This week’s edition of Photos Of The Week is crazier than a Chinese traffic jam!

Hey – when are we getting our own twenty-lane super-highway?

I’d like to start this week with a little feature called “How Not To Tile.”

Have a look at the photo below, and you’ll catch my drift:

Step 1: Do not use kitchen backsplash in your shower.
Step 2: Do not use vertical tiles horizontally.
Step 3: On second thought, just stop what you’re doing, and back away from the grout!

Speaking of tile, I was in a condo last week with one of the more bizarre finishes I’ve ever seen.

In a 3-year-old building, you’d expect to find hardwood flooring (or laminate or engineered hardwood) in the living and dining room, and either the same finish in the bedroom, or perhaps carpet.

We’re talking condo here, not a house where crazy people can do crazy things.

But this condo had nothing but TILE everywhere!  These photos simply can’t speak to just how nuts this place was:

This truly is “trying to sell the unsellable.”

I’m sure this is a cultural thing – the photos on the wall in this condo show that the owners come from another part of the world, perhaps a place where tile has a luxurious connotation.  But in the kitchen, living, dining, bedroom, and bathroom in a 3-year-old condo!?!?  It was utterly bizarre.  I’ve never seen that before.  Ever.

Now, onto a subject that will send a shiver down the spine of any Realtors reading this, although anybody who has not gone condo shopping in the last five years may not care.

“Lockbox.”  It’s a bad word.  It immediately conjures up feelings of frustration, and images of trekking through the snow, trying to find a grey MASTER lockbox in the cold.

If you’ve ever been to 50 Lynn Williams in Liberty Village, they finally decided to “help” Realtors by installing these two stripper-poles for us to put our lockboxes onto.

Have a look:

Here’s a closeup, and keep in mind that there are two of these poles, each with 25 lockboxes on them.

Do you know what it’s like trying to get to the 17th lockbox down that chain?

Or how about when there’s no indicator – no “blue ribbon” or “red dots” on the lockbox.  You just get a code – “LBX 1980 On Pole.”  That’s a sure-fire way to ensure nobody shows your listing!

Here’s the lockbox solution at 138 Princess Street.

So what is my problem with this?

Well, there are twenty-two lockboxes, and only four units for sale.  Realtors LOVE to forget where they left their lockboxes…

Same story at 155 Dalhousie Street.

Seven units for sale, twenty-seven lockboxes on site.

Finally!  A solution!

Here at Deoxyribonucleic Acid, or “Downtown’s Next Address,” if you prefer, property management have taken pity on poor Realtors who were accustomed to climbing the fence on Shaw Street in search of lockboxes, and they’ve installed this neat little cabinet in the lobby.  You have to register your lockbox with property management, and once the unit is off the market, management is aware, and your lockbox is removed if you don’t come and remove it.

What do you do when Lockbox Fever is getting to you?

Well, I suppose you could remain calm, and keep going.

Or just keep calm and carry on, as per this poster that is in EVERY condo I visit these days!  What is this?  Where did it come from?  Why does everybody have it?

It looks like a beer advertisement, but I’m told it’s a wartime slogan.  It’s basically replaced “green apples” as the number one cliché staging item.

And last but certainly not least, what do you do when you’re DYING to watch Homeland and Sons of Anarchy, but you refuse to pay Rogers, and you can’t stand how long files take to buffer on Putlocker or Firebox?

Well, you build your own antenna!

If your balcony faces the lake, and you know what you’re doing, you can fashion together something that looks like this, and steal signals from Buffalo:

How can you blame them?

Isn’t Homeland getting gooooooood?