KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app Cam I.
Am forty being everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Welcome Home.
I am Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. I design custom homes, I build custom homes, and I am your guide to better understand that place where you live today on the show. We look forward to doing this every year. This weekend, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we are going to be diving into this year's House Whisper Holiday Gift Guide. I've got
thirty items up on the gift Guide. We're going to take today and tomorrow's show to discuss them with you, to explain why they have made it, why they have ascended to the heights to belong on the gift Guide. And this is for the di wire, the person who makes stuff, the maker in your life and everything from stocking stuffers up to some seriously you know, one time, one off gifts, but most of them somewhere in between.
So it's the Holiday Gift Guide. I'm excited to dive into it with you, and of course we're doing that and your calls today as always taken calls. Anything you want to talk about that's got you scratching your head about your home. The number to reach me eight three three two. Ask Dean A three three the numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two. Ask Dean. I know you're full of turkey or whatever you ate this week and leftovers. I know you're a little bit sleepy. I'm
just letting you know. We've got plenty to talk about. But Saturday mornings light, light time and the best time to give a shot at calling in to get on the air. Why, because you know all of your peers and your competitors, many of them are asleep even as we speak. Because it's an early show, but not too early to have some fun talking about your home and also the gift guide. Today, let me introduce our awesome team to you. Sam is on the board wrangling our
live studio audience. Good morning, Sam, Good morning Dean. It's nice hearing you. It was good seeing you just in front of human beings last week. Last that was really cool last Sunday. Did you like the show? I thought it was a good show. I absolutely loved it. It was so nice seeing everybody out there, and really I look forward to those live audience shows with you because you really bring in the best crowd. And we had some
great guests too with us. We had Sharon Belli Oh from the Conway Show Legendary Share and she's just such a love. We had Neil Savadra, he's just such a love. And and we had Amy King, who is such a love. They were all just some of my best buds here at KFI who took time out of the No, we did not pay them extra money, No, they were just here out of the love of hanging out with their
buddy on the radio for a while. So I greatly appreciated and all of the listeners who turned out, all of the folks who turned up at Aldick Home after the show, big turnout over there, and Aldick homb for sponsoring the whole thing. The tree was gorgeous. Brian and Mada and and Rosie just made it just stunning. And then we gave it away. We gave it away anyway. It was a great time. We had a We had a hoot of a time, and I look forward to
doing that every year. That's always the Sunday before Thanksgiving and then we try our best the weekend after Thanksgiving which is today, to dive right into the holidays, because I know yesterday was Black Friday, Today is Small Business Saturday, and Monday is Cyber Monday. They're gonna end up with a name for every day of the week. Follow anything to just get your shopping for stuff anyway. I know you're going to be interested in that, and so we've
got a great gift guide for you. Matt Toffler standing by to take your calls today, and he wants me to let you know. The phone lines are wide open and he is ready. He'll tell you everything you need to know. He'll pop you into the queue. You can listen to the show while you wait. The number again eight three three two ass Dean and Eileen Gonzalez at the news desk. Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean. Good to hear your voice. Good to hear your voice. How are things going going good?
By the way, I'm sorry I didn't make it to your show, but I did see it on social media and it was a beautiful crowd and that tree was absolutely gorgeous, wasn't it.
I mean, you can't go wrong with an elder tree, but yeah, it was a stunner. I love the way they decorated it this year in particular. So yeah, it was a good time, and yes we missed you. But you're here now here in the dark hours, happy to be here Saturday morning. And I am very very glad that you're here as well. So Eileen's gonna have us handled with all of the news this morning. All right, there she is my early Christmas present, sitting across the
table from me. Now, some of you heard last week that Tina couldn't join us in studio at the Theater on the live audience show because Tina underwent an unexpected abdominal surgery earlier in the week before last Sunday show, which she will be recovering from for some time. But I can and you know what, Yeah, I was nervous. Yes it was not a good thing, but it is a good thing because she came through with flying colors
and she's recovering incredibly well. And I am so thrilled to say that my best buddy in the world, my design partner, the co founder and co owner of House Whisper, is sitting across the table from me. Yet again. Good morning you, oh, good morning. How are you feeling so much better?
I was just thinking that I was with you last Saturday in here and it was a rough one. I was, I was struggling. But today, you know, I felt so much more myself.
You're a little over, like we're a week and for a week, wee can two or three days out almost.
Two weeks ago.
Yeah, and I feel so much better. Yeah, it was a thing. It was a thing the week's leading up I couldn't share with everybody, just it was a thing. There were some fears, there were concerns, there were nerves, and then the surgery took extra long, which was not easy on my nerves at all because Mike, I didn't notice anything. You didn't notice the thing. Keina woke up all groggy and said, oh, how was that was that short? I'm like, no, it was long. It took extra long,
just because they took extra care of you. But I'm telling you when you go, you know, when you're pushing two hours past where they said they anticipated the surgery to end, and there was no word. Yeah, I was not a happy camper at that point. I was just because you know what, my whole life was in on that table and you're out of control with it. And that's the truth. And here you are. Now my whole life on the other side of the table from me
where she belongs. All right, everybody, everybody, just grab a hot beverage. The holidays are here, by the way, it's official, right, we kicked them off last weekend. Now we're past Thanksgiving, we're into the slide towards Christmas, and we've got the Holiday Gift Guide coming up. Yeah, Fie Jean Sharp the house whisper. Hey, whether home for you as a condo or a cottage or a castle, I'm here to help you take it to the next level. We're gonna be
taking calls, and I'll tell you this. The nice thing about doing the Holiday Gift Guide is that I just get to bounce around between items on the Gift Guide. So as calls come in, I'm gonna be spreading them out through the show, as opposed to waiting all till you know our normal call segments. So we'll just take calls as they roll in, which means if you call in this morning, you won't be waiting on hold as
long as folks normally do. Here's the number to reach me eight three to three two ask Dean A three three. The numeral to ask Dean. Anything that's on your mind. Construction, diy design, Yes, please, anything that's got scratching your head about your house. I'm here to help you figure it out. Phone lines are open. Matt Toffler standing by. He'll tell you everything you need to know. So as you call in, I will do my best to turn away from the gift guide. Take the calls as they roll in. And
it's a minimal weight. It's a it's a lightning lane fast pass. I'm dating myself. It's not fast pass anymore, is it, Tina, It's lightning lane at Disneyland? Correct? Correct? What's that really expensive one? Where like, if you're you're super rich and pompous, you can you can spend.
Like four hundred bucks and just stroll.
Right in to just you just get on the ride, right, you just walk up and get on the ride, Yes, and just flaunt the fact that you've left the plebeians behind, the peasants out in the standby line. It's a little uh, it's a little haughty, and it's also crazy stupid expensive. All right. This is not meant to be an editorial on one of our favorite places, Disneyland. But the point is, what was my point. Oh for free. You can get
to the front of the line today. All you have to do is call in the show eight three three two ask Dean, all right, it is time. Let's dive in. First item this is a This is a great one. And by the way, this year's guide all tools and gear. This year, nothing but tools and gear on the guide. Sometimes I mix it up, sometimes I just go it's an all tools year, so very very useful for you who are thinking about getting gifts for that di wire in your life. Item one on the gift guide is
a folding utility knife from Milwaukee. Now, utility knives. Let's talk about utility knives for a moment. I love tool talk. This is just one of my favorite things in the world. Utility Knives are perhaps literally one of the most important tools in any any builders, any craftsman's arsenal of tools. I mean literally one of the most important tools. Blades are critically important, cutting instruments are critically important. And I
love a good knife as much as anybody. Okay, I love a good kitchen knife, I love a good pocket knife, I love a good bushcraft survival knife. I mean I love all knives for what they are. But I got to tell you when it comes to building, when it comes to craftsmanship, when it comes to being a maker. The utility knife. Now, what is the utility knife. It's the one that holds the little razor blades. The you know,
some people call them box cutters. Fine, that's actually a very very specific, dedicated utility knife that the blade does not extend much further than about a quarter of an inch. So every utility knife I know has one of those settings on them, or at least one of those areas where you can utilize it as a box cutter. But it's not a box color cutter. It is a utility knife. And why are they so dang important? Why are they such a brilliant invention, by the way, Well, simply because
it doesn't get sharper than a razor blade. And when you are needing a knife, especially in construction, you've got this paradox happening because you want the absolute sharpest knife possible. And let me re emphasize this for those of you who are not familiar with tool theory, this goes true for anybody who works in a kitchen as well. Keep your knives sharp. Sharp knives are the safest knives, just like sharp saws, any tool that has a blade that needs to be sharp, the sharper it is, the safer
it is. And I know some people are like, huh uhhh, it's very very simple explanation. One. You want that tool to do its job with the least amount of pressure on your hand or on your arm as possible, because it's when a saw blade is dull. It's when a knife blade is dull that you are having to push it through something saw back and forth instead of gently
gliding it through the material. And once that pressure is applied, that is when a little bit of mispressure, a little bit of misalignment, and that blade goes slipping and sliding where you don't want it to go. That's when you get yourself hurt. Okay, a dull saw blade bucks against the wood in the saw or whatever it is that you're cutting. That's when you get yourself hurt. The very very safest tools with blades are tools that are the
sharpest tools. Makes sense, I hope it does. Okay, remember that. So there's a utility knife that is specifically on the gift guide this year. I highly recommend it. I'm gonna explain its features to you. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
KFHI and six forty Light Streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Dean Sharp the House Whisper here with you on this Saturday morning post Thanksgiving.
Have you recovered? Do you still have a bit of a tum from all the eating on Thursday? Well, it's a beautiful weekend. Time to get out to stretch your legs a little bit, maybe do a little shopping, which is why, as always, we are doing our House Whisper Holiday Gift Guide today and tomorrow during the big show. Plus, we are taking your calls, and I've got some calls
on the board. I want to get to them asap here, So let me finish up this thought on the front item on our gift guide, which I've been waxing poetic on the value of a utility knife in every maker's arsenal, utility knives are simply fantastic because of the paradox of wanting a knife that's as sharp as possible, and also to do tasks with it in which you're going to damage the blade quite often. I mean you just be
able to push it in. And this is why utility blade exceeds the usefulness of even a really really good pocket knife. And because you know, and I've got a few pocket knives right of various types, locking blades and so on. The point is that you keep them sharp. They are never absolutely as sharp as a razor blade. I don't care how you know, well you sharpen them, and I can sharpen a knife really really well, but I mean, you can approach that level. But razor blades
are just what they are, the blades. But at the same time, sometimes, especially you do in construction work and building project stuff, you end up using a utility blade for you know, something nasty that's gonna damage it. I don't want to damage a pocket knife blade because that's
a big investment. And that's the real key for the utility knife, because you just switch the blade out, you turn it around right, two blades to every single blade, to cutting surfaces, You flip it around once and then you toss it and bring in another one for super super cheap, so you have something that you can not worry about damaging. The invention must be given to Ukraine with it okay, and at the same time, you've got
the sharpest possible blade on your hands. So the holder for that, okay, the mechanism to hold on to it, the utility blade, This I think is one of the very finest ones on the market. We've gone through a lot of iterations. Classically, the utility knife was a retracting blade, and a lot of people find that to be, you know, very convenient. You know, the little button on the top
and you slide it and the blade comes forward. But if you know anything about knives or blades, you'll know that a blade that moves like that is never the most secure blade. In fact, many of you have experienced you're using the utility knife, you're bearing down on it, and then all of a sudden, the little catch that holds the blade out is overwhelmed by the pressure that you're putting on the blade, and it slides back in and messes up your cut. It just kind of messes
things up. In general, you don't want that blade moving on you. I much prefer a fixed blade utility knife, but one that folds and locks away so that the blade is not you know, sticking out. So the folding fixed blade utility knife that folds up, It folds up really small. It's got a great belt clip, it slides into your pocket, it's got blade storage, and the one from Milwaukee especially, you've got a beautiful thumb indentation grip in just the right place so you get your hand
on it in a really really excellent cutting way. And all of this for fifteen dollars. There you go, There you go, fifteen bucks. That's a stocking stuff for my friend. There you go. All right, you know what. We're at least going to start a call and then we'll come back to it if we need to. During the break, I want to talk to Gloria. Hey, Gloria, welcome.
Hi.
Hi.
Yes, I have problems with raccoons. You know, I have just a small portion of my backyard where I have different trees and bushes, no ground cover because they never grow because of the trees covering them. But I have a palm tree next shore. So the gardeners put a mesh netting and then covered it with mulch. Well, the raccoons like to dig, and I mean they dug to get those worms. They dug up an area where I
had the candy apple groundcover. It had just been planted, and I no longer have it on my slope like I used to. So the what happens is they dig, they want to get clean, they jump in my pool and they leave the dirt in the pool. It's a constant problem. Now. I've been told to put a powder that has a garlic smell to it, and that works. But if I wanted to sprinkle, then it's gone, or
if it rains, it's gone. So I'm was told by my gardeners they would put rocks, but that's not good because you need to have a flat surface when you put the ladder to top off, you know, to cut the limbs on the trees. So what can I do?
Raccoons, Yeah, they're adorable, and unless you have them darling, I know they're I mean raccoons. They're one of those things. I just always say they're Raccoons are adorable at a distance. They're adorable if they're not in your yard. But you know, and they're hard to deal with, absolutely no question. Because if you've ever looked at their hands, there's paws. I call them hands because you look at their pause. They have opposable thumbs. They have five fingered paws that can literally.
I mean they they're wearing a bandit's mask, you know, for a purpose, right, those guys could crack saves if they wanted to. So yeah, I feel you. Okay, So a few things. The big question is always this, how are they getting into the yard? To start with? Okay, how are they?
There are trees on my neighbor, you know, on my neighbor's side. On my they first crawled under a fence, so we put a rock there and that stopped them. But they have trees on my neighbor's side on the other side of the walls because we all have walls because there's a church built behind us, and they apparently go up the trees down over on the wall. My neighbors have seen them because they have they work late at night, so they have seen them. And I mean
they saw them in their yard. But you know, they have the normal slope that I have. Nothing would affect it, but you know, I wanted to see some color on my slope. I don't like the round yeah, you know, the round dirt that's very uh impacted. So they apparently get on the tree and climb on the wall and then jump over and climb back up.
You know you go, yeah, okay, all right, gotcha. All right, Gloria, I'm going to pop you on hold because we're at a break and when we come back, we're going to do our best to address this problem. Gloria can't deter raccoons from coming into her yard very easily because they've she's got natural bridges from the neighbors trees overhead. That's
always the first question to ask. We'll see if there's anything else we can do along those lines, and how do we protect that backslope groundcover from the raccoons as well? And then they get dirty and then they take a bath in her pool. All right, we're gonna deal with it the best we can. Gloria, you hang tight and we'll pick this one up. Dam I Fie Dean Sharp the House Whisper Welcome home. We are taking calls and also sharing with you this year's House Whisper Holiday gift guide.
We're going to get back to that in just a bit, but I've got some calls on the board, and I want to give you first priority. We've been talking to Gloria. I've got her back. I think Gloria's still with me.
Yes, yes, yes, So Gloria.
Is fighting with raccoons coming into her backyard, and so here here is the thing. So they're they're coming in the backyard via the neighbors trees and her trees hooking up and so it's a bridge. So there's no stopping that. Right, You have a backslope that you're trying to plant and they're tearing it up. And then they the audacity of getting dirty digging for worms in your in your groundcover, and then taking a bath in your swimming pool.
Well, I'm not concerned about the slope. I'm concerned about the flat part next to it. It's a smaller portion and it's flat, and that's where the trees are that need to be I have a lemon tree, and I have bushes and they create myrtle, So those would need to be trimmed by a gardener, and they need to put their ladder on a flat surface. So I don't think rocks will do it. You know, the geraniums will grow on the slope. The cherry apple thing was another
gardener's idea. It didn't work with the raccoons. It would have worked without them, but it didn't work with them. So I just throw geraniums, cut geraniums up on the slope and they start growing.
Okay, and there and they're and the problem is they're digging.
Right right right, and they've they've pulled up the whatever that netting was, and you know, there it just looks horrible. But I was I don't want rocks. I thought about those flat cement walking stones, but leaving space so that water can go through, you know, because I think it's important to have water into putting a new sprinkler system for the tree so that I could drip irrigation for each tree.
Okay, so I've got I've got some suggestions for you. We'll see how these play out. You could use some of them, all of them, none of them. You know, you're free to evaluate them. But here's the thing. One. I think you were on the right track with the netting. But here's the problem with the netting is it's just not ano raccoon. It's just not okay. So this is what we do. This is like the miracle cure when
it comes to gophers in a yard. You may have heard me recommend this before, but I like to actually put hardware cloth down. And when I say cloth, what we're talking about is metal mesh. Metal mesh. We stake down and cover metal mesh down on the area. In fact, the ultimate answer to like how do I keep gophers out out of my lawn is that you stop them from being able to come up from underneath, which means
we've done this with clients before. We will sod cut the entire lawn, remove it temporarily, and we will lay down overlapping rows of this metal mesh galvanized hardware cloth. It's metal, okay, It's like a chain link fence basically underneath the lawn. And then we'll lay the lawn back down and plants will grow through it. Water passes through it. But any like a gopher coming up from underneath, or a raccoon trying to dig down from up above, just
under the surface, they soon figure out. And here's the nice thing about raccoons. The bad thing about raccoons is that they're smart. And the great thing about raccoons is that they're smart. And so once they realize there's no access that every time I go in that yard and I start to dig on that flat portion for worms, I just come up with this. You know, my paws just hit this mesh, and I can't get anywhere. They
just literally give up and stop coming over. So a metal mesh staked down properly just underneath the soil level. It's not going to prevent you from doing anything you want up on the surface there at all. It's not going to cure the problem overnight, but it'll actually dispense them very very quickly. The other thing is that you could use cap Saysan. There are products out there that are literally named after raccoons, and let's see if I can find one here. Here's a product on Etsy right now.
I'm sure it's in other places called get Rid of Raccoons, and it's a deterrent paste. It does not wash away with the rain the way that the other stuff that you've used does. It's basically cap sasan based and that's a secret. Also with all sorts of rodents, rats, squirrels, they can't handle the heat, and so these granules are all over the place. Birds had no effect on birds because birds do not have these taste sensors for high heat.
In fact, one of the ways to keep rodents out of your bird feeders is to use capsaicin filled birds feed because they just won't do it. They won't touch it because it burns their mouths. But not for birds. The birds don't care. They're oblivious to it. So that's another thing. Predator urine. Yet another thing that on the perimeter. Maybe this is something literally you could spray with a Hudson spray or in the low lying branches or on the trunk of the tree. You're not gonna smell it,
but they'll smell it. So the idea of smelling a coyote or a cat as they're climbing down the trees to get into your yard will freak them out and will quite often keep them from coming into the yard. And again that will hold up for a long time in pluting after rains, especially if you spray it on tree trunks. And finally, and then I got to let you go here the final thing. If all else fails and you've got a clear shot to the area where they are spending their time, I've never seen this fail.
We set up a motion sensor rain bird irrigation head, not a driphead, but one of the old fashioned rain birds and spray across the yard. You can buy these now. You can find them at a plumbing supply. You can also find them at the big box store with a motion sensor valve sitting on top of the rainbird, And basically it's security system for pets. We protect ponds that have koy fish in them from predators like raccoons and great herons that want to fly down and steal fish
out of ponds. And basically you set it up so that any motion that's detected in this motion sensor, it sets the rainhead off and basically whoever is there in the area is gonna They're gonna hear the noise. They're gonna be freaked out, and if they stay, they're gonna get a face full of water, and nobody wants that. And they all run and they all clear out. And again, because they're smart, they will very very likely, very shortly thereafter stop doing that. So if all else fails, you
bring out the artillery. And by artillery, I don't mean traps or I mean water and a little water cannon to frighten them away. And believe me when I tell you that it works, and it works amazingly well, and for a lot of people, it's actually the most convenient and easiest deterrent to put into play because it's just a little bit of tie into the existing sprinkler lines,
get some water going there, and there you go. Gloria, thank you so much for your and I hope though there at least are two or three things there that you can add to your arsenal to deal with the raccoons as they come in to the yard and just shut them down, shut them down, not the not an easy chore to do. All right. When we return, we've got more of your calls and more of the Holiday Gift Guide. You are listening to Dean Sharp, The House
Whisper on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty