apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Can anyone recommend a mover to move a craigslist purchase? I want to buy a table that's too big for the subway or a cab. I'll need help getting home but I don't want to pay more for the mover than I do for the table. Thanks.

Posted this also on another Open Thread...

For all you Design Star fans, I'll be interviewing the first three "cancelees" later today (then each one voted off each week)... anything you want to know?

Molly A, I was pleased with a man named Deacon ( he has a moving company but I forget the name). He moved a big armoire that I had into storage at a reasonable rate last week. He does large and small moves and CL purchases. He's based in LI but does the boroughs. He can be reached at 917 676 1251.

P(2), I want to know:
*How well they feel the Design Star process adequately judges their design potential and talent vs being a barometer for "making good tv"?
*Who do they think will win?

Does anyone have experience with this Air purifier/Ionizer sold by the Vermont Country Store? http://www.tiny.cc/DqL3c
I'm looking for something to reduce dust in our apartment (huge amounts of dust have been building up on the air ducts, and it's bothering me that we must be breathing all that in), but it doesn’t have to remove any particular allergens (no one here has allergies or breathing problems). I generally trust the VT Country Store to have good quality products, and the price is better than ones I had looked at other places online. Thoughts?

Oh, the other thing that appealed to me about that air purifier was that the filters are machine washable, so no expensive replacements...

I wouldn't trust any ionizer product. You may want to look at this site: http://www.alerg.com

Okay...another chair identification/opinion post for ya'll. Can anyone tell me anything about this chair I saw on Craigslist? http://tinyurl.com/2hxc6y
It has some interesting lines and it appears to be leather.

Rosie,
I suggest solving the problem at the souce by getting your air ducts cleaned and after that changing your air filter every 30 days. Are you able to have this done yourself or would you have to get your landlord to do it?

An ionizer will not help with a physical dust problem, and IMHO ionizers don't do squat anyway. If you have allergies you need to be vigilant about keeping your central air system and clean and that means changing the air filter every 30 days even if the filter says it's a 60 or 90 day filter. After 30 days all filters get clogged with dust which creates resistance and make your a/c work much harder which means less air is being pulled through the filter.

Sorry if I sound like I'm on a soapbox, but having an Environmental Engineer for a Father and being an allergy sufferer and I very adamant about keeping my central air system in pristine condition.

Best of luck to you!

I'm drawing a blank, P2, tho I was baffled by them giving mohawk girl the boot. i mean it was ugly, but not nearly so awful as the joshes pillow nightmare. and at least it had spunk and vision. i'm sure you're asking her about her thoughts on that. can you keep us posted on when it'll be pubbed? i'm enthralled by reality tv backstories. new york mag has a great piece on bravo's reality casualities this week....

On the air purifier topic, we purchased an Austin air purifier about 2 months ago. It's pretty heavy duty and supposedly the filters do not need to be replaced for 5 years. We bought it to remove city pollutants from our condo unit. It's difficult to determine how well it works, but it does something right since the room that we use it in doesn't have that stale air smell that the other rooms have.

P2-

Like ValerieNYC I was shocked when they booted the first contestant. It wasn't that bad. It was certainly better than Organic Josh and his partners crazy pillow mess. I have a feeling they thought Organic Josh and his green decorating would be a popular angle so they wanted to keep him around. Alas, for him, he was too bad and had to go.

Monica -
I'm not sure "duct" is actually the right word - they're these vents in the living room and bathroom that each apartment in the building has, which all open into an air-shaft chimney thing - this is not where heating/cooling elements are, it's just for air circulation and to get rid of cooking smells and moisture. The cover is a metal grid thing, and the bars on the grid get covered with a thick dust within a week or two after I clean them off - It seems like dust from the air in the apartment is sticking to them - it's not dirt and pollen coming in from outside. Obviously I am having some issues with my air circulation vocabulary, I hope you can understand what I'm describing...A contractor who was here for something else suggested holding a vacuum cleaner up to the vent, but the dust is really sticky/oily so it won't come off well with our vacuum, it actually has to be wiped off with a towel.

SeanG - I've heard bad stuff about name brand ionizers (sharper image?), but I guess I was hoping that this one would somehow be different because it's sold by a company I trust...hmm...I guess my problem is that I don't really understand what an ionizer is - I just want something to get rid of the dust!

Since one of the sections in the AT book suggests getting an air purifier, I feel like that would be a useful product to do a top ten list for?

Rosie,

I understand a little better. I was assuming you had a central a/c setup with ducts throughout the house. My bad! So do you just have window a/c units? It sounds like the vacuuming/wiping down of those vents is the only real solution.

But I have an idea...can you get some filters to fit under those grids so the dust will collect there and not get into your home? I have seen filters for the the outgoing floor/wall vents in a central a/c system, but I bet you a dollar that you can find or make one for your grids. How about taking a big a/c filter and cutting it into several smaller bits that will fit your grid opening? Just pop off the grid, place the filter in and pop the grid back on. If you try that I would go for an inexpensive thin filter material rather than one of those $20 expensive Filtrete one.

I think that ionizing your air is actually polluting it. Also, the ionizer attracts lots of dirt and can stain your walls, carpeting and flooring. I threw mine out in the mid-80s. I thought it was sooo cool and imagined my apartment smelled great. You know, like after a lightening storm. Not.

Monica -
We have built in central heaters/ac units in the living and bedrooms, and the filters on those were just cleaned by management.
My impression is that the dust is coming from inside the apartment because it sticks to the bars on the apartment side, but I could be wrong...I might use your idea anyway though, because the building has been having some roach problems and I think that some of them might be coming though the vents, so a filter would block that. A filter would also allow me to see which side the dust is on - can't hurt anyway, so I'll definitely look into it. Thanks for the help!

Rosie,

Glad to be of service! I feel for you and I know how frustrated you are. Good luck and here's to cleaner air!

Rosie: I purchased a unit from IQAir because of post-construction dust, as well as dust from an unsealed brick wall. The unit is not a piece of art and it is not cheap ($600 ). However, I can say without a doubt I heartily recommend it. On top of the different filtering elements, its programmable, is variable speed (6 different flow rates), and sturdy. It is truly a life-time investment.
http://www.iqair.us/residential/roomairpurifiers/healthpro.php

Ionizers just don't remove particles from the air.

Monica - I don't have a clue what that chair is, but it's pretty sweet. I'd buy it!

Rosie, those are whole building extraction vents and you are correct in that they are for pulling air fumes out of your bathrooms and kitchen. you will gain nothing from adding a filter to them except slow down airflow and the fumes that you want out of your home (No offense to Monica).

It may be worth your while to get the AC ducts cleaned - the filters may not have been fitted properly at some point in the lifetime of the system thereby letting dust into the ducts. Otherwise, follow Monica's advice and get the AC filters replaced every 30 days.

As for a CL mover, I'll post when I get home.

Rosie, I have that exact product -- purchased from VCS.

In a *small* room it might be effective. It makes a good white noise machine for sleeping.

In the late 90s I had a Bionaire ionizer and I liked the ozone a lot. It did a great job at that. The filters were expensive (even though I had a retail employee's cost discount), and it eventually bit the dust, so to speak.

The VCS model is the Amcor brand; the product used to be a QVC staple. Again, for a small room, it might be OK. Mine is next to my bed in a 420 sq. ft. or so apartment.

This year I bought a Sharper Image Quadra for the other side of the apartment. It's pretty useless.