Buying a foreclosure can take a lot of imagination.

Even in Washington summers, there are days that make us want to open ourselves up to the world -- the air laden with scents and murmurs that remind us we are connected. And fall follows, of course, with air worth every crisp, low-humidity lungful.

The giant federal housing and foreclosure relief legislation heading for enactment contains a little-noticed -- but potentially far-reaching -- change in real estate tax policy.

Monica Gonzales noticed a mess of wires in the basement of a foreclosed-on house she was eyeing in Annandale and thought, "Wow."

Something as small as a helium balloon can mightily distress Troy Hughes.

There are several important tasks you should tackle in the garden before you leave for your August vacation.

Many years ago when I was backpacking through Asia, I bought books based on the number of pages per dollar. This sounds hopelessly philistine, but the best buys were long books.

Q Our older house has developed squeaky wood floors. What can we do to alleviate this?

Maryland's highest court this spring ruled that condominium associations aren't required to pay for damage to individual units, a ruling that may please association directors but not individual unit owners.

Q DEAR TIM: How can I remove mortar from the sidewalk that I just built with paver bricks? My husband and I smeared mortar on the brick, and it looks terrible. Is there a nontoxic way to fix this without damaging the brick?

Working with acid solutions is tricky. You can hurt yourself, your clothes, your brick, the new mortar and the plants around your home. If you have valuable landscaping, you should try to stop any acid from getting into the soil.

Here are some online sources of screen door information, mostly Web sites of manufacturers or retailers:

"I was showing a foreclosure to a first-time home buyer. I opened the door, and we found what must have been 5,000 cockroaches in there. They were everywhere. They were falling from the ceiling..."

" We just did an eviction on a property in Pasadena, a beautiful four-bedroom Colonial with a built-in pool in the back. The home was in foreclosure. I had been talking to the owner's boyfriend because the bank wanted to avoid an eviction. We wanted to pay the couple some money to leave the house...

"I was doing a broker pricing opinion to help the lender determine the listing price for an Alexandria home that was headed into foreclosure. Nobody was supposed to be in the house. It had been secured, and I used a lockbox key to gain entry."

"I had a foreclosure in Warrenton. We called it the birdhouse. In every room, there were four or so bird cages. They were huge, eight feet tall and about four feet wide. There were feathers and bird feces all over the house. It was almost like a biohazard."

I recently spent some time listening to friends who are thinking about moving across the country and buying a house.

NEW YORK -- Prefabricated houses don't have to be ticky-tacky.

James Chesley Jr., a physician, has the serene look of a man who has found the perfect balance in life.

BOUNDARIES: Zip code 20769 extends from Good Luck Road, Springfield Road and Hillmeade Road on the north and east to Annapolis Road, west of Glenn Dale Road, Glenn Dale Park, Lanham-Severn Road, the 193/564 interchange and Northern Avenue on the south and west.

Mortgage rates shot up this week, with 30-year mortgages climbing to the highest level in nearly a year, reflecting concerns in financial markets about the troubles at corporate giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed revising the form for the good-faith estimate of mortgage and closing costs to make it more useful to borrowers.

Harvey Hall's old playground was such a hazard that children were not allowed to play there.

850 and 860 South Greenbrier St. Arlington, Va. 22204