What I aim to provide are practical, affordable, and somewhat half-assed solutions to ordinary home and heart problems that need to be fixed for about as long as the term of your lease. We’re not talking This Old House, we’re talking This-Just-About-Functioning-House. In addition you will be privy to personal anecdotes, which will hopefully transform the feeling of “why me?” into “well at least I’m not her.”

If you have water pouring through a foot-wide hole in the ceiling or a raccoon living in your coat closet, my advice to you is to put this book down, grab the phone number of a professional, and exit the premises immediately for the nearest bar or coffee house. However, if you come face-to-face with a mouse or hole in your window screen the information provided here should have you mostly covered.

After a decade of living in apartments by myself, before ultimately marrying a less-than-handy man, I’ve amassed a wealth of tips, tricks, and techniques that have allowed me to fix up the most incredible household disasters—despite many being caused by, well, me. So before you start saving up for a drill capable of penetrating concrete, read ahead and see if there just might be an easier and cheaper way to do what you need to do!