into an alleyway in the Northeast Washington neighborhood known as Stronghold, and you will see a vegetable patch, a campfire, a view of the Capitol and a cluster of what neighbors call “those tiny people, building their tiny houses.” The people aren’t really tiny, but their homes are — 150 to 200 square feet of living space, some with gabled roofs, others with bright cedar walls, compact bathrooms and cozy sleeping lofts that add up to living spaces that are smaller than the walk-in closets in a suburban McMansion. “This is the dream,” says Rin Westcott, 28, who lives in Columbia and came out on a wintry Saturday afternoon bundled in a flower hat to help her friend Lee Pera with a tiny-house raising. Pera, 35, wore safety goggles as she treated the cedar boards of her “little house in the alleyway,” one of three under construction in what is thought to be one of the country’s first tiny-house model communities. ****If these affordable homes — which maximize every inch of interior space and look a little like well-constructed playhouses — are the dream, they represent a radically fresh version of what it takes to make Americans happy. Tiny homes first drew national attention when the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., now based in Santa Rosa, Calif., launched the concept in 2000. The idea gained visibility when it was featured in several national magazines and, in 2007, became the focus of the Tiny House Blog, established by self-proclaimed “lover of tiny spaces” Kent Griswold. The small homes, some on wheels, don’t warrant many trips to the Container Store. There are no kitchen islands, three-car garages or living rooms that are never lived in. In fact, their increasing popularity could be seen as a denunciation of conspicuous consumption and a rejection of the idea that more is, well, more. The group behind Stronghold’s tiny-house community calls itself Boneyard Studios. “As property values and rents rise across the city, we want to showcase this potential option for affordable housing,” the group writes on its Web site. “We decided to live the questions: Can we build and showcase a few tiny homes on wheels in a DC urban alley lot? . . . Not in the woods, but in a true community, connected to a neighborhood? Yes, we think. Watch out left coast, the DC adventure begins.” There’s one problem: The city’s zoning laws don’t allow residential dwellings on alley lots unless they are a minimum of 30 feet wide, or roughly the width of a city street. D.C. is currently discussing lifting the 30-foot restriction. So, as Boneyard Studios continues to advocate more progressive zoning laws, it is using the property to showcase what could be. “We want to inspire thinking about this as a possibility in the District,” says Brian Levy, 37, one of Boneyard’s founding members, who is building his tiny home in Stronghold but currently lives in a rowhouse off of U Street. Although the diminutive homes are made of high-quality materials, they are priced for a flagging economy. They sell for $20,000 to $50,000, less than the down payment on a two-bedroom condo in a trendy D.C. neighborhood. “They’re a statement that no one needs to be trapped in a mortgage they can’t afford in a house that’s too big for them anyway,” says Amy Lynch, a consultant with BridgeWorks, a Minneapolis-based company that studies generational trends. Lynch says tiny houses signal the end of America’s love affair with enormous homes. “The baby boomers raised their children. Now, they’re looking at all this stuff they have and thinking, ‘What has meaning for me now?’ Plus, these tiny houses are small enough that you can clean — actually clean them!” Here in Stronghold, the tiny houses also signal a culture clash between generations with different ideas about which American dream to aspire to. Jay Austin sipped Darjeeling tea as he looked over his construction plans. Austin, 23, sees the tiny home he’s building as perfect for Generation Y — underemployed, credit-crisis kids who know they will probably never achieve the “Mad Men”-era American ideal of a one-income family with a large house in the suburbs, two kids and two cars. “I saved for four years for a down payment. Then, I realized I could buy a whole house for that money,” says Austin, who works in planning for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “These also give us the luxury of mobility; if I need to move for another job, I don’t have to pack a single bag.” Still, some of the neighbors in Stronghold — where 1,800-square-foot renovated rowhouses sell for half a million dollars — are befuddled by the tiny-house movement, largely because they spent their lives trying to upsize. “A midget could catch the devil in one of them teeny, tiny little houses. I just don’t understand the point,” says James Harris, 70, who worked for 40 years in the maintenance department for the Smithsonian Institution and, with his wife, Patricia Harris, 65, a longtime D.C. school administrator, saved to pay off the spacious rowhouse they bought 38 years ago. “It’s our little piece of Washington,” Patricia Harris says. Her family is descended from freed slaves; they moved here from the South with a dream to own land and a house big enough to raise children and entertain guests. “These tiny houses feels like we are going backwards,” she says. Market researchers say first-generation immigrant groups and middle-aged adults in the working and lower-middle classes are still traditionalists, often aspiring to larger homes in the suburbs where there are good schools, which are seen as the most direct path into the middle and upper classes. Their children, however, want to move back to the cities. From 1950 to 2000, the size of the average American house increased by 230 percent, but home sizes have been declining since 2007, according to “The Small Spaces Trend,” a March 2011 report by the Atlanta-based marketing firm Kleber and Associates. The 1980s were all about “me architecture and big-hair houses,” where space was valued over style and location, says Monty Hoffman, chief executive and founder of PN Hoffman, one of the District’s largest condo builders. But today, Hoffman says, micro apartments are seen by many developers ****as the future of urban centers. “It’s no longer about impressing your friends with your huge 1980s castle, it’s more about your lifestyle: What restaurants and fitness centers and community life can you walk to? It’s not about driving everywhere and staying inside and spending hours watching TV,” Hoffman says. His group is designing 350-square-foot apartments that will be built on the waterfront in Southwest Washington. **** ****************It’s hard to say how many tiny houses have been built nationally, but Jay Shafer, founder of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., says he sold more than 1,500 sets of plans. Shafer’s self-published “Small House Book” has sold steadily since it came out four years ago. (Shafer sold Tumbleweed in September and started the Four Lights Tiny House Co., headquartered in Graton, Calif.) During his first five years, Shafer says, he sold 10 sets of plans per year. But tiny houses’ popularity took off after the housing bust and economic downturn in 2008. “Americans still like our stuff big and cheap, so a 100-square-foot house is not for everyone or big families. But people in tiny homes save a ton of money on heating and AC,” Shafer says. Shafer recently moved from his 90-square-foot house to a “by comparison palatial 500-square-foot home” after his wife had their second child. ******** ******** Despite the fact that tiny houses are, well, tiny, affordable-housing advocates are researching the possibility that attractive micro homes could one day complement or replace stigmatized trailer parks and low-income housing, especially in places such as the District, where they could be built in unused vacant spaces such as alleys. “I like the concept, and I’m intrigued. But it’s so small that it’s only good for a single person or a very-much-in-love couple,” says George Rothman, president of Manna, a nonprofit affordable-housing builder and developer. “There’s also the issue of land and zoning, and those are huge issues.” There are no micro loans for micro houses, because most tiny homes don’t qualify for mortgages. Some banks do commonly offer personal, unsecured lines of credit, and some tiny-home owners get significant lines of credit from places such as Home Depot. But there’s also the issue of buying land. Boneyard Studios’ Levy purchased his 5,200-square-foot lot in Stronghold for $31,000. There are dozens of vacant lots around the city that are on the market for less than $50,000, which means the tiny abodes could be a good option for people building affordable housing down the line, Levy says. ****So far, he says, the tiny-house trend has drawn a cross section of fans to the Stronghold community — especially young couples who are living with their parents. Eating a brunch of black-bean burritos on the construction site in Stronghold on a recent Saturday, a couple who hope to build a tiny house in Loudoun County came by for some tips. Brandon Pilarski, 36, a waiter, and his partner, Leigh Anne Rochelle, 28, a waitress, are living with her parents in Loudoun. ****“Just knowing that I don’t have to wait 20 years to have a house paid off is really wonderful,” says Rochelle, who is working on whittling down her large amount of clothing so it will fit in their new tiny house. But just in case, “we might keep a little storage at my parents’ place.” Their dream house may be tiny, but they still live in America, after all.

One-room tiny home in Bethesda lists for $475,000

The tiny house trend, in which homeowners learn to live in a streamlined space with minimal possessions, has been alive and well near Friendship Heights for decades. A 315-square-foot brick single-family home at 4905 River Rd. in Bethesda started life as a Pepco substation but has been a private residence since 1980. Today, the one-room home is listed for sale at $475,000. The home, which rests on a 1,848-square-foot lot, could be ideal for anyone fascinated with the idea of living in a former Pepco substation with super-thick walls and floors or a streamlined lifestyle. The brick home has 16-inch concrete slab steel girders supporting 22-inch-thick brick walls and a slate roof. The structure was built to keep people away from the electrical transformers inside then sold as a home when Pepco needed a larger space. A chain-link fence still surrounds the home, which has a gravel driveway and space for parking. The home on the corner of River Road and Willard Avenue is less than one mile from the Friendship Heights Metro station and dozens of shops and restaurants. The kitchen has a stove, a refrigerator, a sink and a stacked washer-and-dryer, plus cabinets for storage. The main room combines a living area and office space and has a full bath. Steps lead up to a loft bedroom and closet. For more information, contact real estate agents **Rita Liptz** and **Kathy Georganas** with **WC & AN Miller Realtors**, a Long & Foster company, at 240-305-6496.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at _realestate@washpost.com_ and put “Town Square” in the subject line._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

The same-sex couples whose case could spark a Supreme Court landmark

On Thursday, a federal appeals court became the first to uphold same-sex marriage bans, breaking ranks with other courts that have recently considered similar bans. By a 2-1 vote, a panel said that issue should be determined by democratic processes — state legislatures — rather than the courts. The decision means there is now a split among the nation’s appeals courts over same-sex marriage that the Supreme Court will probably be forced to settle. If it reviews Thursday’s opinion — which experts now think is inevitable — the couples in the fight will go down in history.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The challenges leading to the ruling were brought by 16 couples from Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky. Their cases were consolidated into one by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here are the stories of some of these couples, drawn primarily from the appeals panel’s 2-1 opinion and dissent and from news reports. **April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse are a lesbian couple. Together they own a home in Hazel Park, Mich., where they live with their three special-needs children. Both are nurses, DeBoer in a neonatal intensive care unit and Rowse in an emergency room. Under Michigan law, they can’t get married or adopt each other’s children. Single people can adopt. So can married couples. But unmarried couples cannot jointly adopt. That means if something happens to one parent, the other has no rights to the children they raised together. Rowse adopted her oldest son in 2009. His biological mother was homeless and mentally ill.  Two years later, DeBoer adopted a daughter who needed physical therapy to address problems related to a lack of prenatal care. With one boy and one girl, they thought they were done adopting. But one day at work, DeBoer found herself caring for a tiny baby, born prematurely to a drug-addicted prostitute. Weighing only 1 pound, 9 ounces at birth, he struggled to survive. The doctors said he would be mentally impaired if he did and probably wouldn’t be able to walk or talk. The couple decided to bring him home anyway. Rowse adopted him in 2011 and they became a family of five. The two working mothers share the responsibilities of caring for the two 4-year-olds and 5-year-old, making sure one of them is always available to take them to their therapy appointments and care for them at home. A few years ago, a near-fatal crash on a snowy two-lane road left the couple wondering what would happen to their children if one or both of them died. “My dad’s fourth cousin has more legal rights to Ryanne than Jayne does. Somebody that I don’t even know has more rights than Jayne does,” DeBoer pointed out in a 2013 interview with Eclecta Blog. They found out writing a will wasn’t enough to protect them and their children so they went to court to challenge Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **James Obergefell and John Arthur**      *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another case was brought by James Obergefell, an Ohio man whose partner of 22 years, John Arthur, died after he was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, an incurable condition that ravages the body. When the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last year, the couple decided to travel to a state where they could legally marry. Last July, they boarded a medically equipped plane and flew to Maryland where they got married on the tarmac because Arthur was too sick to get off the plane. They knew Arthur didn’t have much time and sued to make sure Obergefell would be accurately listed as his surviving spouse on the death certificate. Under Ohio law, however, that couldn’t happen because the state doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage, not even from other states where it is legal. “This is about more than money or benefits,” Obergefell said of the lawsuit in an affidavit. “John will die soon. I love him deeply; more than any other person on earth. I want the world to know that we share the highest commitment two people can make to each other in our society.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In October 2013, Arthur died at age 48.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The couple’s funeral director, Robert Gunn joined the lawsuit. He wants to accurately record the marriages of his clients on their death certificates and fears he could be prosecuted for making a “false statement” if he does since the marriages aren’t legal in Ohio. **Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Tanco and Jesty are both professors of veterinary medicine at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. They met in New York in 2009. “I literally physically ran into her in an elevator. I think that’s when she noticed me. We went out for drinks that night and started dating a few months afterwards,” Tanco told ABC news. The couple got married in New York in 2011 and moved to Tennessee to accept job offers.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A 15-year-old can marry his first cousin in Tennessee, so long as she’s a girl. But the state doesn’t allow same-sex marriage. The significance of that hit home when Tanco became pregnant last year. “If anything were to happen where I need to stop working, then my insurance would be cut off,” Tanco told ABC. The pregnancy “really crystallized the issue for us because we realized wouldn’t have had any parental rights,” Jesty told Out and About Nashville. “I’d like to be recognized as a wife, but more importantly I want to be recognized as a parent. If the moment came when I needed to claim my parental rights but couldn’t, it would be unimaginably tragic!”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The couple sued in October 2013 to challenge Tennessee’s same-sex marriage ban. Two other couples in similar situations joined their lawsuit. **Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another couple, Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura, have known each other since they were 15. They became friends at a Boy Scout camp where they were both counselors. They kept in touch for years as DeKoe moved around the country with the military. They eventually started dating and got married in New York, a week before DeKoe, an Army reservist, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011. He returned home the following year and joined his husband in Memphis, where he had been stationed before his deployment. Because gay marriage is recognized under federal law, they are married when they are on base. But the moment they leave its gates they lose that status under state law.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Matthew Mansell and John Espejo**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A third couple, Matthew Mansell and John Espejo, moved to Tennessee in 2012 after Mansell’s law firm transferred him from California. The couple has two children and was legally married in California. But Tennessee law doesn’t afford the family the same protection. “If I were to die or be incapacitated, my husband would not have any legal rights to make decisions for me, as would a husband in a heterosexual couple,” Mansell said in an interview with Out and About Nashville.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Related:** Appeals court upholds bans on same-sex marriage for first time    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Couples Who Rent Together

When Shaina Coogan and her boyfriend, Jai Broome, learned they’d both be interning in D.C. for the summer, they followed a growing trend among young, urban couples: They looked for an apartment to share. It’s a decision more couples are making. The latest national census data showed a 13 percent increase in cohabitation among opposite-sex couples from 2009 to 2010. In the D.C. area, the trend is helped along by sky-high rental prices. Coogan and Broome, who are both students at Northwestern University, say sharing a nest for the summer seemed natural, an easy way to spend more time together while cutting costs. They estimated that by sharing a room in a Tenleytown group house and splitting utility expenses, they each saved about $450 to $600 a month. The benefits to living together go beyond saving money. “This is a transient town,” says Elisabeth LaMotte, a D.C.-based psychotherapist. “That makes people a little bit more likely to want the groundedness or the security that would come with sharing a home.” Other couples would rather figure out if they can live together before committing to marriage than after. “It’s so important to know each other’s habits,” says Timothy Fuderich, 24, a paralegal who rented a Logan Circle studio with his fiancee. “Things that may seem completely irrelevant are actually quite important when you’re thinking about spending the rest of your lives with each other.” And don’t expect living together to be all cuddling and roses. Living with a partner is bound to be frustrating at times, says couples psychologist Michael Radkowsky. He advises couples to wait to move in together until they are beyond the courtship. But for renters, timing a move can be tricky. “Often people make [the decision to live together] partly on a practical basis,” says Drew Permut, a relationship counselor. “They’ve been seeing each other a while, and someone’s lease is up.” Danielle Simmons, a D.C.-based Urban Igloo leasing agent, estimates that half her clients are couples, as are a third of Urban Igloo users overall. Simmons advises couples to write a “backup plan” in case their love fizzles before the lease ends. She tells clients to create a document detailing how things would be divvied up if they were to split, including which partner would move out and how the couple would split communal belongings. “While it may be an exciting step in their relationship, they still both need to be very smart because they are entering a contractual obligation to one another,” Simmons says. Couples need to be smart about more than just the financial side of things. Cohabitating couples should remember to devote attention to maintaining the relationship. That’s sometimes easier said than done when you’re taking care of an apartment together. “Do things together that are fun and pleasurable and not just paying bills, doing dishes or doing chores,” Radkowsky says. “Create the space for the two of you to be a romantic couple.” Broome and Coogan deemed their summer experiment a success and decided to rent together again when they returned to college. They see cohabitating as a relationship milestone, not a summer quick-fix. As a bonus, living together means not wasting time on commutes to separate abodes. “It does make it easier if I don’t have to walk to my apartment,” Broome says. “That’s 15 or 20 minutes more that we get to spend together.” MICHELE CORRISTON (FOR EXPRESS)

How to live together in peace when your organizing styles are at war

Opposites attract, or so they say, and in many ways this phenomenon can work out well for a couple — they complement each other’s interests, styles and habits. But one area in which a couple’s differences can make living together less than harmonious is home organization. I’ve worked with many clients for whom organization is a major source of discord with their spouse. They argue about topics including where the keys and mail belong and how to handle bill paying, laundry and grocery shopping. All of these tasks seem like they wouldn’t be difficult for two adults to agree on, but they just are, and for lots of reasons. Unless couples find ways to deal with their organizational divide, the stress on their relationship can be immense — both for the neat spouse and the more laid-back, untidy spouse. Here’s how I’ve seen people make things work. When a couple move in together or get married, they often assume that cohabitation means that they’ll share everything. But once the boxes are unpacked and they begin settling in, it becomes apparent that one person prefers a very neat closet and the other couldn’t care less whether all the shirts are hung in the same direction or if the shoes are lined up. Or it might become clear that one person likes a tidy desk in the home office where everything is put away and the other can function only when everything they need is right at their fingertips. It’s a good idea to try compromising and to make joint spaces work, but it’s also okay to realize that neither of you is going to change drastically enough to totally accommodate the other’s wishes. So it may just be better if one person sets up a desk in the basement or decides to have their closet in a spare bedroom. Arguing about what an office or closet “should” look like is usually not helpful. People function differently, and they’re rarely able to change ingrained habits dramatically. So don’t waste years trying to get your spouse to come around to your way of thinking. Giving up on sharing everything is not a failure. A willingness to take a different approach is a sign of respect. With some couples, one person feels very strongly about keeping a particular room organized but is willing to compromise on other areas of the house. Maybe your spouse insists that the kitchen counters be clear of papers at the end of each day, and maybe you can’t stand when shoes pile up by the front door. Make clear rules about certain spaces. The guidelines need to be specific, attainable and enforceable — for example, before the cleaning service comes, everything must be picked up off the floor. This strategy allows both spouses to have input but also requires cooperation. In most homes, there are a couple of areas that regularly become cluttered and disorganized. Sometimes the spaces that get the most traffic, such as the kitchen and family room, become messy the fastest, and sometimes it’s the less frequently used spaces where things tend to get stashed until they can be dealt with later — the dining room, a spare bedroom or the unfinished side of the basement. But for an organized person, the location is irrelevant. They don’t like it when things are out of place or difficult to locate. And for the less organized spouse, if the clutter is hidden away, they think no one should be offended. However, the mess will eventually need attention. If one person is better at — or more knowledgeable about — where things belong in a particular room, they can be responsible for straightening up that space, and their partner can take on another area. Split the work and set a deadline. Or agree to clean your designated space every Sunday evening or every two weeks. Resentment builds when one person is in charge, so make it fair by dividing the responsibility evenly. Doing nothing when there is disagreement about how to live in and enjoy your home is not a viable option. If you can’t resolve your differences alone, call in a third party to offer objective advice. It doesn’t need to be a professional organizer, and a relative may not be an ideal choice, but a friend or neighbor may be able to help you clean out or straighten up your closet a couple of times a year or share ideas about how they process bills. You can also hire a person or service to clean your house every few weeks. This will not only help to keep the house clean, but it will also require you to do some straightening and picking up before the cleaner arrives. **More fromLifestyle:** Open shelving and other kitchen design trends that an organizer hates Keep clutter at bay with these clever organizing products An organizer’s strategies for 5 problem areas of the home

The answers to your tiny home questions

Kim Lewis, the lead designer behind ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” recently designed tiny homes for FYI’s “Tiny House Nation.” Lewis, who lives in a 700-square-foot, 1930s bungalow in Austin, joined a Home Front online chat to discuss the tiny house movement. Lewis does not techincally live in a tiny house, 500-square-feet is a typical tiny home, but she is well-versed on designing for small spaces. Here’s an edited excerpt of her advice: **Must-have appliances:** Appliances are one of the main items we have to make some compromises on in tiny spaces. I suggest under-counter refrigerator and freezer drawers, a single under-counter oven. The dishwasher is usually the first appliance to get cut from a tiny kitchen. **Maximize storage:** Storage can come in all shapes and sizes. You can get creative with furniture, using things like vintage suitcases stacked as your side tables — each suitcase is a storage space. Storage ottomans work well as a linen closet. For food storage, I suggest a butcher cart in the kitchen, with bins below. I have a tiny kitchen and this is what I do. It also acts as a great island when you’re prepping food. For outdoor gear, I have suspended a wood pallet from the ceiling with eye hooks. **Tiny house qualifications:** A home under 500 square feet qualifies as a tiny house. If you’re going mobile, the dimensions of the home are dictated by the trailer size, which is generally anywhere from 8  1/ 2  inches wide and up to 30 inches in length. Height restrictions for mobile tiny homes vary from state to state, but on average you’re looking at a maximum height of 13 feet 6 inches. **Compromises:** The biggest compromises start with the two spaces we use the most: the kitchen and the bathroom. It’s all about small but efficient use of space. **Decorating small:** The best pieces to invest in are: 1) Small appliances. 2) Windows: They allow natural light, so the space feels larger. Transoms make the walls feel taller. 3) Furniture: Space saving furniture is a bit more difficult to find right now. Many homeowners end up custom building pieces. 4) The trailer: The trailer is one of the biggest investments in the construction.

Try a 120-square-foot home on for size at the tiny-house hotel in Portland, Ore.

The lure of the tiny house is huge. These small homes, less than 200 square feet and often on wheels, appeal to the minimalist, the environmentalist and the frugalist. Certainly, living in a space smaller than some bathrooms is not for everyone, but during the past few years I’ve found myself in countless conversations with like-minded small-dwelling enthusiasts. We’ll talk about the idea of paring down and living more simply and affordably. After all, when I’m on the road for extended periods, I’m content with my itty-bitty existence — that which I can fit in my car. Time and again, I return home and shake my head at all the possessions I’d left behind. In my journey to self-educate about small living, I made multiple visits to a tiny-house community in Northeast Washington (since disbanded) and watched a tiny-house documentary. I’ve fantasized about buying one as a second home, towing it to locales with dreamy views. When my last partner and I had casually discussed cohabitating and talked about tiny houses, I insisted we’d need a flock of them—his, hers, one for my office, one for entertaining and one that housed all our recreational gear. That defeats the purpose, he said earnestly. I sighed, exaggeratedly, sitting in my spacious 900-square-foot rowhouse. Given the robust tiny-house movement (to wit: a handful of TV shows, DIY workshops, tiny-house kits, an annual conference and countless books and blogs), it’s surprising that so few of them exist legally. Although cities don’t spend much time hunting down tiny-house dwellers, the structures violate building code in most jurisdictions, because they don’t meet the square footage requirement for permanent residences. Hence the house-on-wheels regulatory loophole: If folks complain about your house, simply tow it to another spot. Plenty of people offer tiny houses as vacation rentals, but leave it to progressive Portland to introduce the first tiny-house hotel. The Oregon city has not only legalized accessory dwelling units, also called ADUs (small living quarters on the same lot as a larger home), the city embraces and incentivizes smaller-scale living. This approach helped make it possible for Deb Delman and Kol Peterson to open Caravan, which they say is the first legal commercial application of tiny houses in the United States. The houses are hooked up to the electric grid and the city water and sewer systems (sorry, compost-toilet devotees). Since Caravan’s opening in 2013, WeeCasa has opened in the small mountain town of Lyons, Colo., with 11 tiny houses, partly inspired by Caravan. The owners promote the resort as a learning center and place to “try before you buy”; they also have a dealership for purchasing blueprints or finished houses. Next year, a tiny-home inn called Understory will open in Thomas, W.Va., with structures made using natural earth, reclaimed materials and off-grid technologies. “People think nothing of spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars building a tiny house, but very few people have been inside a tiny house,” Delman said. She and Peterson, who seem more at ease as small-living activists and educators than hoteliers, regularly open the tiny houses for tours, which can attract upward of 100 people. Delman says three-quarters want to build a tiny house, but a show of hands tells her that typically only one or two have ever spent the night in one. Guests either leave Caravan thinking “No way,” or their visit fortifies their dream. “Some are really here investigating and measuring,” Delman said, “or, they never thought about living in one but, staying here, they realize they can downsize.” I planned part of my recent cross-country drive around a stay at Caravan, which tends to book up a couple months out. Located in Portland’s Alberta Arts District, the tiny houses are fenced inside a lot accessed by a keypad, so guests enjoy the privacy of a tiny house and the coziness of an enclosed community, yet they’re surrounded by nightlife and they’re steps from a vibrant strip of indie shops and cafes. My beagle and I checked into a house called Rosebud: 120 square feet with a rocking chair on the (tiny) porch and ladder up to a loft sleeping space. On a bookshelf, I found titles such as “The Big Tiny,” a memoir by tiny-house pioneer Dee Williams, and “Curious Gorge,” about hiking the Columbia River Gorge. A booklet told the stories of each of the six tiny homes, some of which were built specifically for Caravan. Mine was leased from its builder, made largely from recycled materials and lit by Mason jar lights. Inside the closet was wallpaper that looks like a bookshelf, left over from the “Portlandia” skit shot here. On Alberta Street, I stopped at Case Study, a beautiful coffee shop built with wood and steel, for a locally made, small-batch black tea chai. I then convinced myself that citywide tax-free shopping was reason enough to buy souvenirs. A hemp-and-organic-cotton dress and some locally made ruffled pants later, I chuckled at the hypocrisy: succumbing to consumerism during a minimalist living experiment. With the contents of my car, my shopping bags and my bike, I’d covered most of the tiny house floor space. That night, I met some Portland friends for dinner around the corner, at an edgy vegan spot called Bye and Bye. We sat on the patio and shared vegetable and noodle bowls, a vegan meatball sub and soft-pretzel knots. Over drinks, we realized that our group of four consisted of a gay guy with a husband and a straight gal who calls her significant other her “partner.” We laughed about this new era in which we live. We all returned to Caravan and gathered around the fire pit, and I glanced at the houses around us. One looked like a covered wagon, another was made with corrugated metal and wood shingles. Armed with   s’mores ingredients, we set to work at the fire, raindrops tapping on the tent overhead. I met some of the other guests: A Portland couple celebrating a birthday and dreaming about building a tiny house; a single woman traveling from British Columbia; a road-tripping couple who had seen Caravan on Pinterest; and a mother-daughter duo visiting from Ohio after watching “Tiny House Nation.” A photographer who had just finished a campfire photo shoot hung around and offered his expertise on marshmallow roasting. As guests retreated to their tiny abodes, those of us remaining had a serious conversation about milk vs. dark chocolate (both were on hand for s’mores, in mini, organic, fair-trade-bar form). The photographer and I closed down the fire pit, and I invited him into my well-lit house so he could point out some routes on a Portland bike map. We sat in the tiny space, knees touching, the map spread out between us. When he left, I stood in the door frame and waved from the tiny porch. I climbed the ladder and onto the bed. Just to see if I could, I sat up straight, and the top of my head grazed the ceiling. I slid under the covers, listening to the rain outside the tiny window, and fell asleep. The next morning I woke early to dreary skies and cycled the photographer’s suggested route to St. Johns Bridge. Back at Caravan, I made tea and oatmeal on the hot plate, showered in the tiny bathroom without banging my elbows on the shower walls and answered a few e-mails on my laptop, standing at the kitchen counter. Before I knew it, the clock struck check-out time, and I regretted booking only one night. I packed my car, situated the beagle and went back to the tiny house for one last look at the place where I’d slept, cooked, bathed, worked and enjoyed company. Then I drove away, feeling wistful, a tiny-house fan wanting just a little more. **More fromTravel:** Biking across Philly: Independence from the trodden path Nonprofit pay-what-you-can cafes let diners pay it forward Think the logistics of a family trip are tough? Try 2 weeks in China for 100 singers. **Caravan** 5009 NE 11th Ave., Portland, Ore. 503-288-5225 www.tinyhousehotel.com Each of the six tiny houses at Caravan is $145 per night; a couple are pet-friendly. Some sleep as many as four guests and all have running water, electric heat, a kitchenette, flush toilet and hot shower. WiFi and s’mores ingredients included. Tours on select Sundays, $10. On Nov. 6-8, Caravan will host part of a tiny-house weekend, including a summit, ADU tour and workshop. **WeeCasa** 501 West Main St., Lyons, Colo. 720-460-0239 www.weecasa.com Ten tiny homes, each with kitchenettes, electricity, flush toilets and free WiFi. Houses sleep up to four adults, $169-$199 per night. Free tours every Tuesday at noon and Saturday at 11:30 a.m. (or by appointment for a fee). **Bye and Bye** 1011 NE Alberta St. www.thebyeandbye.com Vegan comfort food and drinks with a large patio and $2 PBRs. Eastern Bowl, BBQ Brussel Bowl and Georgia Bowl, $9. Cocktails include Three Liars (house-infused cucumber gin, fresh lime and sugar) and Autumn Toddy (bourbon, allspice dram, lemon, agave, and orange and black walnut bitters), $8. **Grilled Cheese Grill** NE 11th and Alberta 503-206-8959 www.grilledcheesegrill.com The kitchen is a converted trailer and the dining room is an old school bus. Select from grilled cheese varieties such as the classic Kindergartner, $4.50; the Sour Apple (cheddar and Braeburn apples), $5; and the Cheesus (burger between two grilled cheeses), $8.50. **Case Study Coffee Roasters** 1422 NE Alberta St. 503-477-8221 www.casestudycoffee.com Locally made sweet and spicy black tea chai, starting at $3.50, single-origin coffees and seasonal drinks such as lavender-infused cold brew. Baked goods from Petunia’s Pies & Pastries and Roman Candle Baking Co., including mini bundt cakes, $4; and scones, $3. **Retail Happy Hour** www.albertamainst.org Alberta Street is indie shopping haven (and sales tax-free, as is the rest of PDX), with dress boutiques, music stores and home decor shops. Don’t miss Alberta Co-Op Grocery, Green Bean Books and Community Cycling Center. Retail Happy Hour is held every Wednesday from 3-6 p.m., during which nearly 40 retailers offer special deals. **Alberta Rose Theatre** 3000 NE Alberta St. 503-719-6055 www.albertarosetheatre.com This 1920s motion picture house reopened as a listening room for acoustic music and art house movie. Tickets $12-$35. Theater menu includes regional beers and local pies from Pacific Pie Co. www.travelportland.com www.albertamainst.org **— M.K.**

Tiny house, big benefits: Freedom from a mortgage and worries — and stuff

Why are Americans, whose homes average about 2,200 square feet, so obsessed with tiny homes? Perhaps they are responding to the benefits tiny-house owners cite: financial and emotional freedom, a greener lifestyle, the satisfaction of building one’s own refuge. The phrase “ ‘tiny house’ put a name to the movement that was already there,” says Thom Stanton, a tiny-home builder in West Virginia. Stanton says two groups are fueling the movement: millennials, because their college loans have put traditional houses out of reach, and retiring baby boomers looking for affordable homes with minimal maintenance. Meanwhile, traditional homeowners are contributing to the trend by building tiny houses on their properties to shelter guests, family members or caregivers, or putting them on vacation land. But there’s one big drawback: Many municipalities haven’t made room literally or legislatively for tiny residences. It’s a challenge to find a place to park a tiny house if you don’t own land. And they often fall into a legal limbo. “Tiny houses exist in sort of a legal gray area, neither explicitly allowed nor expressly forbidden,” says tiny-home owner Jay Austin of Northeast Washington. Though the District recently banned “camping” in tiny-house-like structures, Austin says he has been told the provision is unenforceable. In Maryland, tiny-house legality will likely be handled at the local level as a zoning or building code issue, according to Wiley Hall, acting communications director for the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. In Virginia, a home built on a foundation has to meet the Virginia Residential Code. But most tiny houses are built on wheeled platforms, and there are no code standards that govern recreational vehicles, says Amanda Pearson, public relations director for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. To further complicate matters, placement on a property is determined by local zoning and land use regulations. Sorting out these issues will be a crucial test for tiny-house dwellers, who recently formed the American Tiny House Association. But the owners of the three homes that follow have already found big benefits. **The retirement cottage on wheels** Pasadena, Md., residents Greg and Renee Cantori have had a tiny house parked to the side of their 1,400-square-foot 1970s ranch home for three years, awaiting their retirement. The Cantoris, who believe in collecting life experiences rather than material things, have had long careers in the nonprofit sector. They added green features such as a composting toilet, gray-water garden, programmable thermostat and LED bulbs to their main residence. And Greg, 55, has been bike commuting on and off for 30 years, currently cycling 50 miles round trip for his job in Baltimore. Greg and Renee, 53, even opted against installing a dishwasher in their kitchen because they appreciated the family time the task provided as their two daughters were growing up. “Conveniences create isolation,” Greg Cantori says. So it’s not surprising that the couple has chosen a post-career tiny-house lifestyle. “We will be doing things that we enjoy and spending time together doing it,” he says. A tiny house “becomes your launchpad,” says Raleigh, N.C., architect Sarah Susanka, author of the “Not So Big House”series who promotes building homes that are small but higher quality. “It’s a lot easier to live in a tiny house when you’re in a beautiful place,” she says. “A version of this is the micro units in cities where the city itself becomes your living room and dining room.” The Cantoris’ 238-square-foot tiny home sits a few hundred yards from their 39-foot sailboat, which is docked on a creek that feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. After they retire, they plan to sell the main house and spend time on the boat and in the tiny house — a lifestyle Greg Cantori dubbed “surf ’n’ turf.” Many retirees travel the country in RVs, he says, but a tiny house “feels like a real house.” The cottage-like blue house with white trim is a light-filled space with dormers and beadboard ceilings and walls. It has a large loft that fits a queen-size bed and a smaller loft for a twin; Cantori split a stepladder in half to create rungs for each loft. On the main level, the house has a sitting area, kitchen and bathroom. The house has a shower/composting toilet on the far end. The original builder fitted it with a combo washer-dryer, but the Cantoris plan to remove it; they’ll hand wash clothes or use a small manual washer. They also want to buy solar panels and a rain collection system. The Cantoris bought the $19,500 house three years ago in preparation for the retirement plan, but also because they needed a guesthouse and office. Greg and his brother towed the house from Ohio to Maryland, once parking in an Ace Hardware parking lot and returning to find a line of people waiting for a tour. The couple’s land in West Virginia, where they will base the house, is within biking distance of a town for access to supplies, groceries and entertainment. If they move it, they’ll tow it with a U-Haul truck. Greg Cantori wants to find a place for these homes in society, and asked the executive director of Civic Works, a Baltimore nonprofit organization, to set up a project in which kids in its YouthBuild program would construct tiny houses. (Students of the Academy of Construction and Design, a trade school at Cardozo Education Campus in Northwest Washington, have been building a tiny house on a lot owned by Micro Showcase, a D.C.-based nonprofit that highlights micro building.) Cantori, who serves on the advisory council for the youth project in Baltimore, hopes to find a way to use the completed structures to house the homeless. **A Spartan calling, and residence** Kevin Riedel of Richmond was inspired by the idea of living in “gospel poverty” and focusing on his spirituality when he built his 130-square-foot house four years ago. The then-23-year-old also wanted “to have my own house but wanted flexibility in terms of where it could be, and I wanted something that was more affordable than getting a standard mortgage,” he says. Though his grandfather had helped his dad build a house, the thought of constructing a large house was daunting. A tiny home on wheels was a great solution. His idea was to keep the tiny house on someone’s property, but when he couldn’t find a place, he bought the land where the house now sits. Instead of the freedom he sought, he now has some degree of responsibility as a property owner. As the only one of his friends who owns a place, he often hosts cookouts and gatherings around his fire pit. His cabin-like house has a gable metal roof and is clad in western red cedar. The door opens to a spacious living area filled with a refurbished love seat. The other end has an L-shaped kitchen and bathroom tucked under the loft. Including the trailer, it cost about $20,000. His parents insisted that he include a flushing toilet rather than a composting one because they feared he’d never be able to find a girlfriend otherwise. (Since then, Riedelhas decided to become a priest; he will attend seminary at Catholic University this fall.) “Building a tiny house definitely isn’t a fairy tale,” he says, noting that some tiny-house bloggers romanticize it. The first winter, his hot-water heater froze and broke. This past winter, the water supply pipe to the toilet froze and flooded the home, so he replaced the pine floor milled by a craftsman in his home town of Little Washington, Va., with vinyl tiles that resemble wood. “You have to have some degree of determination to push through the upsetting, disappointing moments,” Riedel says. Even the tiny-house movement can include the desire for more. “There’s a bit of pressure to build niftier, cuter, tinier, bigger, more cleverly, more artistically, etc.,” he says, which is something that he’s had to fight against. The house will remain on the property while Riedel, who is completing an internship at a rectory, attends seminary. A friend, Will Gilrain, is living there now. “It makes you realize how much — or how little — you need,” Gilrain says. **A home base that makes travel possible** For 26-year-old Jay Austin, who works for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, living in a 143-square-foot house isn’t a political or philosophical move; it’s practical. Though affordability was one reason he wanted to build a tiny house in 2012 (it cost about $50,000 including materials and labor), there was an “element of financial freedom I didn’t expect,” he says. Austin travels a lot, including a recent five-week trip to India. He uses unpaid leave, something he could not afford to do if he had rent or a mortgage. He also doesn’t spend a lot on household items. Austin spent six months making weekly trips to Goodwill to downsize from his 700-square-foot studio. “Driving away felt for a few minutes like panic. That panic subsided after a few miles, then it felt really freeing.” By the time he was done downsizing, it took only a few trips on his bicycle to move in. “There is a trend in tiny-house design in which everything becomes miniaturized. I was more interested in a space that was small but not scaled down,” Austin says. He prioritized the kitchen counter over clothing storage, extending the plywood countertop into the space that originally was going to be a four-foot closet. Natural light was also important to Austin. “I put in five big windows and a huge skylight over the loft. I didn’t want the house to feel tiny,” he says. The rustic and industrial house has charred western red cedar siding installed on the vertical. The small living room has bench seating on both sides with storage underneath. The kitchen countertop is butcher block with a matching table across the aisle. He stores his bicycle on brackets above a window. The house was originally part of Boneyard Studios, a group of tiny homes in the Stronghold area of the District that broke apart in 2014. It is now parked at a friend’s house in the Ivy City neighborhood. Silver Spring resident Nina Patel writes about home design and housing, and contributes to Date Lab. **More resources for tiny-house living** Tiny house plans: http://www.houseplans.com/exclusive/lester-walker Tiny house blog: http://tinyhouseblog.com/ Comet Camper blog and downsizing course: www.cometcamper.com www.cometcamper.com/e-courses **More from our Summer 2015 Home & Design Issue** The backyard barbecue, upgraded: Pavilions, pools and even TVs It’s not on the menu, but design is key to a restaurant’s success: Wisdom from the pros Review: Apps recommended by designers E-mail us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.

German couple lured women to ‘horror house’ with dating ads, tortured them to death, police say

There is a house in western Germany that looks like a typical child’s drawing. The white structure’s red slate roof consists of two slanted sides meeting at a single point, out of which pokes a brick chimney. One small square window peeks out of the house’s triangular attic, while two square windows sit below it. Unlike a structure born from a child’s imagination, though, this was a house of nightmares.  For years, 46-year-old Wilfried W. and his 47-year-old now-ex-wife Angelika inhabited the storybook home. And for years, they allegedly lured women into the home, where they tortured them in such abominable ways that local media dubbed the place the “horror house in Hoexter.”  In keeping with Germany’s privacy laws, both their shared last name and the last names of their victims have not been released.   She was badly injured from weeks of torture, police said, but the couple’s car broke down en route. While they waited for a taxi, Suzanne’s health quickly deteriorated, forcing the couple to call an ambulance. Suzanne died at the Helios hospital, and her injuries — bruising across her body, indications on her skin that she’d been bound, toenails that had been ripped from her toes and rotting flesh around her upper buttocks likely from having lain immobile in the same position for several weeks — raised suspicions.   Suzanne, police said, was not the only victim of this “horror house.” Even more gruesome was the alleged fate of Anika W., a 33-year-old from Lower Saxony who responded to a dating advertisement in 2013.  Eventually, Angelika told authorities in a statement of confession, Anika attempted to escape. She had been chained by her hands and feet facedown in the bathtub but finally had an opportunity to get away. As she ran out of the house, she tripped and fell in the lawn, hitting her head. Police said she died in August 2014. The couple cut Anika’s body into pieces and stored it in the freezer, police said.  In her confession, Angelika said she smashed Anika’s remaining bones and teeth into a dust with a hammer, so no evidence would remain.  They gave her a cat’s litter box for relieving herself. Wilfried allegedly even attacked Angelika, who claimed he bit down on her breasts until they were bleeding more than 100 times and, more than 200 times, laid atop her with a blanket between them until she lost consciousness. She claimed she only helped him hurt the other women as a means of protecting herself.   The trial, which began Wednesday, will resume Nov. 16 and is expected to continue until the end of March 2017.

Newtown votes to raze home of mass murderer Adam Lanza

Down Yogananda Street in Newtown, Conn., a yellow colonial house with dark green shutters sits atop a hill two acres wide — still haunting a mending community. It’s where Adam Lanza lived and where his mother died. He shot her to death in 2012, before he terrorized nearby Sandy Hook Elementary, murdering 20 first- graders and six educators, and then committed suicide. Now, the house is empty, stripped of furniture and light fixtures some feared might become memorabilia. It serves as a “constant reminder of the evil that resided there,” one resident said. Some neighbors have moved away, and a school bus stop was relocated because children were too scared to stand there.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The Newtown Legislative Council voted unanimously  Wednesday night to demolish the 3,100-square foot home and keep the land as open space, at least for a while. Officials said the home will likely be razed in the spring.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “We sought considerable input from the [victims’] families, and the overwhelming sentiment was to tear down the house and leave it as open space,” Newton’s First Selectwoman Pat Llodra, the town’s highest elected official, told the 12-member council. “Under my tenure, I can’t see doing anything else with that property.”      *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Lanza’s parents, Nancy and Peter Lanza, bought the four-bedroom house in 1998. The two divorced in 2009, and Adam Lanza continued to live there with his mother.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Dec. 14, 2012, Lanza, 20, took his mother’s guns, walked into her second-floor bedroom and shot her in the forehead while she was sleeping. Then he carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. When police raided the house, they found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition, 10 knives and three samurai swords. They boarded up the front door and burned the belongings inside it. The house, which was appraised that same year, was deemed to be worth $523,620, according to news reports. After the 2012 massacre, the Los Angeles Times reported, it was passed along to Peter Lanza. According to Reuters, it was sold by her other son, Ryan Lanza.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Hudson City Savings Bank bought the property from the family and, in December 2014, turned it over to the town at no cost. “The only agenda with the bank was to do what the community wanted to do,” Randall Bell, a Laguna Beach-based consultant who helped negotiate the transfer, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s their town, and I’m sure they know what’s best for their community.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Some residents urged the town to clear the property and turn it into a park. Others argued that leaving it open would be an eerie remembrance of what started there.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “Leaving the property to nature would mean there is still a sense of darkness in our neighborhood,” Amy DeLoughy, who lives across the street, told the Associated Press. “Love and light that a new family would bring would help heal some of the very deep wounds we are still tending to.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico She recommended the property be sold to someone who would build a new home on it. Llodra has asked attorneys to include a clause in the deed that will prohibit the town from profiting from the land and, instead, use any proceeds to benefit the victims’ families.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The town tore down Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2013 and is now building a new school. Earlier this week, residents met at Newtown High School and discussed plans to build a memorial as well.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For now, the Lanza home serves as a morbid tourist attraction, drawing onlookers to the quiet neighborhood. Newtown Legislative Council chairwoman Mary Ann Jacob told the Los Angeles Times the town plans to fix that.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “It continues to be a curiosity for people to come and look at, and it’s disruptive for the people who live nearby and the families who lost their children,” she said. “I think they deserve to be able to get their lives back and move on, and this is something we can do to help them.”

Small spaces: Five tips for welcoming guests on your sofa or sofa bed

Kiera Kushlan figures she has overnight guests at least once a month in the one-bedroom Kalorama co-op she shares with husband, Michael. Guests stay on the sofa, says Kushlan, co-owner of the design firm Residents Understood. The Kushlans decided to buy a long sofa, the Hutton Sofa from Room & Board, which is 98 inches long and 40 inches deep, instead of a sofa bed. They store guest bedding in a vintage dresser next to the sofa. We asked Kushlan for some advice for small-space dwellers on how to make guests feel comfortable and welcome, even when they’re bunking on the sofa or sofa bed. **1\. Replace end tables with dressers:** Being able to unpack is key to feeling at home. To avoid mysterious piles of clothing in your living area, use a small dresser in place of a traditional end table to give guests space for their things. **2\. Clear out closet space:** Luggage can take up valuable real estate in tight quarters, so making room for your guest’s luggage in your closet helps both you and them feel better about sharing a small space. **3\. Create a thoughtfully arranged amenity area:** Whether it’s your coffee table or end table, make sure your guests have useful items such as a small fan, an alarm clock and a table lamp within arm’s reach. **4\. Stage a plug-in hot spot:** Set up a designated charging area for phones, laptops and tablets. That way, guests can recharge at the end of a long day without having to hunt for outlets. Leave a note with your WiFi password. **5\. Provide bedding storage:** Carve out a place where bedding can be stored during the day so that your sofa can be used while you are entertaining your guests. This could be a chest, closet or storage ottoman.

My partner and I have been together for eight years, but we live separately

My man and I are about to celebrate eight years together. We are not married; we’re not living together. And that’s just the way we like it. We don’t have any sleepovers when our teen children are around. We don’t take joint vacations, nor do we engage in much PDA. We’re glad there’s not much stigma to unmarried couples living together. Very glad. But we’re puzzled by why the tide has turned so sharply the other way: We are considered freaks for not living together. Conversations with friends and acquaintances usually start with the assumption that we are married. No. _Oh, okay._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Then the person asking assumes we live together. No. _Oh, so you must be a new couple then?_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Most people are too polite or too shy to fish any further. But, at least in our suburban corner of west Florida, we find very few people who can wrap their heads around a long-term couple not living together. So why don’t we? We are not overly religious. We don’t have an open relationship. And while the hardest part of our lives is the expense of living in two households and the lonely nights, we decided that living apart is best for our kids. My man’s daughter is a tween and lives most of the time with her mother. My son has a dad, and he made it clear long ago that he does not want another. So my man and I have put a Venn diagram of a life together. Our kids, both only children, have the love-hate relationship of siblings without having to share a bathroom. The four of us eat together on weekends and play charades on Saturday nights. My man comes over several times a week. We finish each other’s sentences and keep joint photo albums. As 50-somethings, we share the bond of raising teenagers when most of our friends are becoming grandparents. I won’t say I can’t imagine living any other way. I imagine it all the time. I have shed tears over it. Surely we should have the wisdom to know that our kids will be fine if they lived under the same roof. But no. We don’t. After serious talks and a few fights, we’ve come to this conclusion: When you’re a parent, you must be that first. For our kids, in our particular situation, it is better to live separately but parent together. My girlfriends worry I am being strung along. They don’t quite believe me when I reassure them that my man and I are happy and committed to each other. I would be lying if I said there was no upside to living apart. His junk drawer could be an ad for The Container Store; my junk drawer is the whole house. I can spend an afternoon on social media; he still uses a flip phone. He sleeps with the TV on; I don’t even own one. And I would be lying if I said I don’t enjoy getting ready for our dates alone: the razors, the tweezers, the illusion of mystery that keeps things fresh. Of course, we crave those times when both children are staying with friends and we get to have adult sleepovers. As the kids get older, there are a lot more of those. There might be a time when I take out the wedding dress I got at a deep discount, when we will stand on the beach where we had our first date and, surrounded by our grown children, make it official. Or we may not.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But in a few days, on our eighth anniversary, he will pick me up from my house and we will have a seafood dinner at the little bistro where we celebrate every year. We will toast the fact that each love finds its own way home.  **READ MORE:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico When I was single, smug married people drove me nuts. Then I became one.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We’re 40-something women who love being single — for now    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico 9 things that almost make dating look easy    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

To kill or not to kill. There is no question for the raccoon roaming near my home.

When a raccoon began raiding garbage cans at my home in suburban Prince George’s County, I put two five-pound weights on the lids. The critter then began tipping over the can and making a bigger mess. The ruckus also drove my cat insane, causing her to jump on window sills and claw at the glass. I thought about trying to trap the raccoon and even considered paying for the Humane Society’s “wildlife conflict resolution service.” But trapping requires permission from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and the Humane Society service requires filling out a form, then waiting for a callback and a visit. I decided to go with option 3: just kill it and be done with it. The tool for this job will be a gun — preferably one called the Gamo Whisper Silent Cat Air Rifle, which fires pellets at supersonic speeds and comes equipped with a suppressor. I don’t relish the task. I expect animal rights advocates to cite my “cruelty to animals” as a sign of childhood delinquency. Gun- control advocates will probably claim that I’m acting out a “hit man” fantasy for wanting to use a “silencer.” Both groups do make good points about our country’s overuse of violence to solve problems. But their solutions don’t always make sense, either. The Humane Society offers this advice for dealing with raccoons that get inside your house: “[F]ind out if your unwanted guests in your house happen to be a mother raccoon with young. If so, the best thing to do is wait a few weeks until the babies grow old enough to leave with their mother — they won’t survive without her.” But raccoons spread rabies and roundworm. They can make your babies sick. They chew up electrical wires and can cause fires. The blaze could kill the raccoons. But your house could burn down in the process. The Humane Wildlife Conflict Resolution, based in Woodbridge, Va., boasts that “we utilize humane techniques so that we may evict the critter from your home.” As if raccoons were tenants that had fallen behind in the rent. Enter the gun. I live in a quiet Fort Washington neighborhood and do not want to alarm my neighbors. Hence the so called “Whisper Silent Cat” air rifle. Our neighborhood has hawks, owls and deer. Every now and then, an eagle shows up. I do not want to scare them away. The raccoons don’t make my list of protected species. And it is fur-bearing hunting season in Maryland. A bill before Congress to legalize the sale of suppressors has outraged violence prevention advocates, who argue that the legislation will make it easier for criminals and potential mass shooters to obtain devices to conceal attacks. As with most gun-control arguments, the advocates appear to lack basic firearms knowledge. I could make a suppressor from an automotive oil filter can. Any high school metal shop student could do it. I noticed the varmint problem getting worse after Prince George’s County cut back on trash collection a few months ago. A budget deficit was the reason given for going from two-days-a-week pickup to one. I could call the county’s Animal Management Division about the raccoon, but that could result in more deficit spending if too many other rodent-plagued residents did that. And the next thing you know, the county will be installing more speed cameras to make up for the loss. The University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center recommends keeping garbage cans in a garage or shed or that they “be fastened tightly with strong straps and tied to something. Electric fencing can be very effective in excluding raccoons from vegetable gardens.” Humane Wildlife Conflict Resolution warns that some wildlife removal companies will catch the pest, then take it back to the office and euthanize it. Some methods involve the use of serums that cause the animals to convulse, gag and defecate. “The most cost-effective way to kill an animal causes slow and excruciating death,” says the wildlife conflict resolution company. I have a $10 box of pellets that says otherwise. To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/milloy.

How to avoid conflicts in combining households when you get married late in life

The trend to get married later in life is on the rise, resulting in a growing percentage of the population combining households that come with decades of furniture, dishes, decor, memorabilia, old towels and hard-to-break habits. This sounds like the perfect storm for an unavoidable disaster. Living with someone at any age can be challenging.  Adding our perfectly aged quirks to the mix can spell trouble. After living on my own for most of my adult life, I recently tied the knot for the first time, at 50 years of age.  It is my husband’s first marriage as well. Our situation is more simple than most — neither of us have children or ex-spouses, and we were both living in two-bedroom condos rather than five-bedroom single-family homes. Despite our minimal belongings, there were still some items that needed to be negotiated — not an easy task when, over time, we develop a personal attachment to our precious and valuable stuff.  It is no secret that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Fortunately, my husband agreed that it was time to donate the posters of his favorite football players hanging in his bedroom.  In exchange, I agreed that the collectible Hanna Barbera Limited Edition Sports Cels (cartoon characters playing sports) and figurines could stay in the home office. He is the cook in the family, so I happily handed over domain of the kitchen. But I did manage to slip a few of his timeworn pots and pans into the trash. One significant difference in our decorating styles is the size and quantity of flat-panel televisions needed in one home — a fundamental difference of opinion in many homes, I have learned. I believe that one 60-inch TV is enough.  My husband, however, believes that a large flat-panel is necessary in every bedroom and in the living room.  We don’t have a basement, but if we did, I am sure that we would need one there, too. While we were making the transition from living alone to living together, we happened to catch a rerun of a “Friends” episode in which Chandler moves in with Monica.  Their first argument is about decorating.  She wants the spare bedroom to be a warm and welcoming guest bedroom with fresh flowers on the side table and a guest sign-in book.  He wants a game room with a Barka lounger and foosball table. Although we never find out who wins this battle between Chandler and Monica, we can guess. “Is it safe to assume that the woman always wins?” I asked my husband. “I didn’t think so before, but I have learned that whatever she says goes,” my husband said in jest. “Who did you learn that from?” I asked. “Jill Chodorov,” he replied. “Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” (King Lear) I did get some good advice from other couples who have recently married at a mature age. “Put your head in his head,” said Jodi Berman of Cherry Hill, N.J.  Berman, who got married recently for the first time, also at the age of 50, already owned a home and has an 11-year-old son.  Her new husband — his first marriage as well — moved in with them. “When someone moves into a home that is already set and established, you must work together and allow that person to bring in things and add to the house,” Berman said. “I had a big screen — he wanted a bigger one.  I had to let him feel like this is his home, too,” Berman said. Rick and Roberta Spees of Washington met at church where both were teaching Sunday school and then married at ages 59 and 57. Rick, who has two adult children from a previous marriage, already owned a large home in D.C.’s Chevy Chase neighborhood.  This being her first marriage, Roberta was living in a condo and did not have nearly as much furniture.  Since getting married, they have built a home in Bethany. “We have three houses and three sets of everything,” Roberta said. For now, the Speeses will rent out her condo and live in the house, since his children visit frequently. In a few years, the Speeses say they will sell the house and downsize into the condo. In anticipation of downsizing, the Speeses have already started discussing the process of consolidating their belongings. They have agreed to keep family heirlooms and negotiate the remaining items. The Speeses say they are feeling very hopeful of their ability to agree on what to pare down and what to keep. “My motto at this stage in life is that people are more important than places and places are more important than things,” Rick said.  “It comes with age.  You finally know what is important and not important.” I thought back to some of the items I asked my husband to discard, which he did dutifully but reluctantly. Perhaps I could have gone easier on him.  I suppose we could have kept the faded plaid swivel chair in the master bedroom that he used for tossing clothes.  He has brought it up a few times since its demise. On second thought, he will forgive and forget someday.

For $71,000, you can have a tiny house delivered to your doorstep

The idea started on an empty alley lot in Northeast Washington’s little-known Stronghold neighborhood. Brian Levy wanted to show those around him the benefits of minimal and environmentally friendly living. So in 2012, he enlisted an architecture firm and builder to construct a 210-square-foot house on wheels — a particularly chic structure with stainless-steel kitchen countertops and maple floors. It garnered media attention — a couple of spreads in glossy design magazines — and some quibbles from neighbors who had grown accustomed to parking on the empty lot. It also raised questions over whether the city’s zoning laws even permitted Levy to use the lot for his tiny-house experiment. Yes and no. He cannot use his micro home as a permanent residence. But because Levy and other local urbanists lobbied the city to loosen its zoning restrictions, new laws that they say are friendlier to the tiny-house movement are slated to go into effect Tuesday. These new zoning laws coincide with Levy’s latest business venture: He and his business associates have partnered with a Pittsburgh-based manufacturer to build prefabricated versions of the house and deliver them to customers in the District and elsewhere in the country. “We’re aiming to be the premier micro-house manufacturer in the country,” Levy said. “We’re a business, but we’re also mission-driven. We’re focused on helping people live more simply, more cheaply and more ecologically.” Micro houses — or tiny homes — are part of an architectural movement encouraging simple and sustainable living. The movement has gained steam in recent years as urbanists and hobbyists alike pitch the structures as a cheap solution to the expensive housing crisis plaguing many fast-gentrifying cities. There’s even a popular HGTV show based around the homes called “Tiny House Hunters.” But critics of the movement contend that it focuses on single adults and overlooks vulnerable segments of the population, such as families and children, who experience poverty — and are often on the losing end of urban housing shortages. When Levy built his tiny home — a glamorous trailer he dubbed the Minim House — he wanted to see what the response in the District would be. Designed by D.C.-based Foundry Architects, the house is “off-grid,” meaning it requires no outside electrical outlets or plumbing for water, sewage, electricity or Internet. He created a nonprofit called Micro Showcase, where individuals and classrooms can schedule tours. For a while, Levy experimented with creating a community of tiny houses on the lot called Boneyard Studios, which disbanded amid controversy in 2014. There was a rift between Levy and the two other micro-home owners on the lot, which included questions over the sometimes smelly disposal of sewage, since the homes are not connected to sewage treatment. The lot now includes four micro structures, a garden and other projects that friends are working on and which people can tour. Together, these projects showed Levy that interest existed in tiny houses and that the venture could be worth a bigger investment. He created Minim Built — initially called Minim Homes — where he and his two partners sold 88 plans of his flagship micro house for $495 each. Chris VanArsdale, one of the co-owners, said that he fielded questions last summer from interested buyers and that they considered selling. But ultimately they decided to see if they could create a business model around selling a version of the Minim House on their own. Customers can now order one of the houses — with or without wheels — for $71,000, plus shipping, and have it delivered ready for move-in. At 265 square feet and 12 feet wide, the Minim House he is selling is slightly bigger than the one currently showcased on his Stronghold lot. The company is hoping to sell at least one house a month in its first year. They said they already sold one test model to the technology company Intel, which used the structure as a traveling showcase for its products. The District’s new zoning laws would allow micro homes to essentially function as carriage houses in the city, provided the structures are not on wheels. Under the new regulations, it will be easier for homeowners to purchase a micro house for their back yard and rent it out. The old rules required owners seeking to rent out units to argue their case before the Board of Zoning Adjustment to receive an exception. Under the new regulations, the structures will be automatically permitted in some neighborhoods — such as Brookland and Chevy Chase, where there are larger single-family homes — as soon as homeowners acquire building permits from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. Eric D. Shaw, director of the D.C. Office of Planning, wrote in an email that with these new zoning laws, the city wanted to give homeowners more opportunities to have accessory dwellings on their properties. “Accessory units can provide additional and often more affordable housing options, can facilitate aging in place, and can help homeowners afford their homes,” Shaw wrote. Levy said their target customer includes retirees looking to downsize, cramped D.C. homeowners looking for extra space or rural cabin dwellers. “It’s ideal for one, possibly two people, depending on how much you love them,” Levy said. “It’s low-maintenance.” It is also designed to be as functional and livable as possible, Levy said. There are large windows and a full kitchen. A cozy table for two pushed against a wall can swing to the middle of the house for an eight-person dinner party. There is a couch that can double as a bench for the table, and a 96-inch projection screen. A queen-size trundle bed pulls out when needed, and there are bookshelves, closets, a work area and a bathroom. And they are all small. Levy said it will take a maximum of three months from order to delivery.

Donald and Melania Trump reportedly sleep separately. That says nothing about their love life.

I’m not going to speculate about the state of their relationship.   Since publicly divulging our sleeping setup, I’ve talked to many people who either wish they could sleep in separate bedrooms but can’t because of cost or space, or sleep separately and are happy to do so. The biggest myth about sleeping separately is that a couple’s romantic and sexual intimacy suffers because of it. I’d argue that my boyfriend and I are closer because of those hours we spend apart. We choose to get between the sheets together, rather than doing so out of habit.  Our schedules differ, too. I like to wake up at 5 a.m. most days and nod off at 10 p.m., while he stays up later and sleeps later. If we shared a bedroom, we would likely awaken each other, act crankily and wake up each morning more frustrated than rested. Instead, I pass out whenever I want to, and so does he. I like to keep my cellphone, laptop and a few books next to me in bed, while he is a minimalist and can’t sleep next to anything more than a pillow, sheet and blanket. If we tried to merge those highly different styles, there would be no way to truly compromise, and it would surely be a regular argument in our household. When we want to have sex, we do it in his room, where we focus entirely on each other. Sure, we may miss out on spontaneous groping when one of us wakes from a sexy dream, but to me, that’s a small price to pay for the comfort of having my own space.  So “separate bedrooms” doesn’t mean a couple is on the verge of splitting. In my relationship, we’ve made having our own bedrooms a real estate priority. We’ve lived in four homes this way, and not once have we been tempted to change our setup. Am I sometimes wistful when I see couples on TV snuggled up together as they drift off? Sure, but then I remind myself of all the other ways we bond: with silly nicknames and jokes, cuddling on the couch, saving our favorite shows to watch together. I love spending time with him, but I also love that if I have a cold or am in a bad mood or just want some personal space, I have a bed that’s all mine. There are many reasons couples may keep separate bedrooms, none of which precludes them from having sex or maintaining the romance that brought them together.

Letting the kids stay in the home while the divorcing parents move in and out. Is it realistic?

Although parents who are divorcing can rest in knowing children can recover from their parents’ divorce, it remains a potentially traumatic event for children. Parents know this, and so, of course, they will seek to minimize the effects of the breakdown of their marriage on their children. One of the latest strategies parents are using to manage the difficult transition during a divorce is called nesting. Nesting is when the children remain in the family home and the parents alternate moving in and out, depending on the custody agreement. Rather than in a traditional arrangement, where the children are required to move between two homes, two bedrooms, and two sets of toys, this practice allows everything material to stay stable and predictable for the kids. Here, it’s the grown-ups who must adapt. But parents need to be aware of the many hiccups that can occur when trying to nest during and after a divorce. Not only are there serious emotional issues, but there are also serious financial considerations. Especially when you consider the average divorce costs upward of $20,000. California family-law specialist, Peter Walzer, founding partner of the Los Angeles-based law firm Walzer Melcher, advises parents to think very carefully about all post-separation arrangements and how they can impact both sides financially. “It’s important to think about the legal consequences of a nesting agreement,” he said. “In some states, the parties may not be deemed to be separated if they are nesting. This could impact the property division and their support orders. Alimony may not be deductible if they are considered to be sharing a home, and there may be tax consequences relating to the sale of the home.” For most ordinary families, compounding the high cost of obtaining a divorce by maintaining three homes is an unattainable fantasy. Anne P. Mitchell, a lawyer, author and fathers’-rights activist, found that her experience of nesting evolved from an initial attempt to keep the family together. As her marriage broke down, she asked her husband not to leave but to stay in the house and sleep in different bedrooms. “This worked very well, we were still able to co-parent very civilly, even supportively, we just weren’t husband and wife anymore,” she said. Once her husband moved out of state, they started to practice nesting full time. Mitchell’s husband would fly in each weekend and she would move out. Mitchell believes that many parents allow their negative feelings about their ex-partner to affect the decisions they make post-divorce and that nesting can be a way to prioritize the children’s needs first. “Children need both parents. Many divorcing spouses just want that other person out of their lives,” she said. “But that is not how it works when you have children; the other parent will always be in your life in some fashion, you will have to interact with them one way or another at least until they turn 18.” It’s that interaction that can cause potential conflict in nesting arrangements, as far as Karina Alomar, a matrimonial lawyer in Ridgewood, N.Y., is concerned. She has found that by sharing a space, former spouses could use the family home as a battleground, and the children are inevitably the victims. “There are issues of parents invading each other’s personal space, leaving the house in a mess for the other parent, failing to purchase their share of the  groceries and/or clothes for the children, and then drawing their children into the conflict by questioning them as to what occurred while they were out of the home or pointing out the other parent’s deficiencies,” she said. Stacy D. Phillips, celebrity divorce attorney and author, practiced nesting herself during her divorce but does not recommend it as a long-term strategy. “I am a proponent of nesting in the right circumstances,” she said. She believes that nesting can work in the short-term as a bridge between family life pre- and post-separation. “Nesting helps children adapt to the changes in the family structure and can make this major life transition easier for everyone, but only if the parents trust each other and can communicate amicably,” she said. Zerline Hughes Spruill, 39, a communications consultant, practiced a version of nesting without even realizing it was a concept. After a cross-state move, the couple separated and divorced. The children’s father returned to New York City, while Hughes Spruill bought a home for her and the kids in D.C. “He would come to D.C. (for visitations) and stay at my and the kids’ home for one or two nights,” she explained. This arrangement allowed the children and their father to spend more time together and avoided them ever having to travel to him unaccompanied. Meanwhile, Hughes Spruill found this allowed her to exercise her new freedom. “While he was there, I would stay out all night and dance, crash with a friend, and then later, with the guy I was seeing who is now my husband,” she said. But she did experience a downside to this philosophy. Neither her nor her former husband’s new partners were enthusiastic about the situation, she said. Even though the former spouses were not sharing the home at the same time, there is an intimacy associated with inhabiting the same space and using the same amenities. Laura England, a psychotherapist based in Ottawa, has some reservations about nesting as a trend. She outlines two key areas parents need to pay attention to during a divorce or separation: attachment and “the grief process.” She believes the consistency that nesting fans are advocating is not necessarily based on the environment the child lives in but instead on the attachment the child has to the parent. “We are wired for struggle and in those moments reaching out to loved ones who support us and validate us is what creates resilience. Not the physical environment in which we live in,” she said. Although it is very hard for parents to see their children emotionally impacted by their split, England warns that grief is a natural process and children will need to work through it rather than avoid it. “I am hesitant about the intention of nesting if it is used as a way to disguise or control the natural normal feelings of grief, such as loss, sadness and anger, that come with a divorce,” she said. She worries that nesting could be an excuse by some to control and micromanage children’s reactions to the end of their parents’ marriage. England is also concerned that nesting doesn’t allow newly divorced people to leave their past behind. “Nesting may get in the way of the couple’s ability to grieve and move on, which would also be unhealthy for a child to witness,” she said.

The cops were called on an elderly Italian couple. The officers responded in the most wonderful way.

The police were called to the home of an elderly couple in Rome who had been heard in hysterics. When the officers arrived, they found a 94-year-old man and his 89-year-old wife in tears, overcome by loneliness and despair over all the world’s terrible news. The Roman officers stayed with them and asked about their long lives together. The couple spoke of their isolation, especially in the summer months, when their neighbors go away. The officers asked if they might look inside the kitchen pantry and then, upon finding some simple ingredients, offered to cook the couple a meal of pasta, butter and cheese. “Nothing special,” the police department wrote in Italian on its Facebook page last week. “But with a precious ingredient: Their humanity.” Loneliness and anguish is not a crime, and the cops could have seen there was no incident and left. But they instead chose to keep the couple company. The department shared the couple’s story along with two photos of the husband and wife, married 70 years, eating their pasta while an officer cleaned up at the sink in the background. The post was written with notable poetic flair. It describes Jole and Michele alone at home with only the TV as company. And all the bad news from it was just too much for them to bear.   The Roman police department’s post was shared close to 24,000 times, with several thousand commenting on the heartrending yet beautiful tale. Many commended the officers for their thoughtfulness and others wondered how they might visit or write to the couple to help allay their loneliness.

The next big fight over housing could happen, literally, in your back yard

LOS ANGELES — In the new home Julia Coffee designed for herself, handpicking the tiles and the flooring and the red front door, the microwave doesn’t work. Neither does the dishwasher, the garbage disposal, the washing machine, nor — including on 100-degree days — the central air. Everything else runs on braided extension cords that snake into the bedrooms, through the living room, across the kitchen floor, out the window, through the yard and into her daughter’s house. Charles, Coffee’s 82-year-old husband who relies on a walker, tends to accidentally unplug things. “We have a nice little place here,” said Julia Coffee, 74. “But we really would like to get our power turned on.” The Coffees built their two-bedroom home, the smallest they’ve lived in since they were married 44 years ago, in their daughter’s back yard. They were just finishing the place when a lawsuit earlier this year against the city of Los Angeles brought permits for homes like theirs — second units on single-family lots — to a halt. As a result, city officials who gave them permission to build now haven’t given them a certificate of occupancy, and the utility won’t connect them to the power grid. Second homes, often called “granny flats,” have become a new front in the conflict that pits the need for more housing in the country’s most expensive cities against the wishes of neighbors who want to preserve their communities. The same battles flare over large developments that might loom over single-family neighborhoods. But even this modest idea for new housing — let homeowners build it in their own back yards — has run into not-in-my-back-yard resistance. And the difficulty of implementing even such a small-scale solution shows why it will be hard to make room in crowded cities for the middle- and working-class households who increasingly struggle to afford to live there. Homes like the Coffees’, proponents argue, could help ease housing shortages that have made $2,000-a-month one-bedrooms look like a bargain in cities such as Los Angeles. They could yield new affordable housing at no cost to the public. They could add rentals and economic diversity to more neighborhoods. And they could expand housing options for a population in which baby boomers are aging and millennials are stuck at home. Many neighbors, though, protest that a glut of back yard building would spoil the character of neighborhoods designed around the American ideal of one family on one lot surrounded by verdant lawn. They fear that more residents will mean less parking. And they question whether small homes, particularly in wealthier neighborhoods with the most room to build them, would really constitute affordable housing. And so across the country, homes like the Coffees’ remain extremely difficult — if not outright illegal — to build. “We are determined to add needed units to communities without changing the look and feel of our neighborhoods,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who wants to remove more barriers to second units. He adds that such housing would make the city more affordable not just for renters but also for homeowners. “The extra rental income could make the difference for a potential homeowner between affording a mortgage or not,” he said.   But Los Angeles is particularly well suited to the idea, with excess capacity hiding among many post-war ranches built on spacious lots. The Coffee’s one-story home is hard to see from the street. It is 1,200 square feet, the largest allowed by California law for secondary units. It sits at the end of a long driveway, behind a gate. The Coffees planned to live out their retirement here within quick rescue by their children as they grow more frail. But now they are effectively squatting in their own home, in a residence they spent about $350,000 to build and for which they don’t yet have a title. “We didn’t plan on sinking our retirement money into a home that we couldn’t get it back out of,” Coffee said. Now the couple are waiting for Los Angeles to resolve the legal fight over what kind of second housing the city can allow. They have already hung the new address intended for their home from the driveway gate. But even the postal service doesn’t recognize it.  The battle in Los Angeles began in Mark Judaken’s back yard. “This is the living room,” says his father, Len, 86, walking through a house where it is not entirely clear that what he’s pointing to is a living room. “And I think the kitchen is over here.”  “We live in America. It’s a free country,” said Judaken, who, like his son, has worked as a real estate developer. “You have a right to use your property to its best advantage.” Carlyle Hall, a longtime land-use lawyer who lives two properties down, suspected the project was too ambitious to meet city rules about back yard dwellings. An old Los Angeles ordinance strictly limited the size and location of second units. But in 2010, Los Angeles began deferring instead to a more generous state law designed to encourage their construction, and under those rules, the Coffees and Judakens were given permission to build. Hall’s lawsuit, though, accused Los Angeles of ignoring its own ordinance. And when a Superior Court judge agreed in February, several hundred property owners got caught in legal limbo. Even if Hall didn’t have legal grounds for challenging the Judakens’ project, he said he would be troubled by what they’re building. “It would certainly bother me, and it bothers the neighbors,” he said. “It doesn’t fit into the neighborhood. It’s really changing the character, and you can see it from everywhere.” Cheviot Hills doesn’t have a singular architectural style. But it is an upscale, overwhelmingly single-family neighborhood. And in a place like this, Hall said, accessory buildings should be accessory — modest, unseen, subordinate to the main homes at street view, and certainly not peering into the neighbors’ yards. Vinit Mukhija, an urban planning expert at UCLA, said opposition to second homes often involves calls to preserve a neighborhood’s “character,” a sweeping word that can refer as much to the social character as to the physical design of a community. Secondary units threaten the concept of “single-family” living that has long been sacrosanct in America, conjuring the idea of one family living in one home surrounded by other single-family homes. The ideal is as much about neighborhoods as houses. Secondary units don’t just alter the scenery or erode privacy. Build enough, and a neighborhood may not truly remain single-family anymore, with all its associations of middle-class stability and nuclear families. Alan Durning, executive director of the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that has pushed for laxer rules on second homes, argues that it’s time to reconsider that picture, given the changing reality of how Americans live. “You have surging housing prices in the most prosperous cities in the country, and at the same time income inequality is growing, and there’s a cultural and demographic resurgence of urban living,” he said. Young people with less money, in particular, he adds, are “slamming into their parents and grandparents’ regulatory regimes of strict limits on construction of new housing.” Arguments that sound to advocates like a case in favor of second homes — their potential to accommodate renters and modest incomes — are reasons for others to distrust them.  The California law meant to encourage second units in the face of a housing crisis has run up against local ordinances that make them all but impossible to build. Pasadena requires 15,000-square-foot lots to build them. Other cities require additional covered parking spots for each unit and utility hookup fees that cost tens of thousands of dollars.   Travel through parts of Los Angeles and it’s clear there are unpermitted second units everywhere. They’re apparent from curtained windows in what otherwise would be garages, and from glimpses of front doors down driveways. People frantic for housing have been creating it anyway. Mukhija, the UCLA professor, estimates that Los Angeles has as many as 50,000 illegal second units. “I think that’s a signal for planners to recognize that our rules are not working and they need to change,” he said. The city is hoping, first, to resolve the lawsuit — and the confusion for homeowners like the Coffees — by repealing the existing local ordinance. Afterward, Los Angeles would begin considering a new ordinance that could make building second units less onerous. Homeowners’ associations are already lobbying against weaker standards.  To bolster its case, the mayor’s office in Los Angeles is planning a pair of prototypes to study how second units could more easily be built and to show neighbors they’re not so menacing. Affordable housing in a multi-family building in expensive cities can run about $300,000-$400,000 per unit to build. Los Angeles also wants to demonstrate that a comparable unit can cost a third of that in the form of a second home. Trent Wolbe and Grace Lee, who own a small 1920s home in rapidly gentrifying Highland Park, are scheduled to build the first prototype. A community lender is underwriting their construction loan, because traditional banks won’t finance such properties. Wolbe and Lee would like to move into the new unit, with their 2 1/2-year-old daughter Cora, and rent out their current home to another family. “We see the problem inherent in a neighborhood where prices are going out of reach for most people,” Wolbe said. He bought the home before the market picked up in 2012 and considers that a stroke of luck that indebts him to the community. “I feel like we sort of owe something to the world at large other than just jacking up the rent as much as we possibly can go.”

The NRA’s convenient omissions

Regarding Jennifer Stuber’s April 8 Washington Forum commentary, “My common ground with the NRA”: There are a couple of things the National Rifle Association likely neglected to mention to Ms. Stuber about guns and suicide. The NRA has fought hard to oppose smart-gun technology, whose fingerprint recognition could prevent non-owners from activating guns to commit suicide, and has managed to put a virtual stop to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding to research that technology. The presence of a gun in the home greatly increases the likelihood of suicide, regardless of the method of storage, type of gun or number of guns in the home. Eighty-five percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death, whereas drug overdose is fatal in less than 3 percent of cases. Had her husband attempted suicide by overdose rather than by gun, he probably would have survived. While the vast majority of Americans have the right to own firearms, they assume a substantial risk by having them in their homes. The NRA may have left that part out of the conversation. ****Julie R. Keller** , Burke** The writer is a volunteer with   the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Hungry? Avoid serious conversations with your spouse.

Raise your hand if you've had a stupid fight with your husband or wife when you were hungry and cranky. Right, I thought so. Well, new research backs up the idea that when you're hungry you have less self-control, and when you have less self-control, you tend to be more aggressive with intimate partners. Even more interesting is the way Ohio State scientists, led by Brad J. Bushman, a professor of psychology and communication, conducted their experiment. They gave voodoo dolls -- yes voodoo dolls -- to 107 married, heterosexual couples, and asked them to put anywhere from zero to 51 pins in the dolls every day for 21 days, depending on how angry they were with their spouses. The couples had been married an average of 12 years and were paid $50 per person for their trouble.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Said spouses were not present for the voodoo ceremony. (That might have caused multiple divorces, in my opinion, and ruined the study). For the same period, participants tested their blood sugar with a small meter before breakfast and before bedtime each day. As they predicted, people with higher blood sugar levels stuck fewer pins in the dolls, even when researchers controlled for relationship satisfaction and gender. Women did more pin-sticking than men did, but the numbers were not significant. But wait, it gets better. After 21 days, researchers brought the couples in to compete in a game of who could press a button faster when a computer signal flashed red. The winner was allowed to blast the loser with loud noise through headphones, using lovely sounds like fingernails scratching a chalkboard, dentist drills and ambulance sirens, up to 105 decibels. The couples were actually playing against the computer, not each other, so they would have equal chances of blasting and being the blastee. But they didn't know that. Again, the people with the lowest average night-time blood sugar sent louder and longer blasts of punishing noise at their spouses. There is a serious side to all this, of course. "People are often the most aggressive against the people to whom they are closest—intimate partners," the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted. "Intimate partner violence might be partly a result of poor self-control. Self-control of aggressive impulses requires energy, and much of this energy is provided by glucose derived from the food we eat." The only couples we don't have to worry about are the ones who survived Bushman's experiment. Anyone who could do that has a pretty strong marriage.

These tiny houses aren’t for living. They’re 300 years of show and tell.

_General admission ticket prices to the National Building Museum are higher until September 5, 2016. This story has been updated._ When people today talk about a tiny house, they probably mean the trendy living space that’s about the size of a shed. But you would have to be five inches tall to live in the original tiny houses. Dollhouses, which have been around for several centuries, don’t offer shelter to real people, but they provide a glimpse of life in times and places both real and imaginary. The National Building Museum lets visitors time travel in this tiny world through “Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse,” an exhibit that opened Saturday. It features 12 dollhouses from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, that contain amazing pint-size furnishings. But the curators, or those people who put together the exhibit, also wanted visitors to know the characters. “It’s 300 years of British homes told through their inhabitants,” said Alice Sage, a curator from the London museum. So as visitors peer inside the Tate Baby House, a fancy townhouse from 1760, they can push a button to hear a young woman get a lecture from her mother on the proper way to run a home. In the Killer Cabinet house, a servant named Betsy complains about the problems of city life in the 1830s. “We’ve got the cat to keep the rats away,” she says. That dollhouse, which is inside a painted cabinet, was John Killer’s gift to his wife and five daughters. The girls were allowed to play with the house — unlike some of the dollhouses in the exhibit — but they probably also learned a few lessons, Sage said. “The kitchen would have been the perfect way to teach the girls about the management of a home,” she said, noting the miniature dishes and pots. Just around the corner, young visitors can step into a kid-size kitchen. Servant costumes, dishes and a pretend stove help bring the 19th century to life. Those who prefer a more modern look won’t be disappointed. The last two rooms of the exhibit include a white, cube-like villa from 1935, a stacked apartment house from the ’60s and a brightly colored 21st-century design. The end of the exhibit shows how imaginative design sometimes works best in small spaces. The Building Museum asked 24 artists, designers and architects from across the United States to each create a “dream room” from the past, present or future. The 15-inch boxes include a bathroom for a banana, card-playing Peeps and a bedroom created with a 3-D printer. The bedroom scene, called “An Ordinary Evening,” is anything but ordinary in today’s design world for houses big or small. But 10 years from now, who knows? Your next house might be furnished entirely with the push of a button. **What:** “Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse” **When:** Through January 22. Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. **Where:** National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington. **For ages:** 5 and older. **How much:** $10 for adults; $7 for ages 3 to 17; age 2 and younger free. (July 2-September 5, admission is $16 for adults, $13 for ages 3 to 17; age 2 and younger free to include the “Icebergs” exhibit; read our story about “Icebergs” here.) **For more information:** An adult can call 202-272-2448 or visit nbm.org.

Eliminate gun loopholes for domestic abusers

The debate over measures to reduce gun violence poses a cruel paradox. The most effective steps are politically unthinkable and likely unconstitutional. More restrained approaches, such as tighter background checks and reduced ammunition magazine sizes, have proved maddeningly impossible to maneuver through the political process and are open to the charge that they would not stop the killing. This critique is correct but unpersuasive. With hundreds of millions of guns in circulation, small tweaks will not stop the carnage; certainly no single tweak alone will. Yet that is an argument for achievable half-measures, not for paralysis. And despite the otherwise gridlocked politics of gun control, there may be a sliver of political hope for proposals to address a relatively small but especially heartbreaking aspect of the problem: the lethal mix of guns and domestic abuse. Since the 1990s, federal law has barred those convicted of domestic abuse from legally buying guns. But existing law suffers from a “stalker gap,” a “boyfriend gap” and a “restraining-order gap.” Individuals convicted of misdemeanor stalking offenses are not barred from passing background checks and buying guns. In addition, abusers who are not married, do not live together or do not share a child — those in dating relationships — aren’t covered by the ban. More controversially, although abusers subject to permanent restraining orders cannot legally possess or purchase guns, no such prohibition applies in situations where only a temporary order is in place. In other words, the protections are lowest at precisely the point when women are in the greatest danger. The numbers demonstrate both the gender gap in the nature of violent crime and how deadly these loopholes may be. As to the gender gap: Women are less likely than men to be the victims of violent crime, but when they are, the perpetrator is far more likely to be someone they know. Between 2003 and 2012, one-third of female murder victims were killed by a male intimate partner, compared with 2.5 percent of men, according to figures analyzed by the Center for American Progress. More than half of these killings were committed with guns. The numbers are staggering: 6,410 deaths, slightly fewer than the total number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, according to a study by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, having a gun in the house increases the risk of intimate-partner homicide by eight times compared with households without guns — and 20-fold when there is a history of domestic violence. As to the loopholes: One study of female murder victims in 10 cities found that 76 percent of women murdered by a current or former intimate partner experienced stalking in the preceding year. The share of victims killed in dating situations is rising; nearly half of those killed by intimate partners in 2008 were murdered by boyfriends, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. And in the 17 states that have expanded gun prohibitions to those subject to temporary restraining orders, overall intimate-partner homicides fell by nearly one-fifth. Nor do violent abusers simply turn to other methods when deprived of guns; according to Michigan State University criminologist April Zeoli, prohibiting those subject to domestic-violence restraining orders from having guns reduces not only firearm homicides but also murders by other means. Could confronting domestic violence be an exception to the general gridlock on gun violence? Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group co-founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords after the Tucson shooting, has launched an effort to push for federal and state changes. In Congress, a proposal by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that would close the stalker and boyfriend gaps just attracted a Republican co-sponsor, Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk; a companion bill in the House, by Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell, is also backed by a Republican, Robert Dold of Illinois. A separate proposal, by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), would also bar those subject to temporary restraining orders from having guns, subject to later review. Unsurprisingly, if sadly, the National Rifle Association opposes even the Klobuchar-Dingell bill, saying it would “turn disputes between family members and social acquaintances into lifetime firearm prohibitions” and “manipulates emotionally compelling issues such as ‘domestic violence’ and ‘stalking’ simply to cast as wide a net as possible for federal firearm prohibitions.” Tell that, please, to the father of a daughter murdered by her boyfriend. Tell it to the sister of a young woman killed by a man who plea-bargained his stalking offense down to a misdemeanor. Emotional manipulation? Please. At that, the NRA has no parallel. _Read more fromRuth Marcus’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook._ **Read more on this topic:** Fareed Zakaria: Change your gun laws, America The Post’s View: The argument against common-sense gun control crumbles E.J. Dionne Jr.: How America can free itself from guns Colbert I. King: I’m a gun owner. The NRA doesn’t speak for me. Charles Krauthammer: Another massacre, another charade

Tiny house or in-law suite? Off-road RV offers options for the space crunched.

No matter how large or small your home is, chances are you occasionally wish to have just one more room — or a suite of rooms — to house your in-laws, to use as a retreat or even to rent out for some Airbnb income. Chances are, too, that you’ve never thought of getting an RV to fulfill that function. You may think that RVs are big, hulking road-hogging metal machines, but at least one company has produced a “tiny house” version of an RV.  Park it in your back yard, and you have room for painting or writing or just getting some privacy from an overcrowded house. Rent it out as an Airbnb, and you can get some extra income without actually hosting strangers in your home — or just use it as a very modern version of a guest cottage on your grounds. You can also transport it with its own trailer for vacations. The standard version of the Vista, which has an introductory price of $39,900 and will be priced in the future at $46,600, includes a daybed/sleeping area, a tiny but functional kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, multiple efficient storage areas and a custom-designed wood dining table suitable for work. The Vista has USB outlets so you can charge your devices. Optional features include a pop-up TV, air conditioning and heat, stone counters, wood interiors, solar power and composting toilets for off-grid travel. You can add a washer/dryer and skylight, too. The Vista comes with standard RV hookups.

Tiny town mourns family’s death — then learns it was probably murder-suicide

In the predawn hours on Thursday, flames started pouring from a house in rural South Dakota. Emergency vehicles rolled up, and neighbors ran from their homes to watch in horror. They all knew who lived there: The Westerhuises, known in the community as an intelligent, well-respected family. Neighbor Marcus King stood across the street. He remembered how the little Westerhuis girls used to ride bicycles in his big driveway — prime real estate for learning to balance on two wheels. The Westerhuis boys, he said, were into sports — and the older one was a kicker for the high school football team. But in that moment, King said, only one thing came to his mind. “We had hoped nobody was home,” he told The Washington Post. But Scott and Nicole Westerhuis and their children — Michael, Connor, Jaeci and Kailey — were all in the house, about three miles from Platte. Neighbors were in shock, King said. Police told them no one made it out alive. Then came another layer to the tragedy: It was probably a murder-suicide. [ _‘Nicest people in the world’: Minn. family of five found dead in apparent murder-suicide_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Authorities suspect that Scott Westerhuis fatally shot his wife and four children, set their home on fire and then turned the gun on himself, according to state Attorney General Marty Jackley. Jackley had announced late Monday that autopsy results revealed that Nicole Westerhuis and her children were fatally shot and that Scott Westerhuis’s death was ruled a suicide by shotgun.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “It’s hard for us to determine exactly if he started the fire, but that’s the only thing that makes sense,” Sara Rabern, a spokeswoman for Jackley, told the Associated Press.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Scott and Nicole Westerhuis grew up in Platte. The two worked for Mid-Central Educational Cooperative, which provides special-education services to schools, according to Capital Journal. Their children — Kailey, a third-grader; Jaeci, a fifth-grader; Connor, an eighth-grader; and Michael, a high-school sophomore — attended schools in the tiny Platte-Geddes district.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Neighbors and teachers said the Westerhuises were active in the community. They attended services at Christian Reformed Church. The couple went to games and recitals at their children’s schools. The kids were considered talented athletes, involved in baseball, football and basketball as well as track, swimming and gymnastics. They liked band and choir, too.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “We want the world to know how great of kids they were,” Platte-Geddes School District Superintendent Joel Bailey told The Post. The elementary school’s principal, Jennifer Knecht, described Kailey as a joyful child who “would light up a room.” She talked about Kailey’s many friends and her desire to make more, often asking to help a special-needs student in her class. Knecht said Kailey liked drawing pictures and giving them away. She said Kailey had a way of finding people who were having a bad day and bringing “a smile back to their face.” “A week before her death, she brought me a baggie with one monster cookie in it — you know, an oatmeal cookie with M&Ms,” Knecht told The Post. “It said, ‘To Mrs. Knecht, from Kailey.’ The next day, she came back to make sure I liked it. That was Kailey.” “I never saw her again,” Knecht said, her voice cracking. Jaeci, a fifth-grader at the elementary school, was more quiet and reserved, the principal said. “She had a loving way about her, a kind heart,” Knecht said. “Her classmates really respected her.” _[Autopsy reveals Utah family of five with fixation on ‘apocalypse’ died in gruesome murder-suicide]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Connor and Michael attended classes in the high school. “They were model students — academically and athletically,” Bailey said. “They were the kind of students that we want to represent our school district.” Michael was a kicker for the Platte-Geddes Panthers. And he was supposed to start as a linebacker in last Friday’s game, Bailey said. Conner wasn’t far behind his big brother. High school principal Patrick Frederick said the younger boy had played some quarterback in junior high. After news broke Thursday morning that the Westerhuises had died, the school district sent students and teachers home.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “The Platte-Geddes School District is deeply saddened by the passing of the Scott and Nicole Westerhuis Family, due to an early morning fire,” Bailey wrote on the school district’s Facebook page. “Scott, Nicole, and family were a big part of the district and they will truly be missed.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “School counselors, ministerial association members, youth group leaders and parents were on hand to provide support to our students during this tragic event. Supports will remain in place for as long as they’re needed.” That night, hundreds gathered for a memorial service at the Christian Reformed Church, Capital Journal reported. “It’s like a bad dream that we can’t wake up from,” the Rev. Harry Koops told the community, according to the newspaper. “We realize we can’t wake up, and that it is our reality.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico At Friday night’s football game, teammates wore helmet stickers bearing Michael Westerhuis’s number — 28. “It doesn’t make sense,” said King, the neighbor. “We can’t comprehend it.” “Everybody is in such shock,” he added. “Our community needs prayers.” **MORE READING:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Apparent murder-suicide in L.A. claims rapper and his actress wife_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _100-year-old killed his sleeping wife with an ax in a gruesome murder- suicide_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _Paper’s ‘transphobic’ coverage of a brutal murder-suicide prompts outrage in Australia_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Shared finances can be a thorny issue if you’re not married

An elderly woman came up to me recently and asked whether I still use the term “shacking up.” “Yes, I do,” I said. She then lectured me against using a phrase that carries heavy condemnation. It’s a term from back in the day when people meant it to sting as a way to discourage people from living together before marriage. Her point was that I ought to accept what has become the norm for many people. Say people are cohabitating, she suggested. I appreciated her candor and compassion. I’m in no position to judge people’s choices. If you’re grown, it’s your life. But whatever word or term I may use, I will continue to caution couples about living together before marriage out of concern for their financial well-being. Often I hear people say they’ve decided to live together to save on rent. They argue that since they are spending so much time together anyway, why not economize their expenses? Or, they figure, why not commingle their money in joint bank accounts since they are spending together? They get joint credit cards or authorize each other to use their own card. They get cellphone plans together. Co-signing on a car for a credit-challenged significant other, well that’s okay because, after all, they love and trust each other. And you help out the one you love, right? Some even purchase homes because they’ve been told it’s a wealth-building move. It has become “no big deal” to mix love and money outside of marriage. But I want to set aside the debate about whether cohabitating is right or wrong and focus on a key financial point. Are you sliding into a relationship without really considering how difficult it can be to separate your financial commitments when the love is gone? That’s the question researcher Scott Stanley wants couples to think about. Stanley is a professor at the University of Denver and co-director of the school’s Center for Marital and Family Studies. Along with Howard Markman, also a professor in the university’s psychology department, and other colleagues, Stanley developed the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP). Recently, I was with Stanley and a number of other researchers from around the country who meet every year to talk about research, policy and programs focused on encouraging healthy marriages and relationships. During the conference in Oklahoma, we watched a four-minute video from PREP that I think every church and community-based program working with couples ought to show. It’s brilliantly filmed and scripted to make the case for people to slow down and consider the consequences of their choice to cohabitate. You can find the video on YouTube. Search for “Relationship DUI — are you sure you’re in love?” The concept behind the video is based on extensive relationship research by Stanley, Markman and their colleague, Galena Rhoades, a practicing psychologist and associate professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Denver. “Out of our research on cohabitation, we have found that people slide through life-altering transitions without seeing at the time that that’s what they are doing,” Stanley said. Because there is little structure in how people date, they can end up in relationships that in the long haul aren’t suitable. But before they grasp that fact — because they are riding high on their love rather than reason — they’ve had a child or commingled their finances or both. “You realize that while this person is great, they’re not great for you,” the narrator says in the video. “You’d like to break up but, uh-oh, you are more locked in than you realize. What about that car loan? How much will it cost to break your cellphone contract? And just imagine how much harder it would be to break up if both your names are on the lease?” In the case of their finances, couples acting under the influence of a romantic high can establish financial bonds before “they’ve developed a mutual and clear dedication to a future with each other,” Stanley said. “They are giving up options before making a choice.” Referring to research by Norval D. Glenn, Stanley says that’s called “premature entanglement.” So, what is the better way that may save you some heartache and money? “Take your time to enjoy one another without doing the things that make it harder to break up,” the narrator says in the video. “Keep your own place. Don’t sign a lease together. Decide to do the things that bring you closer. Don’t slide into the things that lock you in.” Here’s the bottom line from the video. “Take it slow so you don’t get a DUI — decisions under the influence.” Readers may write to Michelle Singletary at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 or michelle.singletary@washpost.com. To read previous Color of Money columns, go to  wapo.st/michelle-singletary

Loudoun County couple found dead in apparent murder-suicide

A Loudoun County man and his wife were found fatally shot Sunday night in what authorities described as an apparent murder-suicide. Andre T. Howell, 40, and Naomi H. Howell, 39, were found in a townhouse in the 19200 block of Winmeade Drive in the Lansdowne section of the county, southeast of the town of Leesburg, the county sheriff’s office said in a statement. The sheriff’s office said that the shootings were believed to have occurred in a domestic incident confined to the home and that they did not consider the community to be in any danger. The man shot the woman before taking his own life, said Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. It was not clear whether any specific event precipitated the incident. The couple’s residence is in a long block of attached homes at Lansdowne Town Center. The pastor of a church attended by the couple appeared in a television report and said that “this should not have happened.” The pastor, Michelle C. Thomas, said also that if a rational explanation was being sought, there was none. In at least one on-air interview, she described the events as “absolutely devastating.” Thomas, pastor at Holy and Whole Life Changing Ministries International in the Lansdowne area, could not be reached for comment Monday night. A member of the woman’s family, reached by telephone, declined to comment. Records indicate that the couple bought their home about seven years ago. But a neighbor, reached Monday night, said he had scarcely seen the Howells and never met them. He described the development as extremely quiet. Although he lived about 50 yards from the home where the two were found, he said he heard no gunshots.

‘The Loft’ and 5 other movies that feature questionable real estate choices

In “The Loft,” out Friday, a group of men share an apartment so they can have a space to bang girls and argue about whose turn it is to take out the trash. Of course, something goes wrong — a valuable reminder that real estate choices in movies often bring danger. **‘The Cabin in the Woods’:** In this imaginative thriller co-written by Joss Whedon, five friends head to a family cabin for a weekend of fun and getting killed. The murder violates their rental agreement, though, so they have to pay a fine … IN BLOOD.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **‘The Money Pit’:** Tom Hanks and Shelley Long play a couple who buy a dilapidated house and try to fix it up. It’s a film that causes PTSD in anyone who’s ever experienced a home renovation.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **‘Sex and the City’:** Instead of a ring, Big presents Carrie with a giant New York penthouse with a custom-built shoe closet. Who needs love, really? (That closet was awesome, though.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **‘Pacific Heights’:** Plenty of people take in tenants for a little extra income. Sometimes those people turn out to be psychos, like Michael Keaton’s character, who tries to kill his landlords AND gets a cat, even though that’s clearly not allowed.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **‘The Descendants’:** George Clooney plays a Hawaiian patriarch facing a wife in a coma and a real estate deal that could make bazillionaires out of his extended family. Even paradise can’t relieve that kind of stress.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Read more of Kristen Page-Kirby’s Film Riffs:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico ‘Foxcatcher’ joins these other movies about Olympic hopefuls    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ inspired this list of movies about family reunions    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico ‘This Is Where I Leave You’ and 5 other movies about family reunions    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Write an essay — win a tiny house

According to the Census Bureau, houses across the nation are steadily getting bigger. The average house built in 2013 was 2,600 square feet, up from 2,521 square feet in 2007. Still, the tiny house movement — which promotes the use of dwellings as small as 200 square feet — is gaining momentum across the country. Many see them as a way to promote housing that is more affordable and more sustainable in creating a smaller environmental footprint. _[How to live large in a tiny house]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Now a Maryland nonprofit called **SustainaFest** is pushing the movement by offering potential homeowners an opportunity to win a 210-square-foot dwelling through its Tiny House Contest.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[In Northeast D.C., Brian Levy seeks to spark a revolution with his innovative micro-house]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The hyper energy-efficient house was built by middle and high school students in Maryland as part of the group’s Student Sustainability Lab. In 2014, students from around the state participated in a project with educators, professionals and military veterans to build an award-winning tiny house. Since then, the house, which is mobile, has been on a statewide tour of home shows, green expos and schools. To enter, you must pay a fee of $100 and write an essay of 350 words or less answering the question: “What are your keys to living a sustainable lifestyle and how would owning the SustainaFest Tiny House help you realize your dream of living that lifestyle?” Submissions must be entered by June 1, and a winner will be announced by June 15. _[Micro-units coming to desirable locations in the District]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There is one catch to the contest: The winner must find a location for the house and arrange for it to be delivered there. All proceeds from the contest will support the efforts of SustainaFest to build more tiny houses with students in 2015. For more information and to enter, go to _https://www.sustainafest.org/tinyhousecontest._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **Michele Lerner** is a freelance writer. To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at realestate@washpost.com and put “Town Square” in the subject line._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **For moreReal Estate news, follow @PostRealEstate and visit our Facebook page. **_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

… Or maybe men should not abuse and assault women

With all the talk about marriage these days, there is a tendency in certain corners to promote it as a panacea for social ills. You see this approach, for instance, when people suggest marriage as a cure for poverty, as if one thing causes the other. Now comes the latest argument for marriage – that it protects wives and children from violence.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday In a fairly regressive argument, W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell Wilson, in an essay for The Washington Post, argue that women should get married so their husbands can protect them from other men. I’m all for these “married biological fathers” that Wilson and Wilcox, using a stack of statistics, praise as the supposed solution to women getting abused, assaulted and raped. Heck, I’m even married to one. But the authors are cherry-picking the data, and to disturbing ends.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Part of the problem with this argument, as with the reasoning that marriage solves poverty, is that is confuses correlation with causation. Okay, married women lead safer lives than unmarried ones, according the data Wilcox and Wilson cite — but is it because their husbands are wielding baseball bats against midnight intruders, and leaping in front of stray bullets? Or is it because unmarried women and poverty and rough neighborhoods tend to come bunched together in a bouquet of tough odds? The 1994 study that the authors cite, showing unmarried women at greater risk of violence, also states that widows are the “least likely of all to be violent victims.” But if I suggest that women start offing their husbands to increase the odds that they remain safe, would that seem harebrained, an illogical leap? Yes. Because it is.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Wilson and Wilcox point out that “married women are less likely to be raped, assaulted, or robbed than their unmarried peers.” But here’s another statistic, from 2007: of female murder victims, 24 percent were killed by a spouse or ex-spouse, 21 percent by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Women are much, much more likely than men to be killed by their “intimate partners.” So marriage protects against violence in some cases, if you believe the Wilson/Wilcox argument; in other cases, it quite literally kills.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday How does that make sense? In fact, it seems more likely that marriage doesn’t cause either one; and that marrying into an abusive relationship is no more a solution to violence than simply dating the abuser. In fact, being legally bound through matrimony may make it significantly harder for a woman to get out of an abusive situation. A blanket recommendation to marry certainly doesn’t solve this problem. The second aspect of the authors’ argument is that children are better protected from potential abusers when their fathers are around. “Girls raised in a home with their married father are markedly less likely to be abused or assaulted than children living without their own father,” they write. But later, they get at the nub of it: “girls and boys are significantly more likely to be abused when they are living in a cohabiting household with an unrelated adult—usually their mother’s boyfriend.” Is the solution, then, to marry the children’s father – despite whatever underlying problems might have kept a couple from doing that in the first place – or to keep the boyfriend out of the home? And, for that matter, does the fault lie with the mother’s failure to marry, or with the abusive actions of her boyfriend?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday This gets at the most troubling aspect of this reductive essay, which is the way the authors make abuse the woman’s problem. Framing it this way, not surprisingly, leads to a more conservative argument. The notion that women should get married so they don’t get beat up sounds curiously similar to an argument other cultures propose, which is that women should cover themselves because men cannot be trusted not to look, touch, and worse.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The whole point of the #YesAllWomen campaign, which the authors cite, isn’t that women need one man to protect them from another man, but that men need to take responsibility for their own violence and misbehavior. The solution to male violence is neither that we should cover ourselves more, nor that we need cloak ourselves in the supposed protection of marriage. The solution is men behaving better, and our culture demanding more of them. _Libby Copeland, a former Washington Post staff writer, is a writer in New York._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

Will you get along as parents? Here’s one way to find out–before baby arrives.

Couples who otherwise see eye-to-eye can find themselves at odds over how to raise a child. What if those conflicts could be identified before the child is ever born? New research published in the latest issue of the Journal of Family Psychology suggests maybe they can, if they can bring themselves to do something that sounds sort of silly.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Researchers from Ohio State University, led by Lauren E. Altenburger and Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan, found that the way couples interact when they play with a baby doll offers clues to co-parenting conflicts that might arise with a real baby. Co-parenting refers to how parents work together to raise a child. “Co-parenting has consistently been linked to child outcomes. When parents fight and undermine each other’s parenting, the child suffers,” said lead researcher, Lauren Altenburger. “If we can identify couples who may have problems with their co-parenting before their baby is even born, we may be able to intervene.” The researchers videotaped 182 couples in the third trimester of pregnancy while they played with a doll made from footed pajamas stuffed with 7-8 pounds of rice — roughly the weight of a newborn baby. It had a head made of green fabric. Each parent played with the doll alone and then they played with it together. Then they talked about the experience. Researchers watched the tape and rated the couple on how cooperative they were with one another, how playful each was with the doll, their levels of warmth, whether one criticized the other and their intuitive parenting behavior. Playing with dolls can seem silly at first. “When people first hear about it, many think it is strange,” Schoppe-Sullivan said in a press release issued by Ohio State. “But couples in our study responded positively to the activity. They were able to take it seriously.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Nine months later, the researchers videotaped and rated the parents again, this time with their real baby. The way the couples acted with the real baby was much like how they acted with the doll. “Some of the couples were very positive, saying nice things to each other about their parenting,” Schoppe-Sullivan said. “With the doll they might say ‘You’re going to be such a great dad.’ After the birth of the baby, their talk would be very similar: ‘You’re such a natural.'” Other couples were more critical of each other, saying things like “You’re not going to hold the real baby like that, are you?” “The extent to which couples support or undermine each other’s interactions with the doll predicts their co-parenting behavior a year later,” Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and professor of human sciences at Ohio State University, said in a news release.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The couples in the study were all participants in Ohio State’s New Parents Project, a long-term study of couples where both partners work and plan to continue working after their baby is born.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In addition to looking at how the couple interacted as parents, the researchers rated how they acted with each other without the doll and surveyed them about how happy they were in the relationship. They found that a couple’s relationship as parents is distinct from their romantic relationship. “Even before the child’s birth, expectant parents already demonstrated particular interaction patterns in their roles as parents, and these behaviors were associated with but distinct from the ways they operated within their couple relationship,” the researchers wrote. “Yet, both the ‘couple’ and emerging ‘coparenting couple’ contributed to the development of coparenting behavior.” Previous research has shown that a difficult child can put stress on the co-parenting relationship even when the romantic relationship is strong. This study shows that interventions focusing on establishing positive co-parenting before a child is even born could be helpful, the researchers said. “Interventions targeted specifically at the prenatal period may help establish more cooperative and supportive coparenting interactions before the infant joins the union,” they wrote. One limitation of the study the researchers said, is that factors that influence how parents act with the real baby, such as the child crying, weren’t present with the doll. That could have colored the results. Future research is needed to determine how child characteristics affect continuity between prenatal and postnatal coparenting behavior.

Third Wheel’s a Charm

You’ve heard the story: Guy and girl meet, fall in love, move in together and … get a roommate? Sabrina Jess, David Johnson and Joshua Hylton have been living in this unusual rental arrangement for the past few months. Jess, 25, and her fiance, Johnson, 34, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Manassas, Va., in January. Then in June, they asked Johnson’s co-worker Hylton, 25, to move in. “There was a certain amount of privacy we had when it was just us that we lost,” Johnson says. “It was worth it because we save money.” High rent costs in the Washington area are driving couples to take on lodgers. “The main motivator behind any shared living expense is cost,” says Jamie Hornbrook, a senior community manager with Carmel Apartments, which manages 17 apartments in Virginia and D.C. There are other factors, too. Some couples want a third person around to share the workload around the apartment — it takes two to tango but three to put up drapes — or if they have an extra room they aren’t using. “I prefer to have someone,” Jess said of living with Hylton. “I enjoy the fact that we are making use of the space that we have and being efficient with things.” Susan Segal, a D.C.-based couple’s therapist, says that, with her clients, the extra singleton often is a family member who needs a place to stay. “A couple I was working with had the wife’s sister move in with them,” Segal says.  **Three’s a Crowd** Living with a third wheel can be tricky for both the couple and the single person. How does a couple’s relationship fare with another person living in close quarters? Segal says a living situation like this can end up straining a couple’s relationship. “You give up a certain amount of privacy,” Segal says. “You may lose a lot of important intimacy.” Segal advises roommates to make sure everyone is not only respectful of one another’s physical space but emotional space as well. “The single person must realize that the couple needs time and space to be a couple,” Segal says. It’s not just space that’s important; there’s timing, too. Couples and singles whose schedules are too similar can start to cramp one another’s style. “I do keep to myself,” Hylton said. “I hang in my room, and when their door is closed, I don’t bother knocking.” Schedules play an important part in it, Hornbrook says. “If someone travels a lot or they have opposite work schedules, that could really work in their advantage,” she says.  **Even Steven?** Equally important: How do you split rent, chores and personal space? Johnson, Jess and Hylton first tackled the question of rent. Rent becomes more complicated with a couple who are sharing a room but taking up more than half of the common space, making it unclear if the single person should pay half or a third. Johnson and Jess decided Hylton should pay one-third of the rent. He and Jess “don’t consider ourselves a single entity,” Johnson says, explaining that most of Hylton’s space is his room. “The number of rooms you take up is how much you should pay in rent.” Hornbrook says there are a variety of ways renters in this situation divide up rent. She’s even known renters who measure the square footage that the single person will be using to determine their share. “They’ll base it on the amount of space that a person is actually living in — it can get kind of crazy,” she says.  **Give a Little, Get a Little** Hylton, Johnson and Jess have ironed out most of the kinks in their trifecta. One simple step they took was to make sure they didn’t annoy one another too much. That means normal roommate stuff such as keeping up with chores (everyone agrees Hylton needs to take out the trash more) and respecting personal boundaries (“I have to wear pants around the house now,” Jess jokes). And everybody gets something out of the situation, beyond cheaper rent. “I do feel safer,” Jess says. “I’m convinced that every weird sound I hear is someone creeping around in the yard. It’s nice to have someone extra around.” Couples therapist Segal says that having another person around can nip lovers’ quarrels in the bud. “They can temper any arguments or issues the couple has because they don’t want to argue,” she says. “Sometimes it can defuse a couple’s issues so they behave better.” A note to the solo lodger: If your couple roomies are arguing, never take sides. That’s pretty much guaranteed to make things worse.  **Try, Try Again** Johnson knows firsthand that a living situation like this can be emotionally sticky. Before he met Jess, he lived with his now-ex-girlfriend and his best friend. That girlfriend left him for the best friend/roommate. The two are now married. But Johnson has given it another go, and he doesn’t see that failed living situation as a reason to avoid living with an extra person. Things with Hylton have been working out so well, the trio don’t plan to break up any time soon. Says Johnson: “Jess and I are contemplating buying a house, and we’re taking him with us.” MATT RAZAK (FOR EXPRESS)

How to live large in a tiny house

I love the tiny house movement. I love the efficiency of it. I love the flexible use of space. I love the things that fold out from the wall, and who doesn’t love miniature things — _so cute_! But when I think about it for my lifestyle, it would be darling — _for about the first week_. Then, after tripping over my family during that week, I’d start thinking about an addition or maybe a new house.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico When I was in architecture school, I had a professor by the name of Kaya Arikoglu. He would often have jewels of wisdom and this particular jewel that I’m going to talk about here I have used over and over again throughout my architectural career. He would say, “You can’t afford the mansion, but you might be able to afford one room of that mansion.” I love that philosophy so much. It really works. About 14 years ago, I designed our vacation home on a pretty tight budget and I used this philosophy. Yes, I had to make sacrifices — I couldn’t have the grand kitchen, the palatial bathroom, the separate dining room, the to-die-for master bedroom. I had to make the decision that one room, “the great room,” was the priority and everything else was subordinate to that idea. I had to use a simple structure (think _barn_ ). You will save a lot of money using a simple structure, all those fussy bump-outs cost money. Quite simply, that is why barns have always been built that way. They wanted a lot of space — for little money. That’s just what my just now named “not-quite-so-tiny house movement” wants to do, too.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico When I went to a mason to get a bid on my house project, he said, “Why do you want the footprint so small — I’ve built garages bigger than that!” The answer was simple, I didn’t have the money to make it bigger. But what I knew was that it would live large, because I wouldn’t divide the space into little compartments like most homebuilders do. The enemy of tiny houses is interior separation walls. Yes, it is important to close off the bathroom and maybe the bedroom, but everything else has to share the great space or _it won’t be a great space_ because the budget will be eaten up by all of those rooms.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Let’s just say, for argument, that an average dining room is about 14 by 14 feet; a small kitchen is 14 by 10 feet; a small living room is 14 by 16 feet. If you add those all together, you get a room that is 14 by 40 feet — that’s a pretty good-sized palatial room. Height is also really important in making this a truly great space (why the standard ceiling height in this country is 8 feet is a concept I will never understand). Eight feet is okay in small rooms, but when the room expands in plan it needs to expand in height, too (although, you don’t need to make it as tall as I made mine.) This is my “great space” with the sleeping loft above (not totally private, but separate enough that it feels pretty secluded from the first floor); the small bathroom (behind that painting to the right); the kitchen to the right of the dining area. The walls of the bathroom and kitchen do not go all the way up, so that you feel like the entire footprint of the house is all one room. The other really effective thing I did to maximize the space was to use lots of windows. That way I get to sort of _steal_ the exterior space, too, for my house. I’ve always thought that a great way to expand a small house was to make the edge of the property provide the privacy for the house. Say, have a fence and dense evergreens line the edge of the property (or maybe just the back yard) or just get a big piece of property, as in my case.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Then build the house with lots of French doors and windows, so that one can see right out to the edge of the property. It’s almost as if the walls visually “fall away” and the tree line is the visual boundary of the house. Now the house is just made up of interior and exterior rooms. And the best news of all is that this design philosophy doesn’t just work for new construction. It works for renovation, too. Architects are adept at manipulating the current layout of a space, which can really expand the spatial feeling of an existing house. By just tearing down a few walls and ceilings (I love reclaiming attic space) and connecting the interior visually with the exterior, one can make a small house live large. _Julia Caswell Daitch is the principal architect of Caswell Daitch Architects in Silver Spring, and a member of the Potomac Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the AIA’s Capital Area Custom Residential Architects Network (CRAN). To see a YouTube video on how to choose an architect for your project,click here. _    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Boneyard Studios’ tiny D.C. houses host Pinky Swear’s ‘Tiny House Plays’

The mini plays are nearly upstaged by the tiny houses in “Tiny House Plays,” a 90-minute theater piece and house tour set in the aggressively downsized enclave called Boneyard Studios. In a nutshell: Boneyard Studios is a lot on a rowhouse-lined alley just off North Capitol Street and it’s just big enough for four trailer-sized units known as tiny houses. (The “tiny house” idea is a bit of a movement – low cost, minimal carbon footprint, etc.) The bright minds at Pinky Swear Productions thought it would be fun to stage a cycle of brief new plays in the wee homes. Each show is short — 15 minutes or so — and set in one of the often ingeniously efficient little units, several of which are actually being lived in part- time. The audience is split into small groups and shepherded from station to station to see playlets about love, death, aging and coping. The plays are sweet and funny and sad — and secondary. Inside somebody else’s pocket-sized house, your eye can’t help roving and taking stock of the plan. Where’s the shower? Ooh, neat: That bed slides away under a slightly raised platform that serves as a pint-sized music studio. And look — a flat screen TV snug against the wall in a bunk-style loft! Spartan deluxe! Trailers have been squeezing the most features into the least space forever, of course — and these houses, some of which are impressively orchestrated, are on wheels to comply with permitting. The Pinky Swear scripts respond to the forced intimacy: Danielle Mohlman’s morose two-character “For Emma” catches a couple just as they seem to be breaking up, while the comic “Josie, June, and Death” by Ann and Shawn Fraistat shows that three’s a crowd when a black-hooded Death figure horns in on two once-happy girlfriends. Thembi Duncan’s “Girls and Women” explores the downscaled ambitions of a woman turning 40, while Laura Zam’s “Big Bread” — the loosest and least pointed play in the package — deals with the ghost of a hustler shot nearby years ago. Here, and in Donna Rachelle’s “Days Gone Bye,” which takes place on an outdoor patio, it’s hard not to feel the influence of Glenwood Cemetery across the alley. (The gloomily poetic “Days” features a ukulele-strumming daughter wistfully apologizing to her parents for being late.) The small audiences sometimes applaud and sometimes simply commune in silence with director and project deviser Jessica Aimone’s actors. There are no bows or curtain calls, and one show even begins and ends with the audience peeping at the action through the windows. It’s all casual, quiet, a low-impact, low-cal night — bonbon-sized plays and settings in an ultra-quaint backyard. By Thembi Duncan, Ann and Shawn Fraistat, Laura Zam, Danielle Mohlman and Donna Rachelle. Directed by Jessica Aimone. With Lilian Oben, Stephanie Svec, Melissa Hmelnicky, Allyson Harkey, Kevin O’Reilly, Nathan Alston, Gray West, Alexis Graves, Clarissa Barton, Christian Campbell, Kimberlee Wolfson, Dexter Hamlett and Georgia Mae Lively. 1, 3, 6 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Oct. 11 and 12 at Boneyard Studios, 21 Evarts St. NE. Visit pinkyswear- productions.com. $20 (Advance sales only). About 90 minutes.

‘Sorry, my first kill was clumsy,’ reads scrawled note next to slain couple in San Jose double-homicide

Golam and Shamima Rabbi left Bangladesh for the United States more than 30 years ago. Golam, an engineer, and Shamima, an accountant, raised two sons — one 17 and one in his early 20s — in the United States. They housed a family who emigrated from Bangladesh in their four-bedroom home and worshiped and volunteered at local Islamic centers. On Sunday, they were found slain in their house, which sat on a quiet cul-de-sac in San Jose’s Evergreen neighborhood.        “Our homicide investigators are working diligently to try and conduct a thorough and complete investigation so that we may bring closure to this horrible crime and provide answers,” he added. The incident has shaken San Jose’s generally peaceful Bangladeshi community, particularly those close to the couple.  When Mustakim immigrated to the United States with his family 16 years ago, Golam and Shamima gave him and his family a place to stay. “They not only brought us here, they also brought us food and shelter — at least until we found our means to survive. [They] displayed this same kindness to other families in the United States,” Mustakim told the Chronicle.   “It is difficult to reconcile what happened to people who have such humility, given how peaceful they were,” Rahim said. “I can’t fathom it. They were so eager to make the community better. They were so soft spoken. I never saw my friend angry or agitated.”    Police have asked for anyone with information regarding the Rabbis’ murders to contact Detective Sgt. Pat Guire or Detective Ken Tran of the San Jose Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 408-277-5283.

Texas besties establish green getaway

A group of longtime best friends established their own take on an “active adult community” for people in their 50s and 60s: a green getaway in Texas consisting of tiny houses where they can escape the hubbub, enjoy nature, reflect on old times and create new ones together. Four couples from Austin decided to build a compound they call “the Exit Strategy” or what the Internet dubbed “Bestie Row.” For the couples, who are in their 50s and 60s, the row is a place where they can hang out with each other and reconnect with their partners. The compound, located outside of Austin, contains four tiny houses and a larger communal space, creating a place for friends to come and stay with both privacy and community in mind. The design is one that can be dubbed “Hill country contemporary” with an added emphasis on being a green getaway. “We are all committed to doing as much as we can to reduce our footprints,” said Jodi Zipp, one of the friends who created the row. They built their cabins with high-grade foam insulation, rainwater collection tanks, corrugated steel, and made sure to cut back invasive plants and replanted native species, which are more resilient. “Being careful about water is probably the most important thing we do for sustainability — it’s always such an issue here in Texas,” Zipp said. “We also recycle as much as possible — working on zero trash.” While this Texas-based story has seen a lot of media attention, a D.C. angle has emerged. Ted Smith, a real estate agent in the D.C. area, has bought a fourth share of the compound. For Smith, buying into this communal weekend getaway was something he wanted to do for many years, but the timing wasn’t right, until now. Smith’s friendship with the Zipps goes back decades. For him, this Exit Strategy is a perfect way to go back to Texas and reconnect with both a special place and special people. “This place strikes a chord for aging baby boomers who don’t want to live in isolation, but with intentional living,” Smith said. _[In Northwest D.C., Brian Levy seeks to spark a revolution with his innovative micro-house]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Zipp echoed that idea, saying that the best thing about spending time with everyone at the row meant a “big brunch together, then wandering to our cabins or hang out on the river, then reconvening at sunset for cocktails and dinner prep, which we enjoy doing together.” When Zipp first saw the land they would later buy, she wasn’t convinced. “We had been talking for years, fantasizing, really, about this compound idea,” Zipp said. “We had looked at other properties around Texas, but never found anything that met the four main criteria, which were: 1) near or on water; 2) within two hours of Austin, so we could actually enjoy it for a weekend; 3) have some kind of view; 4) be affordable.” “I have to admit, I had to be talked into it because I didn’t have the same vision that my husband and another couple had,” she added. “It took some work, but we’re all very happy with it now,” she said. Common expenses are covered by a joint bank account. When bigger ticket fixes come up, they all contribute communally. _[Micro-units coming to desirable locations in the District]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For these four couples, intentional living is what they have dreamed of for so long. While the Exit Strategy is a weekend retreat now, the friends understand how lucky they are to call it a home away from home. “We are so fortunate,” Zipp said. “There’s a sense that we all appreciate how precious this endeavor is.” Plus, having your best friends next door is always a good selling point. For those who are now fantasizing about their own Bestie Row, one like this will set you back around $800,000, Texas sunsets and mid-morning brunches not included.

The impressive environmental bonus of crowded city living

Cities present a kind of environmental paradox. The construction of all our roads, housing and office towers requires a lot of resources and energy. Collectively, we produce a ton of trash. And we generate a lot of pollution while we're at it (not to mention of the light and noise varieties, which are equally obnoxious to nature).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On the other hand, two families living in an apartment building likely consume less energy than two families in detached houses outside the city. And the more people who pack into cities, the more land we can conserve outside of them. The most obvious illustration of the environmental benefit of cities is shown in the graph below (from a new OECD report that I am having too much fun with this week). It tracks carbon emissions per capita from ground transportation in several metropolitan areas around the world. The densest places have the lowest emissions; the least dense have the highest.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Many of the compact metros above with the lowest emissions also have better public transit. And all that density makes it possible for people to consume less energy — by sharing transit or traveling shorter distances — getting from home to work to the grocery store and back again. This chart leads to a fairly obvious takeaway if you're into urban planning, but it's an important one for anyone who doesn't view cities through the lens of housing patterns and transportation networks:

UPDATE: Ashburn CEO Braulio Castillo, convicted of wife’s murder, sentenced to life plus 16 years

The jury, which deliberated for more than nine hours Monday, will return Tuesday morning to hear evidence and consider a sentence for Castillo, 50, which could range from 20 years to life in prison without parole. The trial lasted more than five weeks, and prosecutors claimed that Castillo had suffocated his wife, Michelle Castillo, with a pillow, and then strung her up in a basement shower to make her death look like a suicide. The Virginia medical examiner’s office ruled that Michelle Castillo had been asphyxiated but that the cord around her neck had not caused her death.  In March 2013, Michelle Castillo obtained an emergency protective order against her husband, claiming he tried to force her to have sex, was verbally abusive and had imprisoned her at times in their $1.1 million home on Belmont Station Drive. In two subsequent hearings, Braulio Castillo fought to have the order removed, but judges ruled against him both times, and he was banned from the 8,000-square-foot house he and his wife had built in 2005. He moved into another house the couple owned in the same subdivision a few blocks away. The jury was not told the specifics of what Castillo had done to deserve a protective order, but they were aware of the order and that he was not allowed in the house. A year later, in March 2014, the couple was moving toward a divorce trial in which Braulio Castillo was likely to give up the house to his wife and at least $14,000 a month in child and spousal support payments. Castillo’s lawyers, Peter Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro, argued that the divorce was amicable and proceeding toward a mutually agreed resolution. Loudoun Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Nicole Wittmann argued that Castillo did not want his ex-wife controlling access to his children and wanted to share his life with a triathlete he had begun dating.  On the night of March 19, 2014, Castillo had dinner with four of his children, ages 3, 6, 9 and 11  — his oldest, Nicholas, was away at college — and his sister then drove them to be picked up by their mother. Prosecutors believe that during that period, Braulio Castillo entered his former home, captured on a grainy surveillance tape from a neighbor’s camera, then left the home about four hours later. Both Nicholas Castillo and the neighbor identified the shadowy figure as Braulio Castillo. The Castillo children called their father in the morning when they couldn’t find their mother. Braulio Castillo and a neighbor went inside, searched the house, and then Castillo took the children to school while the neighbor called police. Sheriff’s deputies found Michelle Castillo hanging in a basement shower with bruises on her face and her hair hanging over her face. Braulio Castillo’s DNA was found on her bed and on her sweatshirt, prosecutors said. The shower in her master bathroom was running all night, water records showed. Greenspun argued that Braulio Castillo, a respected member of McLean Bible Church, had no motive or disposition to kill his wife. Wittmann said that Castillo’s letters and hundreds of phone calls from jail, prior to being granted bond, to his girlfriend Kristin White, as well as shipping some of his deceased wife’s clothes to her, indicated he wanted Michelle Castillo dead. Wittmann said she had never conducted a trial where so many of the victim’s friends were present every day. “She was obviously a very well-loved person,” Wittmann said. “This is a victory for her friends and her children.”

Christian-Muslim marriages are latest casualty of religious strife in Central African Republic

BANGUI, Central African Republic — The door is unhinged and the rooms are bare, signs of that afternoon when Christian vigilantes arrived at Henriette Oumpo’s mud-brick house to kill her husband. “They broke down the door,” she recalled, her face etched in grief, “and they began searching for him.” Her husband, who is a Muslim, escaped through a back window. Clutching knives, the fighters looted the couple’s possessions. Then they prepared to kill Oumpo, 60, and burn the house down. But some neighbors intervened and informed the fighters that she was a Christian by birth. So they spared her life — on one condition. “Renounce Islam,” one of her attackers said as they left. “Or else we will return and kill you for marrying a Muslim.” Marriages between Christians and Muslims have survived the chaotic upheavals that the Central African Republic has endured since gaining independence from France, the former colonial power, in 1960. But the latest cataclysm is shattering these mixed unions, dividing families and communities. U.N. officials and aid workers are worried that the brutality and vengeance could permanently destroy the relationships between Christians and Muslims here. “They will get lots of pressure from one side or the other: ‘This is not the group to marry with, this is not the group to go with,’ ” said Aboud Dieng, the top U.N. humanitarian official for the Central African Republic. “Many families will fall apart.” Today, Oumpo’s husband, Idriss Alaas Muhamed, lives in a bleak enclave of charred and looted shops and houses called PK5. It’s one of the last remaining Muslim areas in a capital paralyzed by religion-based hatred and violence. The couple’s 11 children, ages 22 to 40, also have fled their homes. One son was killed by a Christian mob as he walked to work in mid-January. “I have lived in this place for 40 years, and all my children were born here,” said Muhamed, 67, perched on a bench across from a mosque compound crowded with refugees. “I never expected this. None of us did.” The attacks that have killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands began with a coup one year ago. As Muslims seized power for the first time in this Christian-majority nation last March, they brutally targeted Christians. In response, Christian militias rose up and targeted Muslim enclaves. Their assaults intensified after the country’s first Muslim president, Michel Djotodia, resigned in January under pressure from regional leaders. Shadowed by fear, tens of thousands of Muslims have fled the country. Entire Muslim neighborhoods have emptied out, homes have been torched, bodies have been set afire in streets. As the exodus continues, more mixed families are likely to be shattered, U.N. officials and aid workers say. During a recent visit to the northern town of Kaga Bandoro, Dieng recalled meeting an imam who was married to a Christian. The Muslim prayer leader was fleeing to neighboring Chad but leaving his wife behind, an act that would have been unthinkable a year ago. “The tendency is they don’t leave the families behind,” Dieng said. “They take them with them.” Abdel Hafiss is trying to do just that. He is Muslim. His wife is Christian. They have been married for two decades and have seven children. Five months ago, Christian militias raided their neighborhood, on the outskirts of Bangui, the capital. Hafiss fled, but his wife stayed to protect their house. Three of their children left with him, and four stayed with his wife. Today, Hafiss, 40, and the three children live in a mosque. It is only five miles from his home, but a visit there could get him killed. The Christian vigilantes reign over his community. He hasn’t seen his wife and four other children since he fled. And they cannot visit him without risking the wrath of the vigilantes. Hafiss, a slim, mild-mannered teacher, senses that his family is disintegrating. For months, he has been trying to persuade his wife by cellphone to flee to Chad with all their children. But she has refused. Chad is a predominantly Muslim nation, and she is worried about abandoning the only home she has known in her adult life. “My wife says, ‘If we leave, they will destroy our house,’ ” Hafiss said. “I told her, ‘Our life together or the house: Which is more important?’ ” Hafiss knows he must leave. The mosque is constantly attacked by Christian militias, known as anti-balaka, or “anti-   machete” in the local Sango language. On a recent day, a boy was hacked to death. Now and then, Haffis’s mind drifts back to a better time. “I was a student when we married. I visited her family. She visited mine. She was welcomed in my family. I was welcomed in hers,” he recalled. “Christians and Muslims lived in peace. That is all gone now.” As in most African nations, tribal identity is more important here than national and religious affiliations. Muslims and Christians can be found in most tribes in the Central African Republic. Many people marry outside their faith, and it’s not uncommon for one partner to retain his or her religion rather than convert. But these days religious identity is trumping tribal identity. Take Herve Ouassiri’s predicament. When he was in his 20s, he converted to Islam. At the mosque, he was known as Abubakar. His Christian in-laws embraced him. But several months ago, as Christian militias took control of his neighborhood, his relatives gave him an ultimatum: Convert back to Christianity or else. So Ouassiri fled the area and returned to his father’s home, along with his Christian wife and baby son. His in-laws have severed all contact with them. Ouassiri and his wife spend their days inside the compound and have not left the neighborhood. They fear the in-laws might target them. “They want to force me to stop going to the mosque,” said Ouassiri, 43. “I don’t know what they will do to me if they find me praying. They might try to kill me.” That’s what happened to Alpha Passi. The 37-year-old Muslim shopkeeper lived with his Christian girlfriend, Eugenie, and his two boys from a previous marriage. “Eugenie was like my mother,” said Abache, Passi’s teenage son. On Jan. 20, all that changed. The couple had an argument so loud that neighbors could hear them. Passi ordered Eugenie to leave the house. Neighbors recalled the words she screamed when she was outside: “This will be the last time for you to have a girlfriend.” Then she left. That evening, Christian vigilantes showed up at the house. They said they were Eugenie’s relatives and had come to pick up her belongings, recalled neighbors and Abache. The fighters also accused Passi of harboring some Seleka Muslim rebels. Passi told them to return in the morning. But they fired bullets through the door. Passi and Abache hit the floor. There was a long silence. Thinking that his assailants had left, Passi stepped out onto the porch. From behind a tree, the gunmen took aim. “They shot him dead,” Abache said. Passi is buried in a grave next to his house. Eugenie has vanished. Around Bangui, a seismic social shift is underway. Muslims are leaving mixed areas; Christians are taking their place. Seated outside her house on a recent day, Oumpo’s face was filled with anguish. She has made a difficult decision. Muhamed has decided to leave for Chad, but she won’t join him. She knows no one there. “When he leaves, it’s finished,” she said. “We will never see each other again.” She hopes to live with relatives in a Christian neighborhood. But she is worried that they may no longer accept her because she converted to Islam. “If they don’t welcome me, I will go somewhere else,” Oumpo said. Wherever she goes, the vigilante’s ultimatum will haunt her. She has already given up the head scarf worn by many Muslim women. “I will not wear any Muslim clothes. I will not go to a mosque,” she said. “I will pretend I am a Christian.”

College students turn to tiny houses for affordable living

Christopher Cerk, a web-development major at the University of Michigan, said his desire to save money and invest in his future motivated him to ditch dorm life and instead build a tiny house to reside in. “When you pay rent, you have money flying out the door, and you get no return on it,” Cerk said. “It’s nice to have a space you can clean in 15 minutes.” After living in a dorm and an apartment, Cerk said he initially set his sights on remodeling a Volkswagen Bus to live in, but his mother talked him out of it. So Cerk built his tiny house over one summer; he estimates construction cost about $15,000. He says he had no experience building anything large and that he read up on how to frame a house and match roof angles. The 170-square-foot dwelling sits on a trailer and includes propane heating and solar panels but has no air conditioning or Internet. Finding a place to park his new home was a major concern but Cerk didn’t broach the idea with the university. “I had a feeling it would be a very long process, and I didn’t want to deal with that,” he said. Instead, Cerk rents space to park the tiny home from a local landowner less than 20 minutes from the Ann Arbor, Mich., campus. Similarly, Joel Weber, a design student at the University of Texas at Austin, didn’t even consider the possibility of parking his tiny home on campus. “I didn’t want to go into debt — I was financially pretty much on my own,” said Weber, 25, who is working on his bachelor’s degree. “My preference is to not have anything that I can’t afford up front.” Weber designed his 145-square-foot tiny house in a style he terms “organic contemporary.” He kept costs down to about $20,000 by using donated materials, bartering for appliances and pursuing a vendor sponsorship for an air-conditioning unit. Like Cerk, Weber says location was key. “My main concern was finding cool people who will let me park my home,” he said. Weber found a place less than 20 minutes from campus and provides nanny services and design work in return for parking privileges. Though they are a real estate trend, evidenced by the shows on HGTV, tiny homes on campus are down the road a ways, says Allan Blattner, board president of the Association of College and University Housing Officers International in Columbus, Ohio, and director of the Department of Housing and Residential Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Blattner cites several concerns about permitting tiny houses on campus property, including taking state housing and zoning laws into consideration. For example, in North Carolina, all campus housing must be equipped with sprinkler systems, he said. State and local laws, which may vary depending on whether a tiny house is built on wheels or on a foundation, dictate minimum square footage and placement on private property, according to the American Tiny House Association in Palmetto, Fla. Further, students who live in tiny houses instead of traditional campus housing will miss out on an important aspect of college and university life, Blattner said. Campus housing is connected to a positive educational experience, particularly for first- and second-year students. Studies show that dorm living promotes a stronger connection to campus life and leads to higher GPAs, he said. Tiny houses under campus auspices, therefore, might be most beneficial for graduate students, staff and faculty, he said. “We’re not really sure where they fit in,” Blattner said. “But if there becomes a demand for tiny houses, we’ll certainly look into it.” At Michigan State University, what started as a potential independent study project for recent graduate Tiffany Pupa’s senior year grew into a project that involved more than 100 people. Dubbed Sparty’s Cabin, the 177-square-foot structure includes wood from the MSU Sustainable Wood Recovery Program, which salvages trees removed on campus. Sparty’s Cabin cost approximately $25,000 to build with funding from MSU and some donated materials, according to Pat Crawford, associate director of the School of Planning, Design and Construction. Pupa, who majored in design, said she would like to start talks about creating a tiny house community on campus and is already eyeing the site of campus-owned apartments slated to be phased out of use. Having researched tiny houses for the Sparty’s Cabin project, Pupa said she realizes significant safety and legal issues need to be addressed. But she also hopes such an initiative also could be instructive for students and worked into their studies. “I think it’s a viable option for some students who can afford the upfront costs,” Pupa said.

Living in an urban shoebox? You need a RoboWall.

Finally, urban living meets the Jetsons. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s CityHome isn’t the first tiny apartment to experiment with the idea of specialized space-saving compartments, but there’s a special appeal to the CityHome’s RoboWall: you don’t even have to touch it.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday A group at MIT have designed the RoboWall, a touchless unit that fits into a 200-square-foot apartment but gives it the functionality of one three times that size. With its various compartments, it allows someone living in a tiny studio to host a dinner party that can seat six. There’s an expandable kitchen when you need more counter space to cook a meal for all of those people. And when you’re done hosting and cleaning up, you can fall asleep in the trundle bed that’s housed in the bottom. The entire wall slides on a track to expand the bathroom, though the CityHome also includes a door for privacy. MIT Media Lab researchers Kent Larson, Hasier Larrea, Daniel Goodman, Oier Ariño and Phillip Ewing created the RoboWall for a project called Changing Places, which focuses on finding ways to make living and work spaces more responsive (hence the gesture-powered apartment) and more environmentally sustainable. The CityHome is designed to integrate with apps to control everything from your lighting to your window shades. No word on what happens when the power goes out or if, with the flick of a wrist, someone — like a prankster friend or an enterprising cat — can trap you in your own bed while you’re sleeping by telling the bed to recede into the RoboWall. For now, it’s a prototype. Surely that will get worked out before it goes to market, right? h/t TechCrunch    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

What life looks like in the dying villages of the remote Russian Urals

Far out in the Russian Urals region of Sverdlovsk sits a cluster of tiny villages connected by an old, decrepit railway. At one time, the forestry industry was thriving there but it collapsed when the Iron Curtain fell. The population of the villages declined as more and more people left them in search of work in urban areas like Yekaterinburg where there is a steel industry. At the end of this rail line is the village of Kalach whose total population is about a dozen people, all of them adults. There is no phone service in the tiny place, and electricity only runs for a few hours a day. Residents might hop the train and travel to some of the connecting villages like Sankin, where they can get their mail and pick up their pension checks and sometimes buy clothes. Life is difficult for the residents of this area, but they make do the best they can by growing most of their produce and shepherding sheep. More In Sight: These photos show a disappearing way of life in far north Norway    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This is what the real Afghanistan looks like    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The brilliant photos of the first American female war photographer killed in action    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Among Nepal’s earthquake survivors: Israeli gays and their surrogate babies

TEL AVIV — Holding his newborn daughter tightly, Amir Michaeli-Molian appeared beyond exhausted. It was Tuesday, 10 days since baby Maya’s birth in Kathmandu, Nepal. But already she and her new family — her two fathers, Amir and Alon Michaeli-Molian, and toddler sister, Shira — had experienced a devastating earthquake, a daring rescue operation and a flight on an emergency medical jet. Now there was the endless stream of Israeli journalists who had been traipsing through their modest apartment since the family arrived home 24 hours ago. Maya was one of 26 babies born in Kathmandu in recent weeks to Israeli parents, mostly same-sex male couples, via surrogate mothers. When the earthquake hit Saturday, the Israeli families who were there, working their way through the bureaucratic process required to take the babies home, found themselves with no food, water, electricity or way to communicate. By Tuesday afternoon, all parents and babies, including some born prematurely who depend on oxygen tanks, had been flown to safety in Israel on Israeli government and medical planes. And with their arrival came a new spotlight on the long, complicated and expensive process that some Israelis — particularly gay couples — must go through to have children. “I have barely slept over the past 72 hours, but it is important for me to get our story out,” said Amir Michaeli-Molian, a pastry chef who married Alon five years ago. The preceding days had been profoundly stressful, Amir said. He described sheltering his two daughters in a rickety doorway as the ground shook, then trying to stay upbeat through terrifying aftershocks. After the earthquake, he recalled, “the smell of death was in the air.” But being in Nepal was what it took for the couple to have a second child. Although Israel does allow surrogacy — the practice of a woman carrying the biological child of another individual or couple — it is restricted to infertile heterosexual couples. Same-sex male couples must look abroad to countries where the surrogacy policy accommodates gay couples. “Israel is very advanced and liberal when it comes to gays, until you want children,” Amir said. “A straight couple, a single woman, even lesbian couples can have children together. We just can’t.” Tammuz, an international surrogacy agency based in Israel, facilitated the births of 15 of the 26 Israeli babies evacuated by the Israeli government from Kathmandu this week. In the past eight years, it has assisted about 400 couples, 80 percent of them gay, to have children this way. The agency also works with couples from the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia. Roy Youldos, the agency’s marketing and business development manager, said 80 surrogate mothers in different stages of pregnancy are still in Nepal, waiting to give birth for foreign couples. All the mothers are Indian nationals, but they spend their pregnancies in Kathmandu. Youldos said all survived the earthquake. “We are under a lot of pressure and not really sure what will happen now,” said Yaniv Gutwirt, an Israeli who, along with his partner, Rami Gotthels, is expecting a surrogate to give birth to their child within the next few weeks. “We are supposed to go there at the end of the month, but we don’t know if it will be possible now.” Gutwirt said he is worried about the surrogate, now living through the aftermath of the earthquake, because he knows that “stress in pregnancy is not good at all.” Some Israeli officials have suggested bringing the surrogates to Israel to give birth, but it remains unclear whether that will happen. It is unknown how many babies are born to surrogates in Nepal, one of the few countries that allows same-sex male couples to hire them. In the past, India and Thailand were popular options, but both countries recently changed their regulations to prevent gay couples from becoming parents there. “There are really only two options for parents who need surrogacy, either the U.S. or Nepal, and Nepal is 50 percent less than the cost in America,” Youldos said about the intricate process, which involves finding a female egg donor and arranging an in-vitro fertilization procedure for the surrogate. In Nepal, he said, surrogacy can cost between $30,000 and $50,000, compared with more than $150,000 in the United States. Surrogacy agencies such as Tammuz have brought about a huge change for childless couples, especially gays. Youldos said it had enabled a “big baby boom among gay couples in Tel Aviv.” Those families face challenges, including religious ones, once they are home. Initially, Israel identifies the babies as having no religion; if the parents want their children to be considered Jewish, they must undergo a conversion that conservative religious authorities might not approve. Parents can, however, opt for a conversion to Reform Judaism, as opposed to an ultra-Orthodox Judaism, which can be more demanding. Lawyer Irit Rosenblum, the founder of New Family, a nonprofit group that advocates for family rights, said the sudden attention this week to surrogacy in Nepal highlighted “a hypocrisy in Israel, where on the one hand same-sex couples are prohibited from having children here through a surrogate but are allowed to do so abroad.” She called the current procedure bureaucratic and discriminatory, forcing families to wait abroad for long periods after the birth while they undergo a complicated naturalization process and DNA tests to establish paternity. In the summer, Israel’s parliament passed preliminary legislation that would allow gay couples, as well as single men and women, access to surrogacy services. But final approval has not been given. “It’s very frustrating,” Amir Michaeli-Molian said as he cradled Maya. “We are citizens, we pay taxes, we served in the army and we give to the state. But this law tells us we are not equal to everyone else.” **** In Nepal’s capital, plumes from pyres and pleas from survivors The incredible rescue of an earthquake survivor trapped for 82 hours Nepal quake reduces World Heritage sites to rubble In Israel, a clash over who is a Jew

Pope Francis talks about love — and sex

It is, perhaps, a strange lesson from a pope: Even the erotic can be divine. That is one take-away from the landmark document by Pope Francis on family life, a work that translates in English as "The Joy of Love." Married couples, the pope says, should not fear “a healthy sexual desire.” In fact, this pope- turned-marriage counselor suggests, why not start your days with a morning kiss?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico He goes on to offer other secrets to a happy, healthy home in a document praised by some but derisively dubbed “The Joy of Sex” in at least one conservative blog.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “In no way, then, can we consider the erotic dimension of love simply as a permissible evil or a burden to be tolerated for the good of the family,” the often-surprising pontiff writes. “Rather, it must be seen as gift from God that enriches the relationship of the spouses.” He gives a blunt “no” to gay marriage, and warns his flock not to forget the “differences between sexes.” Yet while men may be men, and women may be women, there are little tricks to cohabiting peacefully as husband and wife. Spouses should consider waiting “at the door” when the other returns home. Both husband and wife should do housework. But yes, he concedes, sometimes the spark does go out of a relationship. Yet, he teaches, that doesn’t have to mean the end. What is left, he says, can be a deep-seated sense of partnership and love that is no less valuable. “There is no guarantee that we will feel the same way all through life,” the pope writes. “Yet if a couple can come up with a shared and lasting life project, they can love one another and live as one until death do them part, enjoying an enriching intimacy." He goes off on “safe sex” as a poor excuse for sex before marriage, but never bluntly denounces the use of artificial birth control. He encourages sexual education of children. But he is still the pope and says such teachings should be directed largely at the promotion of modesty. “It is always irresponsible to invite adolescents to toy with their bodies and their desires, as if they possessed the maturity, values, mutual commitment and goals proper to marriage,” he writes. “They end up being blithely encouraged to use other persons as a means of fulfilling their needs or limitations.”

Neighbors never suspected there were seven dead babies in her garage

She was a good neighbor. She was a friendly person. And she babysat for their grandchildren. Folks in Pleasant Grove, Utah, say they knew her pretty well. But somehow they didn’t know her well enough, they say, to notice how often she got pregnant — seven times in recent years. This weekend they found out, in the most gruesome way imaginable. The suspect’s estranged husband, who has been identified by family and neighbors as Darren West, found seven infant bodies in cardboard boxes while cleaning out the garage on Saturday as he was getting ready to move back into the house this summer. He recently got out of prison on drug-related charges, police said. Now, Megan Huntsman, 39, is accused of killing her babies after giving birth to them between 1996 and 2006, investigators said. She was booked on Sunday into the Utah County Jail on six counts of murder. It wasn’t clear why there were six counts and not seven, The Associated Press reported.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Neighbors said police cars blocked the entrance to the house Sunday evening as they went through belongings taken from the garage that were strewn across the lawn. Pleasant Grove is known as “Utah’s City of Trees” — a middle-class neighborhood with mostly older homes nestled some 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. It’s a community where little seemed amiss, neighbors said, until this. Neighbors told reporters that Huntsman used to babysit for their grandchildren. They said that her three daughters — one teenager and two young adults — were normal girls, and that Huntsman and West were friendly people.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University “It makes us so sad, we want to cry,” longtime neighbor Kathie Hawker told the AP. “We enjoyed having them as a neighbor. This has just blown us away.” Hawker told KUTV that she and her husband, Aaron, had been Huntsman’s neighbors for about 15 years, and that she “was a good neighbor, as far as we knew.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Aaron Hawker added, “I’ve had a few shocks in my life, but this one was a huge one.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University They were also stunned, they said, that Huntsman had been pregnant in recent years. Neighbor Sharon Chipman, who let Huntsman babysit for her grandson for years, told The Salt Lake Tribune that she had noticed Huntsman had gained and lost some weight throughout the years, but she never considered that Huntsman might be pregnant. “This really shocks me,” she said.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Fred Newman, a neighbor whose cousin is the West’s mother, told the AP he has cleaned their driveway with his snow-blower and the girls thanked him. “What’s shocking is the three older ones living there and not noticing that their mother was pregnant,” Newman said. Huntsman moved out of the home several years ago, leaving her three daughters to live alone, the Hawkers said. They aren’t sure where she’s been living.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Another shocker: Police do not believe West was aware of the killings. “We don’t believe he had any knowledge of the situation,” Pleasant Grove Police Capt. Michael Roberts told the AP. Asked how the man could not have known about the situation, Roberts replied, “That’s the million-dollar question. Amazing.”

The hardest part for parting couples: What to do with the house

Ask any real estate agent and he or she will tell you among the worst clients to have are a quarreling divorcing couple attempting to sell their home. Stories abound about one spouse cheating the other out of the proceeds. Or one spouse spiting the other by vandalizing the home to sabotage a sale. A bickering couple unable to get on the same page often means that routine decisions about repairing, marketing and listing the property drag on — jeopardizing a potential sale. Or couples so anxious to wash their hands of the home often undercut themselves by pricing it tens of thousands of dollars below its value for a quick sale. In a worst-case scenario, the home falls into foreclosure, ruining the credit rating of both spouses. Except for people older than 50, experts say, the divorce rate in the United States has steadily declined for the past three decades. Still, the battle over a house sometimes can be rough. Real estate and legal experts say a divorcing couple should set aside their acrimony and get on the same page — whether it’s agreeing to continue living under the same roof, turn the home over to one spouse or sell it. “Some people are so angry at the other person that they don’t want to do anything the other party wants to do,” said D.C. divorce lawyer Marna Tucker. “But many people are able to step beyond it and say, ‘It’s in both our interests to sell for as much as we can, and let’s cooperate.’ ” Virginia divorce lawyer James Cottrell said he’s seen many cases of people throwing their spouse’s clothes on the lawn out of anger. Ben Hodas, a Miami divorce lawyer who is known for handling divorce cases of the wealthy in South Florida, said he has also seen his share of bitter people, like the person who ripped fixtures and chandeliers out of her home before her husband was supposed to put it on the market. Or another woman who made a hole in the wall of her garage, stuffed a dead fish in there and spackled it back up. “In most cases when there’s a joint desire to sell a house, each party is equally interested in maximizing the value,” Hodas said. “People want closure, so they have an interest in getting a house sold as quickly as possible.” Selling a home can be the easiest and fastest way to handle what is likely a couple’s biggest financial asset. While younger couples with children may be inclined to hold onto their home for a while, older couples and empty nesters tend to sell, according to lawyers and real estate agents. Before they begin the process, experts say, the couple should plan — with their lawyers if necessary — how the sale will proceed. Hodas offered these tips: Pick a real estate agent who has the most number of sales in your Zip code, rather than a friend. Decide on a list price and if the home doesn’t sell, agree on a time frame to lower the price a certain amount. But besides such routine matters, the couple would have to grapple with tricky issues related to their marital status — should they sell the house before their divorce goes through? Should they tell the buyers they are divorcing? Alison Beach, a real estate agent based in Vienna, said agents often share personal information about their clients, such as a divorce, as long as everyone is comfortable with it. This usually happens after an offer on a house is accepted. It can let buyers know that the sellers may take an extra day or two to get papers signed or make decisions about home repairs. “You want to respect what’s going on and let the buyers’ side know so they’re aware,” Beach said. “We might need an extension as a courtesy. But we keep it vague, we don’t go into specifics.” As for when to sell, lawyers say couples need to take tax advantages into account such as the capital gains exemption. They advise clients in some situations, for example, to sell the house before the divorce is final. It can be awkward, experts say, for agents and buyers to do business with both spouses in the throes of a divorce. The couple should decide in advance who’s going to do what and who will pay for what. For instance, once the house sells, the couple should pick one person to attend the closing and the other can fax over signed documents. “It usually works best if one party is assigned to work with the Realtor,” said Judi Seiden, a longtime real estate agent on Capitol Hill. Seiden said when she is working with a divorcing couple, she is sure to keep both people in the loop. “I always send any e-mail to both parties,” she said. “So much is lost in translation.” A longer-term arrangement is for one spouse to stay in the home with the children for an agreed-upon period of time, then sell the house. In this scenario, he or she would need to work out details such as who pays the mortgage while the one spouse lives there and how the profits would be split once the house sells. That can carry a financial risk because nobody knows what the housing market will be when the house sells. “Some people keep the home until their child finishes high school or junior high,” Tucker said. Sometimes that can mean selling in a less favorable market. “The event that may lead to a lower price is no different than if you have to move for another reason like a job in a different city,” Cottrell said. “There are many factors that may require people to sell in market they would normally not sell in. It’s a matter of how people have decided to get on with their lives.” Another option is for one spouse to buy the other out of the house. Sometimes one spouse will have more of a claim to the home, especially if he or she owned it before the marriage. In that case, there are a few things to watch out for, according Eric Rome, a lawyer who specializes in real estate law in the District and Maryland. If both people in the couple are on the title of the home, the person who is keeping the house needs to qualify for the entire loan on his or her own. Rome recommends that before a couple decides on that, check with the bank to be sure it agrees to it. He said he’s had cases in which both parties agree the husband will keep the house, remove the wife’s name from the title and take over the mortgage. “What if the husband can’t qualify for loan in his own name? The bank may have no interest in taking the wife’s name off loan,” Rome said. “If the wife can’t get off the current note, that buyout is not achievable.” Rome also said that in a divorce, allow lawyers to examine all relevant documents, especially house titles. He said he is currently working on a messy case in which a couple got divorced 30 years ago and the woman kept their house, which had been in her family for decades. The husband subsequently died. The woman is now trying to sell the house, and she just realized that her ex-husband’s name is still on the title. Rome said he’s in the process of legally untangling the situation, which is complicated because the husband’s family may have a claim to the home. “Tell your lawyer everything, even if you think there’s no issue with the property,” Rome said. “You should make sure these things are dealt with in the process of the divorce.” More and more couples are rejecting the divorce of their parents’ generation and getting creative, especially when kids are involved. While the divorce rate is steadily dropping, the ways in which people remake their living arrangements after splitting is growing, according to divorce lawyers and real estate agents. Sometimes, that means delaying selling the home for several years so one spouse can live there. “They want to keep kids in a stable environment,” Tucker said. “To sell the house is pulling roots out at a time other roots have been pulled out already.” Other times that can even mean the couple shares the house. Shares the house? It’s called nesting, and some people with kids are trying it out in an effort to cause less emotional disruption for the children, and less financial disruption for themselves. Some couples can’t sell because they are upside-down on their mortgage, said Jody Donaldson, a Chantilly-based real estate agent. “It has to be an amicable breakup,” Donaldson said. “If the couple isn’t getting along, it doesn’t work.” Nesting can take any form the couple wants. A guest bedroom can be converted for one spouse to sleep in. Or spouses can trade off weeks living in the house. On their “off week,” they can rent an apartment or live with friends or relatives. Generally, families have a timeline to end this arrangement, because a couple that’s splitting up obviously wouldn’t want to live together indefinitely. Experts say the best way to make that work is to have firm ground rules that everyone agrees on. That includes bigger-picture things such as when the house should go on the market, as well as smaller things such as keeping the house stocked with milk and toilet paper. Other issues can be trickier but still important to work out, like whether a new girlfriend or boyfriend is allowed in the home. This option only works if the couple still gets along quite well. “It takes a special couple to pull off the house sharing even for a short time,” Tucker said. **Allison Klein** is a freelance writer.

Home Diplomacy

I was surprised to learn that Hillary Clinton’s favorite show is HGTV’s “Love It or List It,” because the show’s premise is so fake. A husband and wife are unhappy with their home and so simultaneously start a renovation run by Designer Hilary, right, and hunt for a “dream house” with the help of Realtor David, left. A decision looms: Do they “love” the remade abode … or “list it” and bid on a new place? Has any real-life family ever done this? Methinks not! Why is Clinton a fan? My thesis: The show’s not really about real estate, it’s about the art of successful diplomacy. Typically, one partner wants to stay in the old house, another wants to go. Problems arise: Renovation costs mount and blunt Hilary says things like, “This is way, way more than we ever expected.” The couple is unimpressed by new houses; exasperated David fumes: “You are very, very, very, very hard to please.” Husband and wife are mad at each other and at Hilary and David. Yet in the end, the couple is always happy. The secretary of state must secretly think, “If only it were as easy to bring peace to the Middle East as it is to resolve a dispute about an open concept living room.”

Ask Amy: Toxic, bickering parents worry young adult

DEAR AMY: My parents are in their late 60s and early 70s, and to say they “bicker like an old married couple” would be a huge understatement. It feels as though every other word that comes out of their mouths is full of hate for each other. Every little thing either does annoys the other to the point of yelling and screaming. My father is disabled, and I, 23, still live at home to help him with day-to-day stuff, taking care of the house, etc. I’ve tried telling them it’s both of their faults, that if one isn’t starting something, it’s the other. But that just leads to more yelling and finger-pointing. Both have made the empty threat of wanting to move out (knowing that neither could make it alone). They’ve never been physically abusive to each other (nor do I believe either has the strength to do so), but the yelling and name-calling is there constantly. How can I stop this mutual abuse and bring some peace into our house? Honestly, I just want to move out. -- Desperate DEAR DESPERATE: I am so sorry your home life is like this. It sounds truly terrible, and I think you should move out. There is no way that you, at age 23, can possibly effectively mediate between your parents to change this dynamic in a lasting way. I assume that you are a loving, caring young adult, but this is poisonous, potentially dangerous, and it is bad for you — for all of you. A book I believe you will find very helpful is, “Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life,” by Susan Forward and Craig Buck (2002, Bantam). You need help and support. You should research other solutions in terms of whatever benefits your parents might qualify for. Your local Office on Aging and Department of Social Services could help set them up with alternative housing and home care. Please do your best to enlist a social worker to help. DEAR AMY: A new TV was installed in the break room of the office where I work. I stare at a computer screen for eight hours every day, and I look forward to a one-hour break from looking at a screen during my lunch. The problem is that during lunch the TV is always on (and usually tuned to trashy shows.) I can eat outside some days, but it is extremely hot where I live, so eating outside every day is not an option. I have to take my lunch at the same time as everyone else. How do I ask for a TV compromise that won’t ruffle too many feathers? Am I just stuck in a society where screens run our lives? -- Tired of Screens DEAR TIRED: You should speak with your supervisor about this. This television was recently installed, and you should assume that they are interested in — or at least open to — feedback from employees. The pitch you should make is that you believe the TV will impede workplace morale and productivity. I agree with you that the last thing most of us need during a work break is more noise, more screens and more trash. DEAR AMY: I feel you are talking to me when you recommend some tough love for young adults. Our son, at age 19, was drinking and driving home late and showing this behavior to our other children and foster children. We decided to warn him: “If you come home drunk with the car again, you will not be allowed to live here.” Well, he lived in his car for three months. He visited food banks for food, and he got by (he had no job) by asking his friends to buy gas if they wanted rides. We allowed him home once a week for a shower and a good meal. He is now married and has three children and steady employment. It was a difficult decision for us, but it worked. -- Wendy DEAR WENDY: “Tough love” is not always the answer, but if parents have tried everything else, it is a last resort. Amy’s column appears seven days a week at www.washingtonpost.com/advice. Write to  Amy Dickinson  at askamy@tribune.com or Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.

Learn how this couple is traveling the world on $24 a day

After they got married in 2011, Mike and Anne Howard did something that surprised everyone who knows them. The two New Yorkers — who had just bought a house together and gotten promotions at their jobs — sold most of their stuff, rented out their home and embarked on what’s become the world’s longest honeymoon: a five-year, 50-country tour of the world. “We thought, you know, waiting till we are 65 and retired to follow our dreams seemed like a really risky plan,” says Mike, 39. “Let’s get out there and travel while we are young and healthy.” At first, they lived on a daily budget of $39 each, a sum that covered food, lodging, flights and activities. They’ve since whittled that down to $12.20 per person, per day — all while having amazing adventures, like trekking in Patagonia and pub-hopping in Budapest. “We aren’t trying to live as cheaply as possible; we are trying to live as large as possible,” Mike says. “Keeping those costs down keeps us from being beholden to 9-to-5 jobs.”  You don’t have to become a full-time nomad to benefit from the couple’s wisdom. Here are five travel hacks they’ve perfected that anyone can use.

‘The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby’ gets its depth from family history

In “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them,” a very bad thing happens to husband and wife Conor and Eleanor (James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain), so they separate. And each goes home — meaning, to their respective parents’ houses.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Deciding what and where “home” is, I think, is one of the trickiest parts of being an adult. In college it’s relatively easy; home is where you go during breaks. First few apartments? Home is where you go for holidays (there’s a reason the song isn’t “I’ll Be At My Parents’ House for Christmas”). Then you settle down and maybe take on a mortgage and possibly host a holiday here and there, so that’s home — until your parents sell their house because it’s just such a lot of work, keeping up a house and a yard that big now that it’s just the two (or, maybe, one) of them. Then it’s upsetting because how could they just sell your home like that?  The two characters in “Eleanor Rigby” have very different homes; Eleanor’s is a comfy house in the suburbs, two parents and a sister living there (the sister at least lives nearby if not in the house). There are family photos on the wall and she knows exactly which room is hers. Conor’s is very different; it’s a fancy brownstone and you get the feeling he never actually lived there or, if he did, he was never happy there. The two react in very similar ways once they get home — you can see them both regress a little into who they were when they were being actively parented. Maybe home is where you know exactly who you are and exactly where you fit: You’re the funny one, or the smart one, or the screwup, so you behave as such. When, for a short time, my sisters and I all lived together under my parents’ roof as adults (or nearly adults), we spent a lot of time fighting over whose turn it was to play “The Sims” on the computer and grabbing the good seat on the couch whenever someone got up without calling seatbacks. I’m not even kidding. In “Eleanor Rigby,” Eleanor’s and Conor’s relationships with their homes are just as fraught as their relationship together, and it’s really interesting to see how they’re affected when they go back in time, so to speak. Where they come from determines, at least in part, where they’re going.

Two fathers watch helplessly as their families burn to death in Calif. car wreck

The two men watched in horror as their wives and children burned to death. They could do nothing to save them. At about 3:30 Tuesday morning, 34-year-old Aaron Hon Wing Ng and 45-year-old Wei Xiong Li were driving southbound down Interstate 5 in a minivan with their wives and each couple’s two children. A vacation waited at the other end of the trip for the two families from Northern California. That vacation never happened.  Likely frustrated, they pulled over to the dark shoulder of the road to inspect the damage, but part of the unwieldy van stuck out into the highway. Before anyone could get out, a semi-truck barreling down the road at 55 miles per hour slammed into the back of the minivan, propelling it completely off the road. It tumbled down a steep embankment with all eight passengers inside, finally coming to rest at the bottom of a grassy ravine. The two men jumped out of the two front doors and began attempting to pry open the back doors and pull their families out. The doors wouldn’t open.  The minivan had caught fire by the time California Highway Patrol officers arrived, and the back doors were still jammed shut. Ng and Li ran toward Officers Dan Williams and Jeff Burdick, screaming for help.  “My partner went and tried to get into the van door,” Williams said. “The flames came at him. He had to back out. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, and I tried to extinguish the flames. But like we said, the van burst into flames very, very quickly and we were unable to assist in getting anyone out of the van.”  It was too late. Eventually, there was nothing else to do. The officers were forced to restrain them to keep them from further injuring themselves.  The two husbands, the two fathers, watched helplessly as their families perished.  By the time the fire department reached the minivan, all six passengers — the two wives and their four children, whose names have not been released — had died.

How to protect gun rights while reducing the toll of gun violence

_Jay Dickey, a Republican, represented Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2000. Mark Rosenberg, president and chief executive of the Task Force for Global Health, was director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1994 to 1999._ Twenty years ago, one of us was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, supporting research to build an evidence base to advance the science of gun-violence prevention. The other of us was a Republican representative from Arkansas determined to dismantle that effort because conservatives had concluded that it was aimed at gun control and not gun violence. Ultimately, the House of Representatives voted to insert language into the CDC’s appropriations bill that succeeded in prompting the CDC to bring gun- violence research to a halt. The law stated that no CDC funds “may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” One of us subsequently was fired because of his commitment to gun-violence prevention research. The other saw the CDC’s abandonment of its commitment to this research as a successful effort to protect the Second Amendment right to bear arms. When we met, at a congressional appropriations hearing in 1996, we fiercely opposed each other’s positions. But over years of communicating, we came to see that, while we had differences, we also shared values. We became colleagues, and we became friends. We have argued with each other and learned much from each other. We both belong to the National Rifle Association, and we both believe in the Second Amendment. We have also come to see that gun-violence research can be created, organized and conducted with two objectives: first, to preserve the rights of law-abiding citizens and legal gun owners and, second, to make our homes and communities safer. Well-structured research can be conducted to develop technologies and identify ways to achieve both objectives. We can get there only through research. Our nation does not have to choose between reducing gun-violence injuries and safeguarding gun ownership. Indeed, scientific research helped reduce the motor vehicle death rate in the United States and save hundreds of thousands of lives — all without getting rid of cars. For example, research led to the development of simple four-foot barricades dividing oncoming traffic that are preventing injuries and saving many lives. We can do the same with respect to firearm-related deaths, reducing their numbers while preserving the rights of gun owners. If we are to be successful , those of us on opposite sides of this issue will have to do a better job of respecting, understanding and working with each other. In the area of firearms injuries, collaboration has a special meaning. It will require real partnership on the design of the research we do because while we often hear about “common-sense gun laws,” common sense is not enough to both keep us safe and to protect the Second Amendment. There is urgency to our task. Both of us now believe strongly that federal funding for research into gun-violence prevention should be dramatically increased. But the language accompanying this appropriation should mirror the language already in the law: “No funds shall be used to advocate or promote gun control.” This prohibition can help to reassure supporters of the Second Amendment that the CDC will use the money for important research and not for gun-control advocacy. However, it is also important for all to understand that this wording does not constitute an outright ban on federal gun-violence prevention research. It is critical that the appropriation contain enough money to let science thrive and help us determine what works. So both sides — gun rights advocates and gun-control advocates — need to give quite a bit to get to the heart of this problem. If we yield to fatalism and say nothing will work, we will continue to watch the problem of gun violence grow and grow. We can’t afford to not even try. We have too much riding on this — all of us do. **Read more on this topic:** E.J. Dionne Jr.: The conservative evasion on guns Fareed Zakaria: Change your gun laws, America The Post’s View: The argument against common-sense gun control crumbles The Post’s View: America’s deadly game on guns

How to make the most of a small rental

Moving from a 2,300-square-foot house to a one-bedroom rental required Shannon Claire Smith and Nicholas Herman to rethink everything. Here are some tricks they used to think outside the “rental box” and make the most of their smaller living space. **1\. Create zones:** Breaking up a long space into smaller, separate areas makes your home seem bigger. Use furniture or rugs to define “rooms.” Carve out a designated entry area for keys and mail, a comfortable spot for seating and a functional work space. **2\. Bring the focus up:** Hang artwork and curtains tall and wide. Put curtain rods just below the ceiling. Install floor-to-ceiling shelves to maximize storage without taking up floor space. Stretching the surface area of the walls creates the illusion of height and space. **3\. Paint, if you’re allowed:** Painting an accent wall or hallway creates depth and dimension. Don’t be afraid of bold or dark colors; they give the illusion of depth. Can you believe this starburst mirror is on the hall ceiling? **4\. Light it up:** Avoid using overhead fluorescent lighting at all costs. Place lamps and mirrors strategically throughout your space to create mood lighting and bounce natural light around the room. Replace boring light fixtures with vintage finds. **5\. Update your bathroom:** Replace dated faucets and install a rain shower head; stash the originals to swap back when you move out. Consider building a screened radiator cover to hide the bulky unit as well as provide another surface. Smith and Herman painted a black stripe around the room to mimic tile. **More fromHome & Garden: ** From homeowners to renters: A young couple’s stylish approach to downsizing to a one-bedroom Decorating small spaces **Chat Thursday at 11 a.m. **Designer Shannon Claire Smith joins staff writer Jura Koncius for our weekly online Q&A; on decorating and household advice. **Facebook **Local Living’s Home staff is on Facebook. Find decorating and organizing inspiration at facebook/postliving. Follow Jura on Instagram and Twitter @jurakoncius.

How one couple in Arlington morphed their entire home without tearing it down

In 2006, Chris Timura saw a 1930s Colonial house for sale by owner while he was out walking in a neighborhood in Arlington, Va., with one of his sons. Drawn by the back yard with a pond and easy access to the Metro in Clarendon, he and his wife, Elise Frasier, moved quickly to buy it. But they outgrew the house. The circuitous configuration of the interior made it difficult to get from the living room to the back yard to enjoy their garden and patios. In addition, because the house had only two bedrooms, their two sons, ages 10 and 12, had to share a bedroom. “An important thing was to gain a bedroom,” their architect, Robert Gurney, said. The couple also wanted more open space and views of the outdoors. The original above-grade house was approximately 2,300 square feet including the lower level. The couple ultimately reached a crossroad and had to decide among several options: move; renovate; renovate and enlarge; or tear it down and start from scratch. Ultimately, money helped dictate their decision. They took an unusual approach: Rather than tear down the house and build a McMansion as so many other homeowners in the Washington area do, they opted to rebuild within the footprint of their house, using the original exterior walls and constructing a 700-square-foot addition. “We weren’t interested in building a massive house,” said Timura, a lawyer who works in downtown Washington. “We had a budget we had to stick within. Otherwise, it was out-of-pocket or do it ourselves.” Their Washington story began in 2001. Frasier and Timura were still graduate students at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and they moved to the area, where Timura was to do D.C.-based dissertation research for his PhD in anthropology and finish law school and where Frasier had a job. They began looking at a map and decided they wanted to live somewhere along the Orange Line. “Everyone said Rosslyn,” Frasier recalled, but once they saw it, they knew they wanted to keep looking. “I don’t think this is really what we’re looking for,” but Lyon Park was. When Frasier got off the Metro at Clarendon, she knew it was right: There were single-family homes not too far from the Metro rather than towering high rises. After several years of living in their Colonial house, Frasier and Timura decided to research architects in the area who could help them translate their dream into a house they could love. They both wanted a house with “a modern sensibility,” so Frasier began to search for an architect in the Washington area who specialized in modern architecture. They liked Gurney’s work. “We knew the spaces we needed, but we didn’t picture what they would all look like,” Frasier said. Each son would have his own room, there would be an office for Frasier, who is a development editor, and an open living and dining space and kitchen. For Timura and Frasier, the most important goals were to be able to enjoy their house and their outdoor space. “We were spending about all our time in one room of the house. We wanted more usable space,” Frasier said. Timura added, “We wanted to be able to see our garden.” Meanwhile, the couple had sketched out their idea of what could be done with the house. But Gurney had his own vision of how to get the most out of the house. “The center stairwell had to go,” he told them. “There were elements that he could see right from the beginning,” Frasier said. “This wasn’t a teardown. It was a renovation.” The original footprint of the house remained, but the Colonial style was replaced with a modern cube with windows that created a light-filled structure. The upstairs space was reconfigured into four bedrooms — the master with a bath, a separate bedroom for each of their sons and, the fourth, to be used as a home office for Frasier. It also doubles as a guest room. With an additional workroom/bedroom on the lower level, the house was transformed from its original two bedrooms to five. Windows bring in plenty of light on the first floor, and two clerestory windows in the upstairs hallway draw in even more light. “You can’t really see into anybody else’s house,” Timura said. “Yet light streams into the master bedroom.” They agreed with Gurney on the “overall aesthetic” of the house, Frasier said. The challenge was how to transform it within their budget. Timura and Frasier declined to disclose the cost of the renovation, but experts said similar renovations could cost $300 to $400 per square foot. “We all initially thought we’d have to preserve the facade of the house at the front — the Colonial look — and concentrate only on the interior and rear exterior,” Frasier said. “When we realized that it would be within our budget to revise the full exterior, too,” they moved forward. Essentially, what once was a Colonial house is now a contemporary structure that blends with the natural environment and does not overpower the neighborhood. “In a lot of ways, it’s easier to design when you have a footprint and exterior walls,” Gurney said. Gurney was able to translate their dreams into a home that works for them. The lower level used to be reserved only for doing laundry, but the renovation renewed the space. “We wanted to get a lot out of a small area — a functioning workshop that doubled as a guest room, a separate living and entertaining area with a wet bar, a laundry room, a bathroom, and storage space,” Frasier said. “The whole basement area gets a ton of everyday use now.” Although the couple sketched out ideas for what they wanted, they realized Gurney’s expertise could create something better than they had imagined. For example, Gurney explained to them that the center staircase should be eliminated to optimize living space and light. They first met with Gurney four years ago but waited to move forward with the renovation because they were unable to get a construction loan. “We waited and saved money,” Frasier said. The family had to move out of the house while the work was in progress “so we lived in a rental nearby throughout the remodel,” Frasier said. The key to the transformation is Gurney’s signature style of using as much natural light as possible. “They wanted to incorporate green, sustainable elements into the project,” Gurney said. “They wanted light-filled” spaces, so the house relies on glass throughout to capture natural light. The front of the house uses Forest Stewardship Council mahogany siding that blends with the neighborhood. (The council sets standards for responsible forest management to protect wooded areas for future generations.) Insulated glass keeps the heat out during the summer and in during the winter. “In between two layers of glass is argon gas that increases the insulation value of the windows,” Gurney said. Between the windows and the frame of the house, spray-foam insulation expands to fill gaps. A rain-screen system creates an airspace between the back of the siding and the actual wall of the house to “let the house breathe a lot better.” In short, that means the house does not retain humidity, Gurney said. The combination of the wood siding with gray stucco and charcoal fiber-cement panels allows the house to “recede into the leafy, tree-lined street,” Gurney said. The result is a compact structure that subtly draws the eye. “We made sure we could keep all the trees,” he said. The renovated structure is the same height as the original one to “protect the rhythm of the street,” he said. The first floor houses the main living spaces with an open floor plan. Windows at the front of the house light up the dining area; across the back of the house, floor-to-ceiling windows in the kitchen and living space intensify the light and showcase views of the back yard. “We really do like the outdoors,” Timura said. “We spend a lot of time outdoors. We wanted to be able to see our garden.” Four bedrooms are on the second floor, where ceiling heights vary between approximately 14 and 15 feet in the bedroom of one of the couple’s sons to 10 feet in the other son’s bedroom. (One bedroom is Frasier’s office, and the fourth is the master bedroom with a bathroom.) Throughout the renovation, Frasier and Timura aimed to save where they could. “We were definitely going to salvage yards all the time,” Frasier said. For example, that’s where she found two Gaggenau ovens. If Gurney suggested materials, they would look at the samples and see what else they could find that was similar but less expensive. Neither Frasier nor Timura say the project was easy, but they think the results were worth the effort. “It is a relaxing place to be,” Timura said.

The social roots of school shootings

School shootings are, thankfully, rare events. But when they do occur, they often do so in otherwise peaceful small towns or suburbs. Places like Newtown, Connecticut. Is this just random chance? Or is there a reason for it? A decade ago, at the urging of the National Research Council, sociologist Katherine Newman and a team of researchers looked into this very question. They examined 18 small-town school shootings since 1970 and spent years studying two extensively — one at Heath High School in Kentucky, the other at Westside Middle School in Arkansas. And in her 2004 book, _Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings_ , Newman concluded that many of these small-town massacres followed a few striking patterns. One thing they discovered was that it was often boys at the margins of society who carried out these shootings. They weren't loners. But they were often socially awkward and struggling to fit in. And the atmosphere of small towns could exacerbate the problem. "In a small town," Newman says, "there often aren't that many options, it's hard to find a place where you can feel socially comfortable. These smaller towns are extremely stable — that's what makes them such wonderful places to raise a family. But that very stability can often feel like a death sentence to those at the margins." So why attack schools? "Think about what the shooter wants to accomplish — trying to get the attention of their peers, trying to change how people around them think about them," Newman says. "If you're looking to attack a community and change the way people think about you, the school is the place where you'll have the most devastating impact." Let's pause for a second and add a note of caution here. There's still a whole lot we don't know about Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who shot 26 people in Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday. Newman cautions that Lanza may not fit the general pattern she described in her book. "For one," she says, "[Lanza] wasn't part of that school community" — as the shooters she studied usually were. While there are often "family resemblances" between shootings, no two are ever exactly alike. But even if school shootings are often wildly different, is there anything that can help prevent them? Newman points out that the two policies most often discussed — stricter gun laws and better access to mental health — could conceivably help at the margins. "The vast majority of young people who ever think about doing something like this are ambivalent and don't really have the drive," she says. "And if it's harder to get their hands on a gun, they won't do it. But for the truly dedicated, they're much harder to stop." Better access to mental-health services, meanwhile, would be invaluable for the millions of Americans suffering from depression and other disorders. But would it stop school shootings? That's less clear. Again, these are rare events that are extremely difficult to predict. Some shooters come from good families, some from bad ones. They are nearly impossible to profile. The FBI, for one, has given up trying. Many schools have tried to improve their security systems. That might have helped in the case of Adam Lanza, who reportedly forced his way into Sandy Hook. But that could be an exception, not the rule. "In the cases we studied," Newman cautions, "better security systems wouldn't have worked." School shooters are typically people who are _supposed_ to be in school. And most shootings start and finish very quickly—before security officers or the police can react. There was, however, one policy that Newman's team found might help. "In most of the cases we studied, there was ample evidence that the shooters had made a lot of veiled threats before the shooting," Newman says. "Often the threats are extremely difficult to interpret. They're vague statements like, 'You'll see who lives or dies on Monday' or 'I'm going to be running from the cops.'" Even so, there are frequently other students who do pick up on the threat. "One thing that's absolutely critical is for schools to make it easier for kids who hear threats to come forward," she says. "Very often they don't. They often perceive social risks to coming forward. Often they don't feel like the adults will do anything." In many of the cases Newman studied, students didn't trust that adults would keep what they said confidential, often with good reason. Newman's team did find that in schools with school resource officers — typically retired police officers providing security — students were often much more willing to come forward with threats they'd heard. "Kids do seem more comfortable with them because they're not part of the school hierarchy," she said. (Interestingly, it's typically girls who are most likely to come forward.) In recent years, however, many schools have cut back on these officers, thanks to tight budgets. But would any of this have helped in the Newtown shooting? Probably not. After all, unlike in many past shootings, Adam Lanza wasn't a member of the school community. There's little evidence that he tried to issue threats or boast about his crime beforehand. And, while many schools have tried to invest in anti-bullying programs to help social outcats, there's nothing to suggest that Adam Lanza was bullied either. Which means that the Newtown shooting may well be yet another special case. A better understanding of the social roots of school shootings might be able to help prevent some future tragedies. But not all of them. **Related:** A better target for gun control.

Why you should pay off your mortgage before you retire

Thanks for your comment. We get your point. House payments and retirement living costs do last forever, and it would seem to make a whole lot of sense to just take out the biggest mortgage you can afford at 3 percent interest and then pay it off over the next 30 years while in retirement. Which, if you can afford the monthly payments, and are not going to be putting your house at risk, is probably an interesting idea. But there are many ways for this to go wrong, and the results could be devastating. Imagine those seniors who undergo dramatic financial changes in retirement, and who perhaps will lose an income or a salary when their spouse or partner dies; or if they get divorced, so their income is dramatically reduced. Or, think about those who get sick and whose ongoing living expenses will change if one of them has to go into a nursing home. And then there are those people who, once they are sitting on a big pot of money, decide to spend it rather than budget that money or invest it wisely. In each of those cases, and we can imagine another half dozen with similar results, then putting your house at risk suddenly doesn’t look like that good an idea. Because then you’d be under pressure to sell your home, just when you don’t want to. So we stand by our advice that for the vast majority of people it’s a lot smarter to get your house paid off by the time you retire, so you don’t have the financial pressure of paying even a tiny mortgage at 3 percent interest.

Miss Manners: Apartment’s romantic pairings leave roommate without a bed

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I live in an apartment with three other girls, all of whom are in romantic relationships. Due to this, each of them feels the need for constant “alone time” with her significant other. My roommate and her beau take up our bedroom, another couple takes up the other bedroom, and the last couple takes up the living room. The living room boy sleeps beside his girl all night, every night, on the couch, and my roommate’s boy stays until the early morning hours. This leaves nowhere in the apartment for me to work, relax or sleep. I’ve spent a few months sleeping on the floor downstairs most nights because my roommate’s boy wouldn’t leave, and even the couch was taken. Last year, two of my best friends started dating, and they spent most of their time in the living room with the rest of us. They had their alone time, but it wasn’t constant. I’ve asked the couch boy if he would go home at night, but he simply becomes angry with me. My roommate keeps promising that she’ll send her boy home at a decent hour, but the promises are, clearly, unbinding. To worsen things, any complaint of these circumstances is passed over as my “bitterness” toward relationships (my own dear friend is pursuing the church, otherwise he and I would be in a serious romantic relationship). I have no bitterness; I just want to go to bed, or read a book without being in the way. GENTLE READER: You are paying rent, correct? And yet you aren’t being permitted to sleep on a reasonable surface — or read? This seems to Miss Manners to violate the terms of any living contract, not to mention friendship. (Don’t these boys have homes of their own?) Keep it businesslike, as you would for sharing rent and utilities. Propose a schedule and stick to it. If they balk at the resulting lack of spontaneity, propose that you then spontaneously pay less, as you are getting less than your fair share of the apartment. And start saving up that money to move out. DEAR MISS MANNERS: Often in social and business situations, a male acquaintance will say something like, “Where is your lesser half?” (obviously referring to my husband, who certainly isn’t lesser or half), or ask him, “How did you end up with someone like her?” (foolishly implying by tone that he is somehow inferior). The intention of such comments seems to be an attempt at a compliment to me, but it upsets me because my husband is an extraordinary person. I have always ignored the rudeness, but I feel like I should say something in his defense. What would Miss Manners do? GENTLE READER: Ah, yes, that gallant compliment that questions your taste and judgment to declare that you married beneath you. Miss Manners does not recommend treating these thoughtless cliches as attacks on your husband, or even yourself, but as the puzzling statements they are. “Lesser? What do you mean?” or “Yes, aren’t we both lucky?” New Miss Manners columns are posted Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays on www.washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her Web site, www.missmanners.com. 2015, by Judith Martin

How to avoid becoming enemies when you buy a house with friends

The trend of buying a house with friends or a live-in partner has become increasingly popular. Family members (and even neighbors) often join together to purchase residential or vacation properties for their shared use. The idea makes economic sense for the buyers who can often afford a more expensive property than if they were purchasing on their own. Plus, they have the advantage of sharing property taxes, upkeep and mortgage payment costs among the other owners. But there are several issues you should consider if you’re thinking about this arrangement: How will you pay for the property — all cash or with a mortgage? How will the expenses and upkeep be shared? How will you hold title — together in a partnership or individually? And what will happen if you or one of the other owners dies or decides to sell their share? Of course, married couples face these same issues — as well as divorce — when they buy property together. _[The hardest part for parting couples: What to do with the house]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Co-owners often ask if it is possible to buy property together when only one potential owner qualifies for the mortgage. The answer is yes, oftentimes they can. Many lenders allow one borrower to apply for a mortgage in which several owners hold title to the property. Married couples also can choose to have only one spouse apply for the loan, but both can take title to the house. Remember there are two main parts to every mortgage: the promissory note – the promise to repay the debt — and the mortgage document (or Deed of Trust). Together, they pledge the property as collateral in the event the note is not paid as required. All “co-owners in title” will be asked to sign the mortgage instrument, but only the “qualifying co-owner/borrower” will be asked to sign both the mortgage and the note. Since (presumably) all the owners will share in some manner of proportional payment for the mortgage, it is important that each owner understand the terms of the note and the provisions contained in the mortgage. Most mortgages contain a clause — called a “due-on-sale” or acceleration clause — that could have significant consequences if something were to happen to the borrower (for example, a divorce or death). The due-on-sale clause is intended to prevent an owner from transferring the property that secures the mortgage to a new owner without the lender’s approval. _[Your home is your castle, but is it your principal residence?]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Prior to 1982, regulation of the due-on-sale provision was left up to the individual states. But 33 years ago, the federal government stepped in and took control when it passed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act. It became a federal law to restrict borrowers from selling the mortgaged property to another owner without paying off the loan in full. The act, however, to the advantage of some owners, also listed certain circumstances that are exempt from the ruling and would prevent a lender from enforcing the due-on-sale clause. Those exclusions include the following situations: Over the years, an owner’s right to take over or assume an existing mortgage from another owner, even when the exceptions apply, has been questioned and debated. In 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interpretive rule to help clarify situations that involve surviving family members or “successors-in-interest” (i.e., “a person who receives legal interest in a property, typically from a family member, by operation upon another’s death, or under a divorce decree or separation agreement”).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Samuel Gilford, a spokesman at the CFPB, suggested this link to an explanation of the bureau’s efforts to protect the interests of surviving family members.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Since due-on-sale matters may be changed at any time by further rulings and legislation, be sure to verify the current practice of your lender regarding assumptions (taking over an existing loan) when there is a divorce or death of one property owner. Mike Malloy, vice president of servicing at Quicken Loans, recommended that either the divorced spouse or in the case of a death, the heirs and the executor of the estate, contact the loan servicer as soon as possible to learn about the mortgage options available to them. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans are the exception to the previous restrictions, and allow an existing mortgage to be assumed by a new owner, subject to certain qualifying criteria. FHA mortgages originated after Dec. 1, 1986, require a borrower who will assume an existing mortgage to go through the “Creditworthiness Assumption” process. Refer to the Assumption Chart on the HUD Web site to begin the process.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico You can also contact a HUD representative for further information at 1-800-569-4287. The best possible protection for co-owners – whether in a marriage, a partnership, or as individuals in a relationship – is to work with a real estate attorney to draw up a co-habitation and property agreement document that provides for every eventuality. The agreement should take into consideration how the ownership will be divided — for example, in either equal equity shares or to be determined by the amount of time each owner will use the property. How the expenses will be paid (and shared), what will happen if the owner on the mortgage defaults, or if one of the owners dies or becomes divorced should also be included. The manner in which the co-owners take title is an important decision that can affect each owner’s rights to ownership, and it should be carefully discussed with your attorney or tax adviser. Keep in mind that the state where you reside will determine your available title choices. _ **Sandy Gadow** , a freelance writer and author of “The Complete Guide to Your Real Estate Closing,” is a former title officer and licensed real estate agent with more than 20 years of experience. Gadow will answer readers’ questions in the future columns. Contact her at sandragadow1@gmail.com._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Burglars rob militia family bungalow of guns, machetes, grenades and body armor

A brief glance at the robin’s egg blue, two-story home on the east side of Cleveland — complete with a low white fence around the raised porch and a grassy front yard covered by leaves — and you would not think it contained a small arsenal.   To prepare for the explosive event of fighting for their rights, many affiliated with the movement stockpile everything from food and water (to prepare for doomsday) to weapons, ammunition and explosives (to prepare for battle).  Teena Brayen, who recently moved with her family from New York to that azure home with her husband and two children, counts herself among this group. As such, she stocked up in preparation for anything she might have to do, from feeding a starving family if the supply chain gets cut to fighting off an invading force.    She may have been prepared for an attack by the government, but she was not prepared for a home burglary. When she went to sleep on Monday night, she thought the house was secure. But now she thinks one of her two young children had left the side door unlocked. That evening, she says she told police, the house was broken into, and the arsenal was raided.  Brayen, though, has been open with a few local TV stations. She said she is worried for her neighbors, as whoever broke into her home is now armed to the teeth with guns, knives and smoke grenades.  Among the stolen items: five shotguns, a high-powered rifle, a pellet gun, at least one bulletproof vest, a bugout bag containing rice and beans, more than $1,000 in ammunition, smoke grenades, and 12 machetes. Brayen told the station that one of those guns, which she said “looks like a sniper rifle,” is powerful enough to pierce not just body armor but the exterior of an automobile. Brayen was deeply shaken by the experience and was worried about what the weapons might be used for. She said she is particularly worried about “our military personnel, especially, and our police officers because they wear bulletproof vests.”  More generally, she simply does not want harm to befall anyone.

Leesburg woman charged in husband’s death had called 911

In their Leesburg neighborhood of Edwards Landing, Kyung and Dae Hwang struck everyone as a couple full of love and generosity. In good weather, the Hwangs were often outside their two-   story stone-and-stucco home, tending their lush garden and beckoning neighbors’ kids to come over and pick out apples and plums. When it snowed, Kyung, 63, a pastor and hardware store employee, volunteered to clear neighbors’ driveways with his snowblower. Dae, 57, sometimes roamed house to house, dropping off plates of her homemade tempura, sushi and noodles. But on Saturday morning, neighbors along Chickasaw Place saw a much different image: law enforcement authorities leading Dae outside her home and into the back seat of a police cruiser. Later that day, the Leesburg police charged Dae with first-degree murder in the slaying of her husband. She is being held without bond. The killing in the well-kept subdivision near Tuscarora High School startled neighbors, who could not fathom the spasm of violence on their street. Kyung’s death was the first slaying of the year for Leesburg, a city of about 40,000 residents where homicides are rare. Capt. Clagett Moxley of the Leesburg police said Kyung suffered “several stab wounds all over the body.” Knives have been recovered from the Hwangs’ home, and authorities are awaiting the autopsy report to confirm the official cause of death. Police said they had never responded to the house for any emergency before Saturday’s visit. On Saturday morning, just past 6, it was Dae who called 911. Moxley said police think the husband was dead before the call was made. When police arrived, Dae let officers into the home, Moxley said. Kyung’s body was found in an upstairs bedroom. “We are still trying to determine what caused this to occur,” Moxley said. So are the neighbors. Douglas van Norden, 63, a chief technology officer at a federal contracting firm who lives next door to the Hwangs, said they left Korea shortly after the Korean War and moved to Canada. Eventually, the couple wound up in Northern Virginia and have lived in Edwards Landing for about nine years. They have two grown daughters, who live and work in the Northeast as medical professionals. Last year, a few days after July 4, Kyung told van Norden that he and his wife had become U.S. citizens on Independence Day. “I congratulated him and gripped his shoulder and said, ‘On the Fourth of July, you can’t do better than that,’ ” van Norden said. “Kyung just beamed.” Not once in nine years of living next to the Hwangs did van Norden sense friction between the couple. Their little dog was named Happy. “When they entertained on the back deck with friends over, they always seemed so poised and natural,” van Norden said. “That’s the most pleasant thing to hear in the world — the gentle laughter of people who genuinely love each other’s company.” Kyung and van Norden formed the informal Snowblower Club, a squad of five or six neighbors who cleared sidewalks and driveways in the winter. He added that Dae formed a deep bond with another neighbor across the street, who had recently adopted a Korean child. Dae, once a classroom assistant at a school in eastern Loudoun County, was so popular with her students that they and their parents sometimes visited her at her home, van Norden said. She was very modest. “One of the loveliest aspects about her was that she played the piano, and if the windows were open, I could hear her sing,” he said. “Once, I said to her, ‘You have a lovely voice.’ She blushed. She smiled. Then, she covered her mouth and said, ‘I didn’t know you could hear me.’ ” On Sunday, a reporter visited the Hwangs’ home but was turned away at the door by a young man. Parked in the driveway was a truck from the Aftermath company, “specialists in biohazard management.” Nonprofit tax forms list Kyung as the sole contact for Nova First Church, whose address is the same as his Leesburg home. But the forms, which say the church was founded in 2002, contain no financial information. Police said they have been unable to reach church members. Cheri Shields, 49, who lives across the street from the Hwangs, said she will most remember Kyung for visiting her home in August and praying over her mother, who had been staying with her as she succumbed to cancer. “Kyung and Dae would come over regularly,” Shields recalled. “He’d speak Korean and hold my mother’s hand. They were sweet, loving people.”

For owners, small Cleveland Park cottage was something to build on

The Greek Revival cottage stood for more than eight decades as one of the smallest dwellings in Cleveland Park. But its diminutive stature didn’t deter Cynthia Ferranto and John Welsh from buying the 700-square-foot home, originally intended as a schoolhouse, and eventually expanding it with a three-level addition. “It was like a little Greek temple, an odd house,” said Welsh, who works for a nonprofit developer of affordable housing. “We knew there was a lot of potential here and decided to sacrifice size to live in this neighborhood.” Realizing the potential of the unusual property, however, was not an easy process for the homeowners. After about five years of fits and starts, they settled on the addition’s design and secured the required approvals from the District’s Historic Preservation Review Board for the construction permit. Like many buyers attracted to fixer-uppers, the couple managed to snag the house in 2000 for a great price, $200,000, but soon discovered widespread problems. “The bathtub was falling through the floor, the kitchen had no refrigerator, the plaster walls were crumbling and the bedroom was cut into two,” recalled Ferranto, a landscape architect who runs her business from home. So before moving in, the homeowners undertook some basic remodeling to improve the interiors. They started by upgrading the bathroom, reinforcing the floors and replacing the tub with a shower stall. Welsh did most of the work, installing the sink, faucets, toilet and black-and-white tile. In the kitchen, the couple replaced an oven with a small refrigerator, and they demolished an internal wall in the bedroom to enlarge the space. “We made all the plaster repairs on the walls ourselves, repaired broken window panes and painted the entire interior of the house,” Welsh said. From those renovations, the homeowners eventually built a wing at the rear. It took three designs and a lot of patience on their part to win over the city’s exacting preservation review boards. The couple’s first step in adding on was to ask an architect friend to develop a solution, only to be disappointed with his idea. “We rejected his conceptual design on its face and decided it was not worth following up,” Welsh said. “He took a contemporary approach, which was not in keeping with the house or neighborhood.” About a year later, the homeowners turned to another architect and presented her proposal to the Cleveland Park Historical Society’s Architectural Review Committee. The group rejected the design. “The facade was too contemporary and heavy,” Welsh recalled. The review committee, he said, “noted the improper use of stone.” “As a result, we moved ahead slowly,” Ferranto said. “We abandoned the project for two years.” The homeowners eventually went looking for a new architect to develop a design more respectful of their little “temple.” They turned to District firm Treacy & Eagleburger Architects, based on its experience renovating and expanding historic houses in the neighborhood. Architects Jane Treacy and Phil Eagleburger are married and live and work in Cleveland Park. Eagleburger has been a member of the neighborhood’s architectural review committee for about a dozen years. His design of the Ferranto/Welsh addition was approved in 2005 by the committee (Eagleburger recused himself from the proceedings), the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the District’s Historic Preservation Review Board. “It is critical [for homeowners living in historic districts] to hire a local architect who has successfully completed a project submitted to the local historic review committee and the city’s Historic Preservation Review Board,” Welsh said. By the time the homeowners selected Treacy & Eagleburger, they had researched the history of their house and discovered an unusual provenance. One of their finds is a 1928 letter from the District government to the property owner at the time. It notes that the building permit for the original structure was issued in 1921 for a “one-story frame primary school,” not a house. “We’re not sure it was ever used for that purpose,” Ferranto said. The letter urges the owner to move the structure back from the street “because of its illegal projection [nearly three feet] beyond the building restriction line.” Standing on the front porch of their home, Ferranto and Welsh point out the quirky solution to this problem. In being pushed back, the front of the house now slants to be parallel with the street rather than being set at right angles to its side walls. The couple assumes the facade was skewed to allow for more space in the living room just inside the front door. Other documents collected by the homeowners show that a rear addition was constructed in 1928 and an enclosed porch extended from that back wing around the 1950s. “We thought it was in the spirit of the house to keep adding on,” Ferranto said. Eagleburger responded by designing a three-story addition to the small structure that is similarly clad in German lap siding. Such a combination of a one-story house and taller rear wing, the architect says, is similar to the camelback shotgun houses built on the narrow lots of New Orleans. Like the homes in that city, the Cleveland Park cottage was originally one room wide with doors lined up down the center of the house. This arrangement is called a “shotgun” because a bullet fired through the front door could go straight through the house and out the back door. Rising behind the 1920s house, the camelback addition provides a kitchen, a family room and a master suite within a compact wing that is visually sympathetic to the one-story cottage. From the street, it appears to be only one story taller than the main part of the house; the architect set the structure into the slope of the site so its full three stories are revealed at the back. New windows look similar to the tall openings in the main part of the house, and a pyramidal roof repeats the peaked shape of the old pediment and roof gable. “The primary goal was to be efficient and rational in providing the necessary functions while still maintaining a sense of the nice, open rooms,” Eagleburger said. Inside the original structure, the architect preserved the living room, bathroom and bedroom and created a hallway on one side leading to the rear wing. The staircase connecting the main level to the walk-out basement and upper-floor bedroom suite forms a transitional space between the old and new parts of the house. Just behind the stairs, the added kitchen opens to a small porch overlooking the back yard. Butcher-block tables for prepping and dining are arranged in the center of the room, and a leather club chair nests next to the fireplace. “We spend a lot of time here, but also in the living-dining room for the winter months and holidays,” said Welsh, pointing to the original fireplace near the front door. Upstairs, the new master bedroom and bathroom are reached from a hallway extending along the front of the addition. The bedroom has its own balcony, but the owners said they prefer the porch downstairs. At the basement level, the addition provides a walk-out family room by being set into the lowest point of the site. The new space connects to an office for Ferranto, a guest room and a utility space extending under the original house. Like the kitchen, it centers on a fireplace and provides access to the outdoors. Sliding doors across the back wall open to a lush garden. Ferranto designed the landscape around a circle of grass bordered by granite cobblestones. “It’s a geometric shape that contrasts with the woods beyond,” she said while gesturing to the trees of Melvin C. Hazen Park just behind the property. Clustered around the lawn are shade-tolerant plants and a grouping of Adirondack chairs. Even though it has grown by about 1,500 square feet, the home still feels cozy and eccentric. Furnishings are a mix of antiques, some from family, and newer sofas and chairs. “Since the house is small, most of the furniture doubles as vessels of some sort for storage,” Ferranto said. Wherever possible, the couple reused elements from the original home to maintain its historic character. Tall, built-in shelving next to the side entrance was reoriented on the living-room wall facing the front door. A section of a window from the 1950s porch addition was recycled into a clerestory in the master bathroom to bring in daylight from the hallway. Plaster brackets from original doorways now ornament the archways in the family room Ferranto said, “I like the patina of old things and keeping the connection to history.”

Husband shoots wife in Loudoun County murder-suicide, sheriff’s office says

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said the preliminary investigation of a murder-suicide in Aldie shows that a husband shot and killed his wife and fired at his mother-in-law before killing himself Tuesday night. Authorities did not release the couple’s names, but a person close to the investigation identified them as Sodhi S. Chahal, 43, and his wife, Mandeep K. Chahal, 36. Two children, ages 12 and 16, were in the house at the time but were not hurt, authorities said. The mother-in-law suffered a wound to the arm. “The preliminary investigation indicates that during the domestic altercation, the husband fired several rounds at his wife and her mother before taking his own life,” said Liz Mills, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. The violence was rare for Loudoun, where only one homicide was reported last year. In 2012, there were no homicides in the county. Sodhi S. Chahal worked for the Washington Flyer as a taxi driver “on and off” for about 20 years, said John Massoud, vice president of Dulles Airport Taxi. On Wednesday, a Washington Flyer cab was parked in the driveway of the house. Property records showed Chahal and his wife owned the home. Massoud said he was close with Chahal while he drove for the company and could hardly believe the news. He remembered Chahal as respected among other drivers and said he was “always friendly, always nice.” “He’s the last person you’d expect to do anything like this,” Massoud said. The sudden act of violence left nearby residents struggling with shock and sorrow. Several said the couple and their children had always been friendly, and one said Chahal helped neighbors by cutting their grass. Neighbors also said they were stunned to see their community — a series of townhouses in a sprawling, well-kept development — transformed by the flashing lights of law enforcement vehicles. “My wife tried to come home around 11 p.m., but they still had the house at gunpoint,” Carl Madison said. He said he didn’t know his neighbors well but was disturbed to learn of the shootings. “We’re still in a state of shock about what happened,” he said. Barbara Davis, who lives a few doors away from the house where the shooting took place, said her son had walked to middle school with one of the couple’s sons. In her living room Wednesday, she wiped away tears as she spoke of the two young boys, and said she wanted to try to organize a community effort to raise money for their future. Davis said she felt it was the least the community could do. “I just can’t imagine, the shock of hearing gunfire,” she said. “And then your life is changed indelibly, in the worst possible way.” Dana Hedgpeth and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.

Proof that couples lie to each other about money all the time

Couples living under the same roof share bathrooms, bills, groceries, a bed. But when it comes to their wallets, some still prefer to think in terms of ‘his’ and ‘hers.’ About 6 percent of Americans are hiding a bank account or credit card from their spouse or partner, according to a survey released Wednesday by CreditCards.com. If the survey was representative of the greater population, that would amount to roughly 7 million people lying to a significant other about money, says Matt Schulz, a senior industry analyst for CreditCards.com.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “It’s not always the easiest thing to communicate about,” Schulz says, “but it’s incredibly important.” Not surprisingly, people were more likely to be secretive about their finances if they weren’t living under the same roof as their partners. Then, the number of people with a hidden bank account or credit card increased to 14 percent. That still keeps the share of couples with cash piles in the minority. But the report showed couples might have other reasons for keeping their bank statements close. One in five people surveyed said they spent $500 or more without telling their partners. But people said they weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of their significant others having those spending sprees. When asked how much their significant other should be able to spend without telling them, 31 percent of people put the limit at $100. Men were much more likely to keep money secrets than women. Twenty-six percent of men have spent more than $500 without telling their significant other, compared to 14 percent of women. And 8 percent of men said they had a hidden account, compared to 5 percent of women. They were also more likely to make major purchases without talking it over with their spouse or partner. The idea of splurging without telling your significant other may seem harmless, but it can slow things down for couples trying to merge their finances or meet savings goals, Schulz says. As my colleague Danielle Douglas-Gabriel wrote last year, couples don’t have to merge all of their bank accounts after they tie the knot, but keeping track of monthly income and expenses is important. And that gets harder to do when one partner — or both — stay hush about major purchases.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Columnist Michelle Singletary shared the horror story of one reader last summer who was married before openly discussing differences in spending habits with his fiance — he was frugal, she was loose with her spending. After they married, he learned that she owed $30,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What do you think? Have you made a major purchase without telling your significant other? Is it okay to have a credit card or bank account your partner doesn’t know about?

Ask Amy: Young adult has surplus of housing, but no home

_**Dear Amy:** I have been with my partner for five years; he rents his own place and I live with my parents. My parents are old-fashioned and believe I can live with him only when we are married (I used to share this view, but now I don’t). I have finished college and have moved back home to pay off my debt and save for a house (or wedding!)._ _My partner’s home is five minutes away from my workplace, and my folks’ house is one hour away (in good traffic), so I do frequent “sleepovers” at his place._ _This is causing tension in both households. I pay rent to my parents, and I help out my partner by cleaning up after myself and buying bread, milk and eggs regularly. But he says that I’m using him, and that I’m just doing the minimum. He says I should be preparing dinners for both of us when I am there, doing washing, or helping by paying rent or at least one utility bill. Now I’m broke, tired and grumpy. I’m at his house cooking and cleaning, and then when I’m at my parents I’m doing exactly the same thing to appease them because I’ve slept over my partner’s house._ _I’ve gone cold turkey and have slept only at one home, but then money is wasted on gas driving back and forth. I can’t afford to move out, and I don’t want to get married just so we can live together — help!_ **Betwixt** **Betwixt:** I don’t particularly like this guy’s style (at least the way you describe it) or the way he is framing his concerns, but I reluctantly agree with him. If you are staying at his house over half the week, then you should kick in for more of the living expenses. “Cleaning up after yourself” is not contributing to the household. You see this as a huge burden, but he may see this as you having a primary residence and a secondary residence; maintaining a two-home lifestyle, which you obviously cannot afford. If you can afford to pay rent to your parents, then you should be able to afford to rent a room nearer to your boyfriend and your place of work. I don’t suggest you move in with him — not because of your parents object to it, but because you need to figure out what it feels like to be in charge of your own life instead of bouncing around to serve others’ agendas. _**Dear Amy:** I’m almost 18. I have slightly overprotective parents. They check all my social media, including reading through all my Facebook messages and texts._ _They also refuse to let me have Snapchat for fear that they won’t be able to monitor it. When I (rarely) go out with friends, they track me through my phone._ _Lately this has become annoying. I know that they mean well, but it’s become hard for me to grow up and accept responsibility when I’m not allowed any freedom. I get good grades and have never gotten into any trouble. Is their behavior justified at my age?_ **Wondering** **Wondering:** No — your folks’ behavior is not justified. The level of surveillance they are imposing surely surpasses any they experienced at your age, unless, of course, their parents listened in on their conversations and followed them around. You do have a right to privacy, and the people who assume they are communicating privately with you should be notified that your folks read everything. It is good that you think they mean well, but if they really do mean well — then what are they meaning to do well? Their behavior only proves how well they control you, and — really, what kind of an asset is that, as you head toward adulthood? I assume your parents have used the phrase, “My house; my rules.” As long as you live with them and they pay for your housing, phone, etc., they can impose these strictures. Start the countdown clock to college. Because of their behavior, your journey toward independence will be harder for both of you. _**Dear Amy:** “Hooked on a Feeling” was torn between the wonderful guy she was engaged to and an ex. I loved your advice that she needs to decide which romantic comedy she is in. She seemed to define her whole life based on these two men. Sad._ **Hooked on Independence** **Hooked on Independence:** Many readers responded as you and I did. Thank you. Amy’s column appears seven days a week at www.washingtonpost.com/advice. Write to  Amy Dickinson  at askamy@tribpub.com or Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611. 2015 by the Chicago Tribune

Loudoun homeowner shoots, kills intruder, police say

The teenager had been drinking, and his friends drove him to his home in Sterling at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, law enforcement officials said. But instead of walking into his house on the quiet cul-de-sac, they said, the teen entered a similar-looking red brick home in the same block. Inside, the startled homeowner confronted the teen, authorities said, before shooting and killing him. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office described the shooting as a homeowner killing an unknown intruder, although officials released few details about the shooting. Sheriff’s officials declined to release the name of the teen or the homeowner. No criminal charges have been filed. It is unclear why the teen went into the wrong home, how he got inside or what kind of exchange he had with the homeowner. Law enforcement officials said that they believe the teenager did not have a gun and that it is possible he entered the home through a rear window, although they were still investigating. It was unclear whether the homeowner and the intruder knew each other; neighbors said the teen was relatively new to the neighborhood. “It’s awfully tragic,” said Joanna Roman, who lives near the home in the 45900 block of Pullman Court where the shooting took place. The houses are in the Lochewood Manor community, just south of Claude Moore Park near Routes 28 and 7. On Sunday, police were walking back and forth between the home of the teen and the house where he was shot, which are on the same side of the street and have just one house between them. Both are neatly kept two-story houses with green front yards and two-car garages; both were built at the same time — when the community was developed about a decade ago — and have similar designs and trim. Before the teen was shot, one law enforcement source said, he tried to walk upstairs, where the homeowner’s family was sleeping. Attempts to reach the teenager’s family were unsuccessful, and a woman who answered the door at his home declined to comment. The teen and his family moved into the house about a year ago, according to neighbors. Several neighbors said that they did not know the family well and that there seemed to be other people, possibly renters, sharing the house. In recent years, neighbors said, several families and groups of people had lived there. The home where the shooting occurred belongs to Donald West Wilder II, according to neighbors and real estate records. Neighbors said that Wilder has lived in the home for about nine years and that he has been a Sterling volunteer firefighter for nearly two decades. Wilder did not return calls seeking comment. “He is a great neighbor, a helper, someone who spends spare time volunteering to help others,” Roman said. “He’s an active member of our community. He’s a good person.” Khang Nguyen, a neighbor and member of the board of the Lochewood Manor community, said Wilder lives with his teenage daughter. Nguyen called Wilder a “very nice gentleman, very quiet, too.” Neighbors said that aside from a few car break-ins, the community is relatively crime-free. Joseph Nelson, who also lives on Pullman Court, said he was surprised such an incident happened on his street. “It’s kind of shocking in this neighborhood,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate.” **More Post news:** Forecast: Wintry and wet today; then cold and dry Ruth Ann Steinhagen, 83, dies; shot ballplayer who inspired 'The Natural' $43,056 bonus to charter teacher at 'D'-rated school

So, about that ‘good guy’ with a gun

THE SOLUTION to a bad guy with a gun, it is often said, is a good guy with a gun. Yet according to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D), there were 20 to 30 good guys openly carrying guns among the protesters whom Dallas police were supervising last Thursday night, when Micah Xavier Johnson began picking off officers. “In the middle of a firefight,” the mayor said Sunday, “it’s hard to pick out the good guys and the bad guys.” In fact, the presence of so many guns could have made Thursday’s massacre worse. Officers did not know where the shooting was coming from, how many people were involved or what kinds of weapons they were facing. Innocent protesters publicly toting guns became immediate suspects. Their presence fed the confusion and amped up the danger. Yes, guns can be properly and effectively used in self-defense. But saturating the nation with firearms also primes the country for deadly violence, making many situations more likely to end in death. Potential suicides are more likely to succeed. Deranged and angry people, such as Johnson, can murder trained law enforcement officers from a distance. Curious children accidentally shoot themselves, their friends or their parents. Domestic abusers kill family members before tempers cool or authorities arrive. Police officers see or fear guns in the cars they pull over, and their adrenaline starts pumping. Debate about gun laws spikes after mass shootings because their carnage reminds us that guns are uniquely and efficiently deadly, and pitifully under-regulated relative to the risks they pose. Yet gun violence in the United States is also unacceptably mundane, taking one or two lives at a time, all the time, with little fanfare and few headlines — just an ambulance carrying away the corpse of another battered wife, another child, another mentally ill person who felt she had no other option. Some of these deaths would happen even if the nation had sensible gun laws. Many would not. Partially because of gun advocates’ pressure on research organizations, public health experts have relatively little data on gun violence. But the research that exists increasingly shows there are effective measures that reduce gun deaths without materially infringing on law-abiding people’s liberty: deny firearms to domestic abusers, for example; perform serious background checks on would-be gun buyers; require that gun owners obtain a license. Such measures would not stop every person bent on doing harm. They might not have prevented the Dallas massacre. But by making guns less easily available and less ubiquitous, they would make society safer. **Read more on this topic:** Eugene Robinson: Shootings in Dallas, Baton Rouge and Minnesota are tragedies beyond color Jonathan Capehart: My heart was heavy after Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Dallas broke it. Radley Balko: What the Dallas Police Department does right — and why doing those things could now be more difficult Ilya Somin: Things to remember as we contemplate the anti-police atrocity in Dallas Alexandra Petri: Dallas and American ‘contradictions’

Supreme Court halts award against 2 Los Angeles County officers who shot couple

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a multimillion-dollar award against two Los Angeles County officers who shot a couple after bursting into their shack while looking for someone else. The justices were unanimous in saying lower courts had erred in upholding a $4 million award to Angel Mendez and his pregnant girlfriend, Jennifer Garcia, who is now his wife. Both were seriously wounded in the 2010 incident involving officers Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson, and Mendez had to have part of his leg amputated. The lower courts found it was reasonable for the officers to fire on the couple because Mendez was holding a BB gun that looked like a small-caliber rifle. But the officers should not have burst in on the couple in the first place, the courts held, and the officers were found liable under an appeals court ruling that allows a claim of excessive force when an officer “intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation.” The problem with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit’s rule, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote disapprovingly, is that it “provides a novel and unsupported path to liability in cases in which the use of force was reasonable.” A strange set of circumstances led to the confrontation in the Los Angeles County town of Lancaster. Officers were sent to search a house and property for parolee-at-large Ronnie O’Dell. While some officers went to the house, Pederson and Conley searched the property, littered with storage sheds and abandoned automobiles. The officers had been told Mendez and Garcia were living in a wood-and-plywood shack, and the couple was napping when the officers arrived. The officers did not have a warrant to search the shack, nor did they knock and announce their presence. Instead they burst in and saw Mendez moving the BB gun. One officer shouted “Gun!” and they fired 15 rounds. O’Dell was not found. The Supreme Court’s decision did not end the case. It will return to California, where Alito said the other missteps by the officers may provide the couple a path to damages. “For example, if the plaintiffs in this case cannot recover on their excessive force claim, that will not foreclose recovery for injuries proximately caused by the warrantless entry,” Alito wrote. The case, _County of Los Angeles v. Mendez_ , was argued before Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined the court, and he took no part in the decision. Consensual sex with someone who is at least 16 years old does not qualify as sexual assault of a minor for the purposes of determining whether someone should be deported, the justices decided in another unanimous ruling. The court was considering the government’s attempt to deport Juan Esquivel-Quintana, a native of Mexico who was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2000. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to statutory rape under a California law that prohibits sex with a minor more than three years younger than the perpetrator. The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Esquivel-Quintana. The Immigration and Nationality Act provides for deportation of those convicted of sexual abuse of a minor. During part of their relationship, Esquivel-Quintana had just turned 21, and his girlfriend was 17. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court that the structure of the federal law “suggests that sexual abuse of a minor encompasses only especially egregious felonies.” When the provision was added in 1996, 31 states and the District of Columbia set the age of consent at 16, and some states lower. California and nine others set the age at 18. “The general consensus from state criminal codes points to the same generic definition as dictionaries and federal law: Where sexual intercourse is abusive solely because of the ages of the participants, the victim must be younger than 16,” Thomas concluded. Gorsuch did not participate in _Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions_. __Companies give up their patent rights once they sell a product, and it does not matter where the sale takes place, the court ruled. In an opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court said companies cannot impose restrictions once they make a sale. It was a defeat for Lexmark International, which sued Impression Products to keep the company from selling refurbished Lexmark printer cartridges at a lower price than new ones. The decision overturned a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. “Extending the patent rights beyond the first sale would clog the channels of commerce, with little benefit from the extra control that the patentees retain,” Roberts wrote. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a partial dissent, saying the ruling should not apply to sales overseas. Again, Gorsuch took no part in _Impression Products Inc. v. Lexmark International_.

Small-space living: A 707-square-foot rental in Shaw

Abbey Slitor and Warren Weixler recently downsized.In March, the couple moved from an 850-square-foot one-bedroom in Mount Vernon Triangle to a 707-square-foot one-bedroom with a den in Shaw. They were drawn by the growing, lively neighborhood, and they were ready to go smaller. They wanted to shed some of their things, dump their storage unit and live with only what they really loved or needed. It was a challenge, but the two of them were up to it. “We work so hard trying to make our lives simpler,” Slitor says. “It makes us happy.” Slitor, 34, runs Social Market, a communications firm specializing in marketing and social media. Her office is in the tiny den in the couple’s new place at the City Market at O. Her boyfriend of eight years, Weixler, 32, co-owns Swatchroom, a design and fabrication firm a block away that does commercial interiors for places such as Twitter’s Washington offices and local restaurants including Lincoln and Copperwood Tavern. Both share a love of clean, simple design and clutter-free living. They enjoy creative problem solving, whether figuring out where to keep the tea (a narrow Ikea sideboard) or where to stash the holiday decorations (two faux leather Target bins on top of a wardrobe). “We discuss what multiple uses we can get out of a piece of furniture before we buy it,” Slitor says. “We don’t keep things around just because we think we might need them someday.” Weixler agrees. “I’m a pretty orderly person. Not as much as Abbey, but I’m not messy, and I like being organized.” Like many urban dwellers, they enjoy the ease of living and working in the center of things. They were intrigued by this new apartment complex with amenities including a gym, a rooftop dog park and dog-washing station for Truman, their French bulldog, and a Giant food store store on the lower level. They knew they were trading in larger quarters, but they loved the open feeling of the modern kitchen and its big granite island. The prospect of having a full-size washer and dryer and a balcony with a city view sealed the deal. They accepted that sometimes love means having to say goodbye to your fondue pot and snowboard. Once they decided to move, they started de-accessioning immediately, through Craigslist, eBay and charity donations. Weixler worked with the floor plan to strategize what had to go and what they would need to buy: He figured out they could hold only 70 percent of their furnishings. For example, their bedroom would be smaller, and with a king-size bed, they would not have room for a pair of nightstands, table lamps or a TV. They devised a plan for storage of clothes and accessories. “It’s important to have both shared space and personal space,” Weixler says, “what drawers and cabinets are mine, versus Abbey’s.” They divided the bedroom closet, bought a bedroom chest for each and installed two narrow mirrored Ikea Brimnes wardrobes in the den for out-of-season clothes, beach towels, a sewing machine and bike helmets. The new place is all white and has an open feel. From the front door, a hallway leads into the kitchen and then the living room lined with windows. The den, a small space with translucent glass sliding doors, is off to the left of the hallway, the bedroom and bathroom to the right. They decided to keep to a neutral palette for the furniture: white, beige and ivory, with some color added through accessories and one very bold Strandmom orange chair and ottoman from Ikea. The main source of color comes from the art they’ve collected, a lot of it by local artists. On move-in day, even with the best of planning, they were in for a surprise. They had realized they had little space for clothes, but they were surprised at how little space they had to store their food. Their glamorous new kitchen with its generous island had minimal cabinets and only two drawers. “The movers kept carrying in more and more boxes labeled ‘kitchen.’ We realized we were spoiled in our old place,” Weixler says. “We both like to cook, so we had collected a lot of stuff. We knew some of it had to go, so as were opening the boxes, we set aside things to get rid of.” The kitchen island was great for prepping food, serving and eating, but they had counter space for only their coffee machine and their espresso maker. They needed a pantry. But with only a small sliver of hallway to work with, choices were limited to a long, narrow sideboard. They found Ikea’s Stockholm model, only 151 / 2 inches deep with two drawers inside. Another storage-rich purchase was the compact Seguro media console they got at the Alexandria Crate & Barrel outlet, which has a sliding door, shelves and drawers to stash their modem, Playstation, record player and vinyl collection, plus board games. Although Slitor grew up in a 4,000-square-foot home in Ashburn, she says her mother taught her not get attached to material objects. But there are exceptions, such as some pieces from her grandmother: a headboard, a jewelry box, two silver platters and her bottles of Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar perfume. “I love to eat popcorn out of my grandmother’s crystal bowl,” Slitor says. “I’ve learned how nice it is to have attachments to the smaller things in life.” **Read eight tips from Slitor and Weixler about living well in a small space ** **‘Honey, that’s not going to fit’:** Regrets? There are a usually a few when living in a small apartment, such as the items you really just can’t find room for. Slitor and Weixler shared a list of things that aren’t in the picture for them right now in their downsized place in Shaw. **1\. Large farm table:** It would be swell to entertain at a rustic dining table for 12. Currently, they dine at two bar stools at the kitchen island. **2\. Bikes:** Weixler would love to keep his bikes in the apartment and has proposed various ways to hang them on the wall as art. In the meantime, they are in the building’s bike storage area. **3\. Bar:** It would be nice to have a wet bar, Slitor says, or any bar. It would also be nice if she didn’t have to use a stool to reach cocktail glasses, wine glasses and liquor. **4\. Grandfather clock:** Slitor’s grandmother had a couple of these and her mom still has one. **5\. Decorative antiques:** They parted with an old wood library card catalogue, a favorite of Slitor’s from their old place; it was too big and had no functional use. They recently passed up a funky vintage cigarette vending machine spotted at a Sweet Clover Barn sale in Frederick, Md. “I thought about it for weeks but couldn’t figure out a place to put it or what in the world I would do with it, ” Slitor says. **More from The Washington Post** 5 common small space design mistakes The old mirror trick For small spaces, tables that won’t cramp your style Sleek, minimalist desks that are up for a big job Storage beds: Big on potential in a small spot Console tables can help give you a leg up

Carolyn Hax: The upstairs apartment comes with a din

_**Dear Carolyn:** I live in an apartment building, and a family with four kids lives in the apartment above us. They are so loud all the time, and it drives me insane! My husband and I can hear them screaming, singing, crying, jumping and running. Sometimes it sounds like a marching band is practicing up there! _ _We just had a baby, and I find that I can’t nap because of all the noise. We’re not friends with them and haven’t really spoken to them much, but I’m ready to leave a note on their door to tell them to quiet down! Is there another way to handle this that isn’t so passive-aggressive and won’t create a very awkward situation? Do we have to just manage?_ **Need Some Peace and Quiet** **Need Some Peace and Quiet:** “A family with four kids lives in the apartment above us.” What more do you need to say? It’s loud. In fact, unless these apartments were built to absorb sound, you were in for a jumpy-singy-stompy ride if you had that many adults living on your head. So before you light any fuses with door notes, please take a second to compose the letter _they’re_ mentally writing right now: “We’ve already got our hands full with four kids, and now nobody’s sleeping because of our downstairs neighbor’s baby. Is there a polite way we can ask them to respond to his cries a bit sooner?” Indeed, if you have downstairs neighbors yourself, it might not be long before you can speak firsthand to hearing a broom-handle thunk to their ceiling. I don’t envy your circumstances, upstairs or down, and know the torture that is sleep deprivation. But the torture is circumstantial, and you’re treating it like it’s deliberate. When you ask them to quiet down their kids, you’re implying they could be tending to their kids more or better but are choosing not to — and please imagine how judged you would feel if a neighbor blindly criticized your work at this most intimate job. So please reframe this from “our family vs. neighbor family” into “well-meaning families vs. the building.” That’s your real problem — that your walls and floors are thin enough to allow the song of a child — or the cry of a baby — to pass through. From there you can choose just to accept noise as a fact of apartment life and take noninvasive steps to address it (white noise, thick carpets, moving your bedroom to a quieter part of the apartment). Or, you can enlist the help of your neighbors: Knock on their door bearing a home-baked gift, and say, “Okay, I can hear everything your kids do, which means you’ve been treated to a crying baby every night. Have you found ways to compensate for the thin walls and floors around here?” With no “them,” it’s just “us.” Even if you don’t change a single thing about either of your apartments, establishing a friendly rapport will help fix the noise problem — for the simple reason that the noises of people you like are dramatically less obnoxious than the noises of people you loathe. Bonus: You’re a rookie parent with a live-action parenting wiki upstairs. An open channel to veteran ideas is its own path to less-troubled sleep. Write to  Carolyn Hax  at tellme@washpost.com. Get her column delivered to your inbox each morning at bit.ly/haxmail.

The rise of singles will change how we live in cities

Over the last half-century in America, it's become acceptable, then increasingly common, then entirely unremarkable, to live alone. Women who once lived with their families until their wedding day now live alone. Men delaying marriage later into their 20s live alone. Divorcés, more common today than in 1950, live alone. And seniors who live longer now than ever before — and who are less likely to spend those years in a retirement home — increasingly live alone, too. As a result of all these shifts, more than a quarter of households in the U.S. now contain one person, alone. In 1940, it was about 7 percent: This trend has all kinds of consequences, including a particularly problematic one for where we live: Our housing stock wasn't built for a society full of singles. Our communities instead are full of homes meant for the traditional nuclear family — two-bedroom starter homes, three-bedroom houses, apartments with more bathrooms than a singleton needs, full-service kitchens when 25-year-old bachelors now primarily dine by microwave. We're increasingly a nation of single people, but we're still living, quite literally, in a world built for families. The disconnect between these two trends is particularly acute in big cities, as the Furman Center points out in a new research brief. In New York, Austin and Denver, nearly 57 percent of adults were single in 2010 (although not necessarily living alone). In Washington, D.C., that figure is a whopping 71 percent.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But none of these cities have anywhere near enough small-sized housing to accommodate them. That means that a lot of people are probably living with unrelated adult roommates who'd prefer to live alone (half you people in D.C. group homes?). And it means that some people who do live alone are likely paying more for space they don't want in a large one-bedroom because there aren't enough alternatives in studios and efficiencies. Changes in demographics and social norms invariably occur faster than changes in the built world around us. It took decades, even more, for Washington and New York to grow up into the places they are today. But, as Vicki Been, Benjamin Gross and John Infranca at the Furman Center point out, a lot of cities are also actively making it hard for the housing supply to adjust. The rise of singles calls in particular for more micro housing: apartments the size of studios or even smaller, and "accessory dwelling units" (think in-law cottages or garage apartments) that might be built in the back yard of existing homes. It also calls for a different model of housing where, for instance, four singles might share a communal living space adjacent to their separate units instead of each having their own living room. Neighborhood opposition and existing regulation make this kind of housing hard to build in most cities, though. Parking requirements, for example, often mandate that new housing come with new off-street parking spots, too. But that rule is impractical for someone who wants to rent a cottage in her backyard. And it makes projects financially unworkable for a developer who wants to build an apartment full of micro units next to a train stop for residents who don't own cars. Other laws set minimum standards for how small a housing unit can be — in much of New York, it's 400 square feet — making micro units effectively illegal. Or they limit density by capping the number of units that can be built on a given plot of land. Then there are laws that tell property owners how much of their land they can build on. Cities would have to change many of these regulations to make more micro housing possible, and there are a few places where that's starting to happen. Washington is in the process of revising its zoning code, and some changes could potentially enable more accessory dwelling units. New York has begun to test the idea of micro housing units with the development of a 55-unit modular apartment on city-owned land in Manhattan that would otherwise violate city code.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Many of these smaller units are decidedly up-scale, with high rents and communal luxuries like club rooms. But micro housing could also, in theory, be affordable housing, making cities like Washington accessible to single people who can't even afford a studio today.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

‘Curse’ recalled after virtuoso pianist’s wife charged with killing their 2 daughters

Three years ago, an intense, dark-haired man sat down at a grand piano with no sheet music to show the world why he — and none of his 132 rivals — should win the prestigious, quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth. In the competition’s preliminary round, Vadym Kholodenko, a 26-year-old native of Ukraine, blew through a piece by the minimalist composer John Adams, then turned to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor — a challenging work that typically exceeds 30 minutes and grapples with the devil’s influence on our lives. And Kholodenko made it look like a breeze.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Kholodenko went on to win the Cliburn’s 2013 gold medal — earning $50,000, recording and management deals, and a string of concert dates that ran three years. But now the young virtuoso’s life has been struck by tragedy: In what some are calling part of a “curse” related to the Cliburn competition, Kholodenko’s estranged wife Sofya Tsygankova has been charged with murdering their two young children.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On March 17, Kholodenko found his daughters — Nika Kholodenko, 5, and Michela Kholodenko, 1 — dead at the home in suburban Fort Worth where he formerly lived with his family. The children’s bodies had no visible trauma, and the cause of their death is not yet known, as the Associated Press reported. But Tsygankova was home with her dead daughters — in “an extreme state of distress,” as authorities noted — and appeared to have been the victim of a stabbing. Days after she was treated and began a mental evaluation, police said Tsygankova killed her daughters before attempting to stab herself, and she now faces capital murder charges as investigators say they are looking into alleged “homicidal violence.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “I’m not going to discuss what she told us. We do have reason to believe the stab wounds were self-inflicted,” David Babcock, police commander in Benbrook, Tex., told WFAA. “She’s still undergoing the mental evaluation. But she’s also held on our charges as well.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  Like her husband, Tsygankova, 31, was a competitive pianist. She was born in Russia “to a musical family,” one online biography noted, and “began to study music at age 6, and at age 9 won her first all-Russian contest.” She married Kholodenko in 2010, and the family relocated to Fort Worth after Kholodenko won the Cliburn. Kholodenko was often off performing; Tsygankova was committed to learning English.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “I have so many friends here and people are so kind to me, so I made the decision to stay,” Kholodenko said in 2014. “I would like to be part of this country.” He added: “It’s better for my daughters to raise [them] here.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Tsygankova said the couple was motivated to move by a skin condition for which her older daughter couldn’t get proper treatment, as well as by her desire to see her husband more often. “We didn’t see a lot of Vadym in Moscow when he’s traveling a lot,” Tsygankova said. “… It would be impossible for him to come home for one day between concerts.” She added: “We wanted to be together, with Vadym, to be a family, and for us, maybe it was the only choice for us to come here.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico At first, the family found lodging with Imelda Castro, an immigrant from the Philippines who hosted Kholodenko during the Cliburn competition. “I know how difficult it is not to have anybody when you are new in a place,” Castro said. “They are very good kids. … They are very easy to host and they like my food! That’s important.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico And the young couple was grateful. “It was incredible hospitality to have guests for half a year in your house,” Tsygankova said.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico However, classical pianists, particularly those embroiled in the cutthroat world of piano competitions, are not strangers to passionate music played for scrutinizing audiences under stressful conditions on the road. Something went wrong. The couple moved into their own home in 2014, but filed for divorce in November of last year. Kholodenko moved out, but continued to pick up his daughters in the morning. Police said they were called to the home on two occasions before the young girls’ deaths, but didn’t offer further details.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “The loss of my children will be with me forever,” Kholodenko said in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “But I would like to say that I feel the support of the Fort Worth community and all people who are sending me messages all over the world … Wherever I go after this tragedy my heart will stay with the people here of Fort Worth and my daughters will rest in this soil.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The Cliburn expressed condolences. “The Cliburn family is mourning the loss of the precious Kholodenko girls,” Maggie Estes, a spokesman for the competition, said last week. “We are heartbroken and offer our prayers to Vadym and all affected by this overwhelming tragedy.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Some said, however, that winning the Cliburn comes with a “curse.” “That usually refers to careers briefly boosted by winning one of the top prizes in the quadrennial contest, then sinking into second-tier status, or worse,” Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News wrote.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Cantrell noted tragic outcomes for three Cliburn winners: Steven De Groote, a South African who won the gold in 1977 only to crash a small plane outside Phoenix in 1985, suffering terrible injuries before dying of AIDS in 1989 after receiving a transfusion of tainted blood; Alexei Sultanov, a reportedly difficult teenager who won the Cleburne in 1989 only to suffer strokes and die in 2005; and José Feghali, who shot himself in 2014.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “He took things to the absolute edge of the cliff, and it was very exciting to hear,” a Cliburn administrator said after Sultanov’s death. “He wasn’t afraid to take a chance on stage, and there aren’t a lot of pianists who do that. But that worked for him, and it worked against him.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Cantrell said that winning the Cliburn comes with accolades, but it also comes with a grind. “Some performers thrive for years in this rat race, but others become burned out and resentful,” he wrote. “Lengthy periods away from home take tolls on families and relationships, too. Kholodenko was often on tour for long stretches, leaving his wife, newly moved from Russia to Fort Worth, with a young daughter and a baby. You can imagine the stresses.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Kholodenko and Tsygankova, after they relocated to Fort Worth, appeared ready to overcome such challenges. Though what happened is not yet clear, it is clear that they didn’t. “It’s very important for me to be here so that I can hear my husband and how he’s practicing,” Tsygankova said in 2014. “Most of the time, his playing teaches me how to do it, and it changes me as a musician also and makes me better.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Be clear on cleanliness to avoid conflict with your roommate

When Bryan Norrington has new renters sign a roommate agreement promising —among other things — to keep the place neat and clean, it’s nothing personal. It’s about avoiding drama in the long run. “In my experience with roommates, I’ve realized that there’s a certain level of cleanliness that I like to have in the common space,” says Norrington, 30, an economist who owns a four-bedroom house in Fort Totten and rents out two of the rooms. When living with roommates, apartment cleaning can become a battlefield. For some, tidying up is second nature, while others take to heart Phyllis Diller’s famous quote: “Housework can’t kill you, but why take a chance?” While it can be a challenge for a neat freak to room with a clutterbug, here are a few tips for keeping things neat to keep the peace. **Set ground rules**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Renters might save themselves some conflict by screening for a good housekeeping fit on such websites as Roommates.com, Easyroommate.com and Roomiematch.com.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico New or potential roommates should have a conversation upfront to figure out which areas they expect will be clean. In Norrington’s case, his roommate agreement covers common areas, but bedrooms are off-limits. “What you do with your space is fine as long as smells don’t start seeping out or we don’t have rodents,” he says. “What you do in your room is your business.” Get outside perspectives from people you don’t live with on what they consider deal-breakers — be it hair in the sink or piles of unopened mail — and see if you would, too. There might be things you never realized. “Then you can have a discussion,” he says. “People can be honest and say, ‘Yes, I’m capable of doing X and not Y,’ and you can either compromise or decide it’s not the best idea to live together.” **Call in the experts**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Before dietitian Maggie Sommers, 30, moved into a one-bedroom rental in Foggy Bottom with her fiance, she turned to outside experts to solve any neatness issues before they started. Consultants from Neat Method (855-232-6328), a home organization company, helped with the move and set up an organization system in their new place from Day 1.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “I’m so crazy-organized,” Sommers says. “You never want to start off on the wrong foot.” The company created logical plans for where to put things, bought gear from the Container Store, and walked the renters through the new system. “It’s been all stuff we’ve been able to keep up with,” Sommers says. “You save yourself a bunch of silly fights.” Marissa Hagmeyer, director of marketing for Neat Method, says most of their clients are couples in which one person is much more organized than the other. “That’s a great time to call in a third party,” she says. “It’s someone else correcting and giving advice.” In the end, the less organized person gets as much peace from the living situation as the super neat one, Hagmeyer says. A typical job in D.C. costs between $300 and $5,000, depending on the number of rooms, size of the home and amount of clutter. Hiring cleaners — which can cost upward of $60 for two hours — can help, too, though Hagmeyer points out that a clean but disorganized house might still look like a mess. Norrington and his roommates split the cost of a biweekly service to sweep and dust and clean the bathrooms. This way, Norrington knows the cleaning isn’t just lip service. “Somebody may just take a paper towel and wipe something and say, ‘I cleaned the bathroom,’ ” he says. **Choose your battles**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If it’s too late to screen your roommate, or if your roommate happens to be your significant other, be careful how you approach cleanliness conversations, says couples therapist Keith Clemson. A softer approach will always win out over a critical one, and make the other person more willing to compromise. “There are ways to do it and ways not to do it,” says Clemson of Therapy Group of DC (202-601-3368). “Just say, ‘We differ on this, and your way isn’t wrong and my way isn’t wrong.’ ”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Norrington says it’s also important to choose your battles. “There are some things that aren’t that big a deal and there are others that are extremely important to you,” Norrington says. “Those are the ones you find a diplomatic way to communicate.” Whether you’re the neat roommate or the messy one, try these tips from Marissa Hagmeyer of home organization company Neat Method to keep the peace in your place. **Make sure** **everything** has a home, and everyone knows where those spots are.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Keep everyday items** close to the dishwasher and keep similar items close together.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Set a regular time** to go through a space, say every other week or once a month, and get things in order.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Create organization systems** that work for both of you. E.B.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Post a rigorous weekly cleaning schedule on the fridge without discussion and hand your roommate a broom as soon as he or she comes home from work. Complain to the landlord that your roommate never makes the bed. Close your roommate’s door whenever he or she leaves it open, and hang a sign on it that reads “hazardous waste.” Dust the TV while his or her favorite show is on. _*To actually change your roommate, do the exact opposite._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Read more from Ready to Rent:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico How to keep your rental’s heating costs low this winter    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Local renters make the best out of weird layouts    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Renters share a roof with shops in Old Town Alexandria    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Here’s where to go to furnish miniature spaces

As city condos and apartments shrink to 450 square feet and smaller, residents sometimes find furnishing these miniature spaces challenging. A full-size sofa or dining table or even a coffee table can overwhelm a small space. So furniture companies are stepping up their offerings for small living quarters. **Orange22 Modern** , a U.S. based subsidiary of **Design Lab** , recently launched a miniaturized version of its Minimal Wall Desk, a workstation that mounts to the wall. In 2010, the company launched its “Minimalist Collection” consisting of bent wood furniture inspired by Charles and Ray Eames and made from sustainably sourced materials.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[Micro-units coming to desirable locations in the District]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Buyers can order the Minimal Wall Desk online, and it arrives fully assembled and ready to mount at whatever height works for it. Cables and a power strip can be hidden behind the desk and a pull-out section can accommodate a keyboard or a tablet and a mouse. The Minimal Wall Desk is 16 inches deep, with the large size 51 inches wide and the small size 36 inches wide. The desks cost from $550 to $700 and are available in red, black, white, rift oak and walnut. For more information, visit _http://orange22modern.com/collections/minimal- collection_.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _ **Michele Lerner** is a freelance writer. To pass on a tip or news item, contact us at _realestate@washpost.com_ and put “Town Square” in the subject line._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

When boyfriend’s friends overstay their welcome

__Adapted from a recent _online discussion. _ _ _ _Dear Carolyn:_ _Ever since my boyfriend and I moved in together earlier this year, I have been uncomfortable with the amount of time his friends “Jim” and “Dave” spend at our house. They come over anywhere from two to five nights EACH WEEK, often showing up unannounced. They will say they’re just coming over to watch TV and have “a” beer, which usually turns into three, and don’t leave till after I’ve gone to bed. This happens weekdays and weekends, whether or not my boyfriend and I already have plans with each other._ _At first, my boyfriend acted helpless about it (“I can’t stop them from coming over”), but when I called him on that, he switched to a new defense: “I shouldn’t have to give up my friends just because we live together.” I’m at the end of my rope. Any suggestions?_ **You, Me, Jim and Dave** One: washingtonpost.com/   rentals. _Carolyn:_ _I appreciate your response, and I’m sure you’re right — but assuming I do want to stay in the relationship, do you agree with me that it’s reasonable to want a few nights a week with no drop-ins?_ _Also, I wonder whether the rules are any different because we are not married and hence my rights are more those of a roommate vs. a wife. If I promise to check out rentals, will you please offer a tiny bit more guidance for the interim?_ **You, Me, Jim and Dave again** Oh, all right. First, the rules are _not_ different with or without marriage, because this is about your consideration of each other’s needs, and that would apply if you were married 50 years or just good friends and roommates. Next, his current defense cuts both ways: “I shouldn’t have to give up my friends just because we live together” turns around nicely to, “Okay. And I shouldn’t have to give up my quiet time just because we live together. So doesn’t it make sense that we both have to give a little, out of respect for each other?” If he’s a tool about it even after you put it that way, then: washingtonpost.com/rentals. _Re: Jim and Dave:_ _Being “a tool about it” includes his going along with it while painting you as the shrewish mean-mommy girlfriend who won’t let him have his guy fun. (Watch a few beer commercials, and you’ll see what I mean.)_ **Anonymous** Yes, seen them. Thanks. Why those commercials are so offensive, and why I’m not inclined to suggest ways to fix or save this relationship, is that they both rest on the idea that Woman wants only to snuggle with Man, and Man wants only to hang with Buddies. Ugh. Not only is that worldview an insult to human complexity, it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy: It trains both men and women to accept as “normal” a relationship in which one or both halves of the couple would rather be somewhere else or with someone else. I just can’t see the point in that. Write to  Carolyn Hax , Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or tellme@washpost.com. Sign up for Carolyn Hax’s column, delivered to your inbox early each morning, at http://bit.ly/haxpost.

I’m in a committed relationship. But I’m also single.

My boyfriend and I recently started sharing a Google calendar. Until then, we’d been sending each other event invitations, which had been a perfectly sufficient way to organize our time together. Establishing the joint calendar seemed like a symbolic move toward a committed relationship, and I haven’t been in one of those for a long time. After the amicable end of a 16-year marriage, I lived alone for the first time at age 39 and loved it. I stretched out like a starfish in bed with my cat each night, ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches for dinner, explored far- flung places alone or with friends. I even hosted an artist who lived in a “transparent polycarbonate enclosure – a bubble, basically” for a week in my living room. I had full control over my budget, and I made plans with minimal consideration for anyone else’s schedule. I declared my intent to live solo for the rest of my days.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Nonetheless, I have missed the benefits of being partnered with someone who “gets” me. I missed the large repertoire of inside jokes my husband and I developed after meeting in college, when our friends would gather every Sunday night to watch the first season of “The Simpsons.” I missed never losing at board games whenever we played as a team. We’d renovated two homes together, survived the rigors of graduate school, learned how to run a small business, bought art, traveled the world and taken lots of long walks. We spent time apart, as well. When I was in law school, I met my friends Bill and Steve for weekly pints at our neighborhood pub to discuss torts and criminal law. For several seasons, my friend Ken and I dominated doubles sand volleyball in our local adult league. I learned to surf with a girlfriend at a week-long camp in Costa Rica, and then took surfing vacations without my husband every year. I believed we had a cool and enviable marriage that was superior to couples who shopped for groceries together on the weekends and never vacationed independently. Toward the end of our marriage, I began yearning for even more autonomy. Unsurprisingly, my husband rejected my suggestion that we live in separate condos in the same building. Neither of us wanted to divorce, but that’s what we ended up doing. In the seven years since, I’ve gotten all the independence I wanted. I’ve thrived personally and professionally. I have a close circle of friends who took care of me when I had cancer. They’ve been my sounding boards when I’ve made big life decisions and have hiked mountains with me. They’ve been the ones I call when I have good news, and who defend me when I’ve been disparaged. I also love the social independence of being single — I’ll attend three art events in one night, have a late-night drink with a friend or go to a concert on a school night. Few things bore **** me more than the idea of couples’ dinner parties where we talk about mortgage interest rates and child-care woes, then read in bed until lights out at 10:15 p.m. Nevertheless, I have missed having a steady, romantic partner.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Since my divorce, most of the men I dated either wanted too much commitment or absolutely none. I found myself doubting whether it was possible to have autonomy and be in a committed relationship — to be, essentially, a singleton and a smug married. Then I met my boyfriend. We fall asleep with our arms and legs tangled together and wake up drooling and gunky-eyed but still entwined. We laugh frequently and easily and have amassed a growing set of inside jokes. I have been improved by his thoughtful and sensible advice, and friends tell me that I beam when I speak about him. He gets me! But could I continue to live the single life I’d been enjoying? He has 50 percent custody of his two children. A significant portion of the other half of his time is spent working, hanging out with his friends and training for triathlons. The time he has left over to spend with me has been only slightly less than the amount of time I want to spend with him. I have been able to continue living mostly the same as I have for the past seven years, because we have plenty of time apart. Living single within this devoted and emotionally intimate relationship has worked for us so far. I wonder what’s next for us after the Google calendar. **READ MORE:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If you hate conflict, you might be happier single    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico When dating in your 40s, is it better to be divorced or never married?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We’re 40-something women who love being single — for now    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Three victims fatally shot in Prince George’s identified

Other than some black fingerprint powder around the front door, there was little indication Saturday that three people were killed the night before inside a small house on Orleans Avenue in District Heights. Prince George’s County police said that five people were shot inside the one-level gray Cape Cod-style house, and that three of them were dead when officers arrived. The victims were identified Saturday as Carlina R. Gray, 50, who lived there; Jan M. Parks, 55, of Landover; and Allen Wayne Rowlett, 60, of Laurel. The two surviving victims were hospitalized, one in critical condition, police said Saturday. Police did not have a suspect and declined to discuss a motive or how the shootings went down. Cpl. Nicole Hubbard, a police spokeswoman, said Saturday that investigators did not think the crime was random but that she had no further information to release about the triple homicide. Gray and her boyfriend, who survived the shooting and whose name was not released, rented the house in January from its owner, Babu Davis, a realtor in Silver Spring. Davis said that he had not had any problems with the couple, that he had visited the house in recent weeks and that he has owned the house for six years. He had not been contacted by police and learned of the slayings on his property from a reporter. Gray’s sister, Meredith Bailey, said “Lina and [her boyfriend] were just the neighborhood couple. Their house was the place you went to hang out and have somebody to talk to.” She said that her sister and boyfriend had been together for 10 years, that they did not have any children and that Gray was a homemaker and her boyfriend was a general contractor. “She always had a kitchen full of food, if anybody was hungry,” Bailey said. “Everybody was welcome. It is small, but she always made do. The inside was lined with couches if you needed a place to crash. Everybody in the neighborhood knew her.” Bailey said her family was from Pittsburgh but moved to the area years ago and remained loyal Steelers fans. She said that her sister graduated from Carrick High School in Pittsburgh. The couple had a pit bull, Cinnamon, whom at least one neighbor heard barking on Friday night. The families of Parks and Rowlett declined to be interviewed Saturday. The crime scene was not cordoned off with yellow police tape or guarded by an officer Saturday, though the front door had a new padlock and red evidence tape sealing it. Some windows were open, though curtains and shades were drawn, and a side porch light remained on. Neighbors in two different houses said they heard noises around the time that police were summoned to the house about 9:35 p.m. “I heard one shot,” one neighbor said. “Then I heard some dogs barking. I didn’t really hear a lot of noise.” “It’s a quiet neighborhood,” the neighbor said. “Mostly homeowners, a few renters.” Another neighbor said she heard something hit her house but did not see any evidence of a bullet or damage. One neighbor who had been inside the house said it was very cramped. Real estate records indicate the house was built in 1929 and has 857 square feet of space inside. Davis said it had two bedrooms and one bathroom. “They had a lot of company,” one neighbor said of the residents. “You had different people coming. There’s no telling what they were doing.” Bailey said that she did not think anything illegal was going on and that it was simply the house where everyone in the neighborhood knew they could go to hang out. “If you needed to vent, she was the person to go to,” Bailey said. “I just went over there last week, I’d had a bad day. She gave me a hug, told me everything was going to be okay, told me she loved me and that was it. And that’s the last time I saw her.”

D.C. couple on a tight budget tries for ‘net-zero’ power on fixer-upper home

Energy-efficient, solar homes tend to be brand-new architectural gems powered with the latest — and priciest — technology. But a couple who bought a century-old fixer-upper on Capitol Hill in 2013 are proving you don’t have to be rich to embark on a “net-zero” quest. A net-zero home is one that produces all of its own clean and renewable energy. They tend to be new construction or gut remodeling projects because it’s easier to get to net zero by building super-insulated spaces that don’t require much to heat and cool, then add top-of-the-line geothermal heating systems, heat pumps, solar panels and other “green bling” to operate them as efficiently as possible. Patrick Hughes and Amy Sticklor began their do-it-yourself approach in fall 2013, shortly after purchasing their first home in Washington’s Atlas District. Instead of replacing big-ticket items such as the aging furnace and boiler (both of which still have a few years of service left in them), they slashed their energy usage in half with less than $500 in insulation, new lighting and other equipment available at the average hardware store or online. Updates alone made it possible to run their entire 952-square-foot, two-bedroom home for several months of the year without exceeding the amount of energy produced by the solar array they had installed on their rooftop. Their utility bills have plummeted. In environmental terms, meanwhile, Hughes says the couple have saved 1,238.5 kilowatt-hours of power by lowering their energy usage alone. That’s equivalent to planting 22 tree seedlings that would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 10 years or driving 2,033 fewer miles. “It goes to show that you can get really significant energy savings without spending a lot of money,” says Hughes, who has done most of the handiwork and tracks the couple’s progress on a spreadsheet. From the outside, their brick Colonial doesn’t look much different from the other attached rowhouses on the block. The solar array on the flat rooftop isn’t visible from the street. Inside, too, the energy-saving updates are so discrete that they don’t stand out in the house built in 1900. The off-white walls and dark wood floors offset the large collection of books. Like many newlywed households, there’s a mishmash of furniture that survived the merger of Hughes’s and Sticklor’s lives. You have to look closely to discern the energy-saving changes. Three minimalist black pendant lamps hanging above the glass-topped dining room table are one of Hughes’s favorite upgrades. He installed them himself using products made by Southwire Co. While the LED bulbs in the lamps use very little electricity, they give off a cozy soft white light just like the old fashioned, energy-hogging incandescent bulbs. It was crucial to reduce their energy usage to make it feasible to run the house on no more than the energy that can be produced by the relatively small 2.2 kilowatt solar array installed by San Mateo, Calif.-based solar power provider SolarCity. The solar panels have generated 2,580 kilowatt-hours of energy since they first went up in February 2014 through the end of May. Counting their reduced energy usage, the couple have garnered a total savings of 3,818.5 kilowatt- hours, or 5,805 pounds of climate-changing carbon dioxide. This is the equivalent of not driving 6,269 miles, which is like taking your car off the road for more than six months of the year, according to the EPA’s clean energy calculator. From May through September last year, the panels easily out-produced their household needs, but official net-zero status requires 12 consecutive months without the need for additional energy, a target that has proved more elusive even as they move closer to achieving it. The decision to sign a contract with SolarCity, essentially renting their roof to the company, saved Hughes and Sticklor from a large upfront investment in the panels, while locking in a rate of about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, 45 percent less than the nearly 15 cents an hour paid to Pepco before the panels went up in late February. Having just signed a mortgage on the $505,000 home and in the midst of planning their wedding, they didn’t have a lot of extra cash when they began the project in late 2013. But what they lacked in capital they made up for in working knowledge and a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint. They are both environmentalists who met while working on climate-change policy at the United Nations Foundation’s Pennsylvania Avenue NW offices. Today, Hughes is director of government relations at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). He even managed to tie his home-improvement project to his job — using light bulbs, lighting sensors and solar energy equipment manufactured by NEMA members, and blogging about his efforts on the organization’s Web site. (Hughes installed the dining room pendant lights, for instance, with technology made by NEMA member Southwire Co.) Sticklor says she became environmentally conscious after seeing the devastation Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans in 2005, when she was attending Tulane University in the city. In May, she finished a master’s degree at Georgetown University and hopes to soon work on climate change mitigation in the developing world. They are such committed environmentalists they weaved their eco-consciousness into their wedding in May 2014. Instead of cut-flower centerpieces, they used potted daisies, azaleas and other flowers that guests could take home and plant in their own gardens. They also had a green wedding registry that allowed invitees to help them with their net-zero quest by selecting environmentally friendly gifts instead of the traditional stemware or home appliances. “I haven’t seen such a green registry before, but I definitely was not surprised,” says Sticklor’s friend since childhood, Alex Doty. Doty and her boyfriend bought the couple a backyard composter from the registry. “It was nice to get them what they wanted.” Other guests bought them a push lawn mower and contributed cash toward bigger investments such as the new front and back doors and an energy-efficient boiler the couple had picked out and are still saving for. “They always talked about doing something like this,” Doty said of the net-zero project. “All of our friends aspire to being as green as they are.” Indeed, Hughes and Sticklor may have taken their DIY quest further than your average homeowner. But they are among a growing number of people interested in living more sustainably, according to experts. A quarter of all new single-family houses built in 2014 qualified as green, up from just 2 percent of the market in 2005, according to McGraw Hill Construction Dodge Forecast. The value of green single-family housing starts will reach as much as $80 billion by the end of 2016, more than 10 times its value in 2005. Nearly 80 percent of the builders who responded to McGraw Hill’s most recent green building survey said they expect it to be part of the standard services by 2018. The dramatic shift to new energy conservatism is fueled largely by growing awareness of how the nation’s seemingly insatiable demand for power is harming the planet, says Courtney Baker, residential product manager at the U.S. Green Building Council, which oversees LEED, the country’s leading “green building” standard. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity used by homes and businesses to fuel heating, air conditioning, lighting and appliances have increased by 26 percent since 1990. “The surge of consumer electronics, flat-screen TVs, laptops and cellphones have caused a surge in energy demand. Now we’re seeing an increase in smart systems and sensors designed to save energy,” Baker says. The trend, he says is driven by “a mix of [concern about] sustainability but also convenience,” referring to, say, a programmable thermostat that turns up the heat automatically before you get out of bed in the morning. More do-it-yourselfers like Hughes and Sticklor could be a very good thing for the planet, according to Baker. “If we can get 10 million homes to do this, it would be significant” to reducing the carbon footprint of U.S. buildings, he says. To revamp their century-old home, Hughes and Sticklor deployed a three-part strategy: reduce the amount of energy it takes to keep the lights on, kill the “vampire energy” and stop throwing away money on heating bills. “Some of the things, we would have done anyway — like installing the sensors and changing to LED light bulbs,” he says. “Some of the other projects, like adding the insulation, was more involved and kind of messy. It probably wouldn’t have been worth the effort, except that we were looking for that small, incremental energy saving to reach our goal.” They signed up for Pepco’s Energy Wise Rewards Program, allowing the company to turn down their air-conditioning for short periods during times of peak summertime energy demand in exchange for reduced electric bills and a free programmable thermostat. Pepco pays more for energy during those spikes in demand, and the environmental consequences are higher, too, since the country’s oldest, dirtiest and least-efficient plants are usually powered up to meet demand. For further savings, they made a few lifestyle changes, stringing a clothesline in the back yard, for instance, to dry bulky items such as sheets and towels. They say it was surprisingly easy to cut their energy consumption by being more conscious of how they used energy and eliminating waste whenever possible. The biggest energy savings came from reducing the house’s lighting load. Besides replacing every light bulb in the house with energy-saving LEDs and motion sensors and daylight sensors to light switches, they replaced a few light fixtures with lower-energy models, including a solar-powered backyard spotlight. Those changes alone allowed them to reduce the amount of electricity used to light their house by 85 percent, which helped drive down by one-half their overall energy usage, without even factoring in solar power production. Their electric meter first started spinning backwards (a sign they were producing more solar energy than the house needed) in May 2014. By September, they had built up a hefty “net positive” energy balance. But just as it looked like they’d met their goal, their aging roof sprang a leak and needed to be replaced, a fix that set them back $10,000. It also required removing the solar panels, dashing their hopes to complete a year at net zero by spring. The couple paid a little extra for a new white roof made of recycled material that reflects solar rays and should reduce their summertime air-conditioning needs. But the solar panels spent six weeks idling in the back yard. To compensate, the couple signed up with Arcadia Power and pay $5 a month for wind-generated “clean energy” carbon offsets to more than cover what Hughes estimates is about a 20 percent differential between the house’s energy usage and its energy-generating capacity. “It seems like a great project,” says Andrew Corral, green building and training manager for Elysian Energy, a company that tests energy efficiency for several green building certification programs. But, Corral adds, even if the roof had held, the couple probably wouldn’t be able to achieve year-round net-zero energy usage without replacing their furnace with a higher-efficiency model or adding more solar panels. But that doesn’t diminish what they’ve achieved to date, he says. “Patrick and Amy have attempted a very difficult task,” says Corral, who adds he’s impressed by how much they’ve been able to cut their home’s energy usage. Hughes and Sticklor should be commended, Corral says, but he also expressed concerns about Hughes’s DIY insulation work. On older homes, tightening up the building can lead to condensation, mold or sometimes more serious carbon monoxide buildup unless the structure has adequate airflow. He suggested they get a home energy audit to make sure they won’t have air quality problems this winter. While Corral’s assessment is disappointing, the couple continue to work toward their net-zero energy goal since the solar panels went back up on the new roof in November. Both Hughes and Sticklor say they’re surprised and happy with how far they’ve already come to their goal, even without replacing their old, inefficient furnace and boiler. “The whole experience has been so much easier and so much less expensive than I thought it would be,” says Sticklor, adding she’s merely made a small shift in the “mental checklist” she goes through before purchasing. Now she thinks about energy usage along with the usual considerations of cost, size and style. “You just have to think a little more,” she says. “I don’t think it’s changed our lifestyle at all.” **Christine MacDonald** is a freelance writer.

‘Wild’ and 5 other movies about camping

In “Wild,” Reese Witherspoon plays Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (which is like the Appalachian Trail, but on the other side of the country). She backpacks her way from California to (almost) Canada, joining these other movie campers. **‘Moonrise Kingdom’**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Two preteen lovers take a hike; since the movie is directed by Wes Anderson, they discover that the outdoors is great because it has lots of perfectly placed scenery. **‘The Blair Witch Project’**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Three film students combine camping with witch hunting. They discover they should have stuck with fishing and drinking beer by the campfire. **‘Troop Beverly Hills’**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A spoiled housewife takes over her daughter’s pseudo-Girl Scouts troop and instructs them in the art of roughing it in one-star hotels. **‘The Edge’**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In “The Edge,” a man and his wife’s boyfriend have to lean on each other to survive after a plane crash in the wilderness. If you can’t trust your wife’s lover, who can you trust? **‘The Kings of Summer’**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This 2013 indie follows three teenage guys who build and move into a haphazard shack for the summer, proving they can survive without air conditioning, parental supervision or Wi-Fi.