Episode 2033
Legislation, Recalls, and HGTV Drama: Your Midweek Update!
Eric G dives into a whirlwind of updates this week, kicking things off with the buzz around new housing legislation that’s making waves in the Senate. The Road to Housing Act of 2025 is all about tackling the affordable housing crisis, but let’s be real—there are still some hurdles to jump over, especially with land availability! We’ll also dish on a few recalls that might have you double-checking your home gadgets, including a shocking bug zapper and some mini fridges that are apparently not so chill. And, hold onto your paintbrushes, because we’re unpacking the drama surrounding the HGTV network and its recent collapse—yep, it’s not just the DIY shows that are in trouble. So, whether you’re a home improvement pro or just here for the gossip, grab your favorite snack and settle in for all the juicy details!
This mid-week episode is a treasure trove of insights as Eric G unpacks the latest in housing legislation, product recalls, and the slow-motion drama unfolding at HGTV. Our journey begins with the Road to Housing Act of 2025, a legislative endeavor that promises to tackle the ever-pressing issue of affordable housing. But hold your horses—Eric sheds light on the complexities of land availability that often get lost in the shuffle. With urban growth boundaries acting as barriers to development, Eric’s anecdotes from the front lines of home building add a personal touch to the stats and figures. He skillfully balances humor with critical analysis, making the intricacies of housing law engaging and accessible.
Next up, Eric serves up a spicy segment on product recalls that’s equal parts shocking and entertaining. We’re talking about electric bug zappers with a shocking twist and mini fridges that could easily double as fire starters. Eric’s light-hearted approach to these serious topics keeps us laughing while reminding us that consumer safety is no joke. His blend of wit and practical advice ensures we leave the segment not just informed, but entertained.
Finally, the episode takes a turn as Eric examines the decline of HGTV, a network that used to be a beacon of home improvement inspiration. With sharp observations and a touch of sarcasm, he critiques the shift from genuine renovation shows to over-the-top personalities and convoluted productions. Eric’s candid reflections resonate with listeners who’ve felt the same disillusionment, and by the end of the episode, we’re left wondering if the magic of DIY television can ever be recaptured. Throughout this engaging episode, Eric G proves once again that he’s not just a host—he’s our witty, insightful guide through the world of home improvement.
Takeaways:
- Eric G dives into the new bipartisan housing legislation, aiming to tackle the affordable housing crisis in our communities.
- We discuss the absurd urban growth boundaries limiting land availability, leaving us with a 2% buildable land rate in Oregon.
- HGTV is in hot water as it struggles with creative direction, leading to a wave of cancellations and changes in programming.
- Recent recalls highlight safety issues with household items like bug zappers and mini fridges; we need to stay vigilant!
- The episode wraps up with insights on how local governments can better facilitate housing developments to combat high costs.
- Eric G shares his personal experiences with the current state of Home Improvement TV, which is far from the quality we crave.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Monument Grills
- HGTV
- Deadline
- IMIR Inc.
- Curtis International
- Frigidaire
- Winston Products
- Ace Hardware
- Do it best
- Home Depot
- Walmart
- Bestway
- Intex
- Poly group
To get your questions answered by Eric G give us a call in the studio at 833-239-4144 24/7 and Eric G will get back to you and answer your question and you might end up in a future episode of Around the House.
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Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:The House with Eric G. Your go to source for everything home improvement.
Speaker B:Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric.
Speaker A:G. Is here to guide you through.
Speaker B:The latest tips, tricks and trends.
Speaker B:So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap, and let's get to work right here on around the House with.
Speaker A:Eric G. Welcome to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker A:I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining today.
Speaker A:This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.
Speaker A:I was just cooking on my Monument Grill last night.
Speaker A:I tell you what, that is a great way to cook some burgers.
Speaker A:Throw on a steak and they get hot enough.
Speaker A:If you want to cook a pizza, throw it on a pizza stone and that's an accessory that might come with the grill that you're purchasing.
Speaker A:So take a look at that.
Speaker A:To find out more, head to monument grills.com today in our midweek update.
Speaker A:And I wanted to make sure that we touched on a bunch of different stuff and there's some stuff that's going through the Senate right now.
Speaker A:And I jumped over to try to find some more information about this.
Speaker A: is the Road to housing act of: Speaker A:If you're listening on the podcast here now, they're trying to work on ways and this is a bipartisan bill which means it could be bad for everybody.
Speaker A:But they're trying to pass some basically new rules to help us get more affordable housing out there.
Speaker A:So I think that's cool.
Speaker A:I think it's a good idea.
Speaker A:The biggest problem we have though out there in many of the states, especially with us out west and especially on the left coast out here, is that we have things like the urban growth boundary and things that were designed to stop sprawl so we could have our beautiful mountains.
Speaker A:Except we have a shortage of land.
Speaker A:So in many of our states out here, like the state I'm in here in Oregon, we have a 2 or 3% vacant land rate out there that's buildable.
Speaker A:So we have all this acreage but nobody can build on it.
Speaker A:I was just talking to a buddy who is a builder, actually, he's a really well known remodeler in my area.
Speaker A:He came out here from North Carolina.
Speaker A:He ended up wanting to buy 10 acres here so he could put some homes on it and didn't realize that you couldn't put homes on it even though it was Very close to a urban area, it's because they wouldn't let you.
Speaker A:And so we have that out here.
Speaker A:If it's not in your state, many of the eastern states don't have that.
Speaker A:But the problem we have too is that a majority of our land here in the state of Oregon for instance and even in the state of Washington is state or federal land.
Speaker A:So it'll never be there to be built on.
Speaker A:So where many states on the East coast have 3 to 10%, we have a majority of it out here which is good that it's going to protect it.
Speaker A:But the problem is yeah, we've got a lot of land that you can't build on.
Speaker A:So reading through this bill and what's here and it like everything in Washington D.C. it's probably going to change a hundred times between now and the fall where it goes through.
Speaker A:But they've got a lot of little stuff in here like rental assistant demonstration plans, increasing housing and opportunity zones, Whole House Repair Acts which is a HUD pilot program to support state and local whole home repair programs.
Speaker A:I like this.
Speaker A:To provide grants forgivable loans to homeowners and landlords for home repairs.
Speaker A:I think that's great.
Speaker A:Some of this stuff here looks like it could be easily construed and made into special projects for cities that have less than optimal local government.
Speaker A:That's an issue that I see.
Speaker A:But what I see is there's some stuff here that's cool.
Speaker A:Streamlines review for broad range and housing related activities.
Speaker A:There's a lot of these kind of things and I like it.
Speaker A:Accelerating Home Building act which provides grants to local governments and tribes to select or implement previewed pre reviewed housing designs for ADUs, duplexes, townhomes to streamline affordable housing construction.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:That's pretty cool.
Speaker A:Those are things that we need to do.
Speaker A:The Build More Housing Near Transit Act.
Speaker A:I don't know about you but in my area here, because of crime, because of the schedule, because of everything else, our transit is seeing less and less people use it.
Speaker A:I think it's many times because of the crime in my area of Portland.
Speaker A:That's no secret to you out there that we have become a dumpster fire of the United States here.
Speaker A:And this was a beautiful city when I moved to it.
Speaker A:And there's a reason why I don't live in that county as well and I stay outside of the city.
Speaker A:Now here's another thing that they've got in here which I like.
Speaker A:So Manufactured Housing for America, the Housing Supply Expansion act.
Speaker A:It eliminates the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes, which means it's going to really give us space here where people can put in beautiful manufactured homes that will really be able to do something great and be affordable.
Speaker A:I think manufactured homes or factory built homes are what's going to be the future here for many of us, especially for entry level housing.
Speaker A:I think it's smart.
Speaker A:Many of the new homes that you're seeing are built better than what many of the large national builders are building in these things, they're just a better built house.
Speaker A:They're quality, they're healthier.
Speaker A:So there's a lot of little things in here.
Speaker A:Creating incentives for small dollar loan originators, small budget mortgage points and fees.
Speaker A:There's a lot of little things here.
Speaker A:This is one that I think is going to be interesting as well.
Speaker A:The Appraisal Industry Improvement act, which is going to reform appraisal licensing and training, enhance standards for FHA approved appraisers, adds flexibility for training appraisers and authorized grants to support appraisal workforce development.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:I like it.
Speaker A:So there's a lot of different things in here.
Speaker A:Is the choice in Affordable Housing Act.
Speaker A:There's a lot of little pieces in here for low income stuff and I like that.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot more that could happen here.
Speaker A:So we need to have really going through here.
Speaker A:I think there's a great thing that we can be doing here with this.
Speaker A:There's a lot of VA stuff.
Speaker A:But I think what we're missing in here that I just really don't see is that we need to work out a way with our state and local governments to make sure that they've got enough land available to build on.
Speaker A:And I think that's something they need to put in here.
Speaker A:I think it's a big issue.
Speaker A:I think in places here where we do have protections, I think we need to find.
Speaker A:We all love our wildlife, we all like going for a hike.
Speaker A:I'm not saying we teared out national parks and put housing in there, but I'm also saying that we should be working with the state and federal government and the state government, local governments working together to make sure that we have enough land out there to build on.
Speaker A:Because that's another issue.
Speaker A:They do have stuff in here as well that talks about taking empty commercial buildings, moving them into housing.
Speaker A:I think that's smart as well.
Speaker A:Heck, the downtown core of Portland's a ghost town in many places.
Speaker A:They should be putting those into condos, affordable condos that might help people out A lot.
Speaker A:So the problem that we have is we have a lot of different people, like home builders.
Speaker A:We have a lot of different people that got their hands in the pot here.
Speaker A:And anytime that's going through our legislatures, anytime that's going through government, there's a lot of special interests involved here.
Speaker A:I really hope that this can help.
Speaker A:And I think they really need to work on some of these other programs to really help people get into those homes, stay into those homes, and more importantly, make them affordable.
Speaker A:But passing some federal stuff is not going to really make them affordable.
Speaker A:In that what we need to be doing is working with our local governments to make sure that you don't have a $70,000 bill when you turn your plans in, that land is affordable to get in your area.
Speaker A:And I'm not talking about getting a waterfront lot.
Speaker A:I'm talking about in an infill lot in the middle of the city.
Speaker A:We should be working to get these things dialed in for everybody.
Speaker A:Now, it's funny, last week I was talking about HGTV and some of the crazy things that are going on.
Speaker A:And I gave my two cents and I'm happy to put that out there because Deadline, which is another great website for stuff that's going on in the media out there as well, they dive into HDTV is looking to become sexier as property crisis hits cable television, they go through all the shows that are canceled.
Speaker A:We've talked about that.
Speaker A:But there is one thing that they say here which is so typical of are Home Improvement television shows that are not this old house.
Speaker A:Here's some quotes of sources that revealed this to Deadline, and it shows you exactly what the problems are.
Speaker A:The more I look into this, the more I can see that you have TV hosts that are personalities that are out of control, that are running their own shows, which to me hasn't provided us with the best content.
Speaker A:I don't watch HDTV anymore.
Speaker A:I used to watch it just to catch up what's going on.
Speaker A:So when you people out there, my friends of the show, asked me questions about it, that I have the answers for you.
Speaker A:But guess what?
Speaker A:Probably two years ago, people stopped asking questions, which means people stopped watching.
Speaker A:And the problem is that we have these big personalities that many of you, we have the smartest audience here in Home Improvement that look and go, oh, you say you're a designer, but you're not a designer.
Speaker A:Oh, I can tell you how you're holding that trial, that trowel you have never set tile before.
Speaker A:These things show up in these shows and the problem is, and this is a quote that I looked at that I went, okay, here is a confirmation of the problem that I've thought.
Speaker A:Home Reno shows are expensive because all the materials are jacked up on the delay and on delay, the price of wood and marble and everything else is going up.
Speaker A:So these shows don't make much as much sense anymore.
Speaker A:Stuff wouldn't arrive on time.
Speaker A:We had wood floors, for instance, that would come in six weeks after we started production.
Speaker A:And then we're also depending on contractors.
Speaker A:Everyone knows if you're doing construction in your home, you never come in on budget.
Speaker A:So try to apply it to a show that has a strict budget.
Speaker A:One producer who makes renovation shows for the network told Deadline, some of our episodes took 16 weeks to shoot.
Speaker A:It's more labor intensive than doing a real estate show.
Speaker A:Here's the problem.
Speaker A:You've got producers and hosts that are running these job sites like they're a TV production.
Speaker A:If they were running these like a actual job site for once, guess what would happen?
Speaker A:The materials would be on the site before they showed up.
Speaker A:Everything would be there.
Speaker A:You'd have a garage full of stuff.
Speaker A:They'd come in, they do the show.
Speaker A:Of course, there's things that you might have to order later or figure out.
Speaker A:But if the flooring is showing up six weeks into production, they shouldn't have taken that into production.
Speaker A:That episode shouldn't have been in production.
Speaker A:They should have ordered the materials, got it there, got everything on like you would a normal project.
Speaker A:So I think that's the big issue right there.
Speaker A:You're seeing home and garden TV running these things like it's a TV production and they're forgetting how to run a job site.
Speaker A:And I think that's because many of these people haven't run job sites before.
Speaker A:That would explain what's going on now.
Speaker A:A bunch of recalls out there this week.
Speaker A:Eye Mirror recalls electric bug zapper.
Speaker A:Say that again.
Speaker A:IMIR Inc.
Speaker A:Recalls electric bug zapper racket fly swatter and mosquito swatter due to shock hazard.
Speaker A:That's not awesome.
Speaker A:The next one up here, there's a lot of bikes and a lot of stuff up there.
Speaker A:A lot of battery things.
Speaker A:Curtis International recalls Frigidaire brand mini fridges due to fire and burn hazards.
Speaker A:More than 700,000 reported in property damage.
Speaker A:These things look like tiny little mini vintage fridges.
Speaker A:There's about 634,000 of those things.
Speaker A:There's a lot, so be careful there.
Speaker A:Winston Products recalls 58 inch Hydrotech expandable burst proof hoses Due to risk of impact hazard and temporarily impaired hearing.
Speaker A:3.6 million of these retractable Hydrotec hoses sold at Ace Hardware.
Speaker A:Do it best, Home Depot, Walmart.
Speaker A:Watch out for those.
Speaker A:And of course, what we talked about last week, the big above ground pool recall, Bestway, Intex, Poly group recall, certain above ground pools.
Speaker A:So deaths reported, injuries reported.
Speaker A:Take a look at those.
Speaker A:We have a great show coming up this weekend.
Speaker A:We had where basically this weekend I've got two shows.
Speaker A:There were requests from people like you that went into our website@aroundthehouse online.com and said, hey, can you talk about this?
Speaker A:So we have some special requests coming up this weekend.
Speaker A:All right, everybody, I gotta get going.
Speaker A:I'm getting ready to pack up because I'm heading out for some R and R time this weekend, which I'm looking forward to.
Speaker A:I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning into around the House.
Speaker A:We'll see you on Saturday.
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Speaker B:We will see you next time.
