Dear Barry,

My neighbor has a brick shed built against the side of my garage. It encroaches onto my property and prevents me from painting the garage wall. I'd like him to remove it, but he refuses because it was there before I purchased the property two years ago. The city building department sent him a notice, but he won't tear the shed down. What should I do? – Yve

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Dear Barry,

Our kitchen sink is plugged, and this is only one of several problems missed by our home inspector. When he checked the sink during the inspection, he ran the water for about two seconds, whereas it takes about 10 to 20 seconds for the water to back up. He also didn't tell us that the basement lights don't work or that the hot- and cold-water connections are backwards in the master shower. Was our home inspector negligent, and shouldn't the sellers have disclosed these problems? – Scott

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Dear Barry,

We've been living in a new home for two months now. We're having problems with our new dryer – it's simply not drying the clothes. A repairman found the dryer vent loose from the wall and also pointed out that the duct was made of plastic rather than metal and was full of lint. We're told there's no simple way to install a new duct. If we let the dryer exhaust blow into the house, we get drippy windows and lint on everything. Some stores sell special vent buckets for venting dryers indoors. Are these buckets OK? – Jamie

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